Hunger Advocate Archive
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Spotlight on Backpack Program Hunger Advocate:
Yvonne Williams of Primary Academy
Position: Lead Food Service at Primary Academy District: Rock Island School District Principal: Lucille McCorkle 
Years Coordinating Backpack Program at my school: 4
Why I volunteer to do this at my school: I just know how much these children need the food. That’s why I do it. A lot of them come in on Monday morning and tell me what they did with their food, like “I went to my Aunt’s house and I took my food with me.”
Note: The Backpack Program started with a pilot program involving one school—Primary Academy. Yvonne bagged up the food herself for the 20 children on the program. The next year more than a dozen schools were added and today approximately 1100 children are on the program.
Click Here Complete List of Backpack Program Hunger Advocates
River Bend Foodbank Salutes Hunger Advocate 13 Year Old Andy Parker of Moline!
Andy Parker, Moline, celebrated his birthday like many other 13-year olds. He had a party. What was different about this birthday is that Andy asked his guests to bring food for the hungry in lieu of gifts. He then brought his impressive collection of food to the foodbank for distribution to our member agencies.
Why did he do it? “Some people aren’t as lucky as I am,” he said. “We need to help them.”
Andy said he was surprised how generous people were and how much food they brought. See photo.
Prince of Peace Loves Client Choice .
Prince of Peace in Northwest Davenport is a small church that is big on their food pantry. In fact, half the congregation has been part of the volunteer force at one time or another. Several volunteers are not even members of the congregation. One visit to the pantry and it’s easy to see why they come out in force. There’s a joyful, happy atmosphere that can’t help but give both clients and volunteers a positive experience.
The volunteers themselves, offer plenty of reasons why they do it:
“It's fun to come here.”
“We’ve been blessed with so much, it wouldn’t be right if we didn’t help out.”
“It’s not just about the food, but also about the relationships that we build with our fellow volunteers and the people we serve here.”
“I’m just living my faith.”
The pantry at Prince of Peace began three years ago when a congregation member who has since moved out of the area felt that it was something the church needed to do. The pastor shared his vision and the food and volunteers followed. Nick Hensler came aboard as Pastor of the Lutheran church two years ago and considers the pantry to be a very important ministry.
“We are a community of hope,” says Nick. “And that reaches beyond the church walls to the entire neighborhood here. This is about more than food, it’s also about personal relationships and being there for the clients if they need someone to talk to or a referral to other services that can help them. But first, we must take care of the basic needs. The support we get from our congregation for the pantry in terms of food, money and volunteers is tremendous. River Bend Foodbank is also a very important partnership and enables us to get so much more food than we would otherwise.”
Open every Monday night including holidays from 6-7:30PM, Prince of Peace Food Pantry is one of the few with evening hours. More than 100 households are served every month, nearly twice as many as last year. Many come in with a lot of misgivings, people who had never imagined they would be using a pantry. “Part of our vision is that this is a safe place for people to come,” says one volunteer.
“There’s no judgment here, just a real desire to provide assistance to people who are struggling right now.”
“It really breaks my heart to see people walk in the door with tears telling us how embarrassed they are to be here, how they never dreamed they would be in this position,” Nick says. “I tell them, ‘That’s why we’re here.’”
Nick rarely misses a Monday night at the pantry, noting that he has experienced a paradigm shift about those in need. “I had this pre-conceived idea about who needy people are. My involvement in the food pantry has made me realize they are not who I thought they were. There are many faces of hunger from the person who has just lost a job to the family devastated by illnesses and medical bills. The stereotypes just don’t hold up to reality.”
Recently the pantry adopted a new distribution system called Client Choice. The concept is just like it sounds: Clients are allowed to participate in choosing for themselves which foods they will take home instead of getting a pre-packaged assortment of food.
“We made the switch about six months ago and could not be happier with the outcome. It’s win/win. We are actually able to reduce the inventory we have on hand without reducing the amount of food we give out. There’s much less waste. Our volunteers have come to really like it because they are spending more time helping the clients now. And the clients—you can see their faces light up as if to say ‘You mean we get a choice?’”
The way Client Choice works at Prince of Peace is that recipients are given a selection form and they circle their choice of different kinds of vegetables, soups, cereals, etc. Then they can choose up to ten items listed on a white board, including frozen meat. Volunteers are on hand to assist people complete the form. Then the volunteers put together the food packages based on the selections on the form.
Nick’s advice to other pantries that are considering making the switch: “Try it! You can transition so easily into this. Start small, maybe just give clients a choice of what vegetables they want. Once you see the advantages of just that one aspect of client choice, you’ll be motivated to take it even further. Also, it helped us tremendously to visit Sacred Heart Food Pantry in Rock Island and see what great things Mike Clark was doing there with Client Choice.”