{"id":81104,"date":"2026-11-07T10:45:25","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T10:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/81104\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T10:45:25","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T10:45:25","slug":"volunteers-keep-northern-illinois-food-bank-in-geneva-humming-as-holiday-season-approaches-chicago-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/81104\/","title":{"rendered":"Volunteers keep Northern Illinois Food Bank in Geneva humming as holiday season approaches \u2013 Chicago Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don Bartholomay of Glen Ellyn has been volunteering at the Northern Illinois Food Bank in Geneva for 14 years but admits there is a special feeling that comes with helping out this time of year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe spirit of people now does have a different feel to it, and we do get more new volunteers this time of year,\u201d he said Wednesday. \u201cSome of these people are out here once or twice a week year-round. In the time we\u2019re all here this morning we\u2019ll probably do over 600 holiday meal boxes. People here know what they\u2019re doing. It\u2019s like a machine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Volunteers reported bright and early Wednesday at the food bank to participate in Food Bank Volunteer Day \u2013 a 21\/2-hour effort to help those in need.<\/p>\n

\"VolunteersVolunteers prepare boxes of food Wednesday at the Northern Illinois Food Bank in Geneva.<\/p>\n

Volunteers who came to the site at 273 Dearborn Court were given the option of building boxes, working the assembly line and packing food items, or closing and sealing containers.<\/p>\n

Maeven Sipes, chief philanthropy officer for the food bank, said there are volunteers working at the site \u201calmost every day\u201d but that Wednesday\u2019s effort was especially geared toward packing holiday meal boxes \u201cthat we only do this time of year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in the throes of packing \u2013 almost every shift \u2013 we have at least one or two lines that are packing holiday boxes. We have to pack between 55,000 and 60,000 this year,\u201d Sipes said. \u201cWith the holiday boxes you\u2019re either assembling them, filling them or closing them up and putting them on a pallet. That\u2019s typical for the assembly line process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The food bank also processes a lot of produce, Sipes added, \u201cwhich needs to be put in bags and weighed and then boxed-up for food pantries and programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have cans that are also donated and then need to be relabeled or cleaned and boxed so there are a lot of different projects based on the food we have,\u201d she added. \u00a0\u201cWe actually started working on the holiday meal boxes in mid- to late October.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PalletsPallets are stacked to the ceiling at the Northern Illinois Food Bank in Geneva, where holiday meal boxes were prepared on Wednesday by about 50 volunteers. The effort putting together the special meal boxes began in late October and continues through the end of the month.<\/p>\n

Weekday shifts average about 50 volunteers at one time, a number that Sipes said soars on weekends \u201cto about 125.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been very fortunate \u2013 even throughout COVID we had less new volunteers but the people that were coming would come here more often,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re still seeing great volunteer support. We have over 17,000 unique volunteers that come every year and donate about 130,000 hours which equates to over 60 full-time staff members. But that doesn\u2019t mean that we still don\u2019t need help this time of year, especially the holidays, we get a lot more interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly Tummillo of St. Charles said she has been a volunteer at the food bank \u201csince COVID began\u201d and that her takeaways include \u201cmaking friends over last several years\u201d as well as \u201clearning about the great need that is still there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a special time of year. Knowing we\u2019re helping someone this time of year is wonderful,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is fun. You listen to great music, you\u2019re with your friends, and the food bank has really taken care of us over the years. I\u2019m here four to five days a week \u2013 more than the average bear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Volunteers Wednesday included a team of 10 workers representing the technology company Netscout including John Hansmann of Elmhurst, who said the company has been sending in volunteers \u201cthe last seven or eight years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is all about giving back to the community. We\u2019re fortunate to have good-paying jobs and doing well for our families and we want to take some of that and give it back,\u201d Hansmann said as he worked on a conveyor belt. \u201cWe\u2019re based out of Boston, but we decided as a local engineering team that we\u2019re going to give back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JohnJohn Hansmann, right, of Elmhurst works with a team of fellow employees from the technology company Netscout Wednesday who volunteered to help out at the Northern Illinois Food Bank in Geneva.<\/p>\n

Bartholomay, who helps supervise volunteers at the food bank, said holiday meal boxes were being filled with a set list of items.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s corn, beans, rice, pinto beans, dressing, gravy and then we have hot chocolate in another place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Holiday meats including hams and turkeys were also going to ship out during the weeks leading up to Christmas.<\/p>\n

Ed Croom of Geneva was working in the back of the food bank Wednesday and like Bartholomay was leading a group of volunteers who were working in the produce section inspecting sweet potatoes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got a truckload of potatoes that were given to us and these are for our holiday meal boxes,\u201d Croom explained.<\/p>\n

Croom said it is special this time of year knowing that the efforts of the volunteers are going to make someone\u2019s Thanksgiving or Christmas better.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think volunteers are very emotional all year-round because the need is there all year-round, but the holidays are a little more sentimental,\u201d he said. \u201cThe fact that we all get to do our part with the holiday meal boxes, you sort of know somebody is going to have Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner thanks to what someone did here. You\u2019re connected to people you\u2019ll never meet.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don Bartholomay of Glen Ellyn has been volunteering at the Northern Illinois Food Bank in Geneva for 14 years but admits there is a special feeling that comes with helping out this time of year. \u201cThe spirit of people now does have a different feel to it, and we do get more new volunteers this<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[50795,1768,2726,2725,2723,2770,2724,554],"class_list":["post-81104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-illinois","tag-aurora-beacon-news","tag-holidays","tag-illinois","tag-illinois-dining","tag-illinois-food","tag-illinois-grocery-stores","tag-illinois-restaurants","tag-local-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117574757458708885","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}