Politics & Government
Pantry Gets Green Thumb to Grow Food
Volunteers are working to get a community garden ready for next year.
Niles Township is moving forward with its community garden, and it can’t start producing vegetables for the township food pantry fast enough.
Township trustees and other officials posed for pictures in front of the garden at their board meeting Monday night.
Pantry volunteer Bill Zimmer, who is married to township trustee Maggie Zimmer, spearheaded the effort to create the garden. He told the board that more loads of dirt were needed for the garden as well as a shed to store equipment before the garden could be planted in the spring.
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Trustee Marc Collins said he was working with Zimmer to come up with procedures and regulations for the garden.
“That will all be done before anything thaws next spring,” Collins said.
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That’s good news for the food pantry, which serves nearly 3,000 people a month, according to a letter Supervisor Lee Tamraz posted on the township’s website.
The pantry,
“He was really, really impressed at what was going on,” Collins said. “Once people see what they are doing back there, they want to do nothing more than help.”
There were so many people who needed food that day that the pantry had to do a partial shutdown while Zimmer drove to the Greater Chicago Food Depository to get about 25,000 pounds of food. Zimmer also trucked leftover produce from the Sunday farmers market in Skokie.
Collins said he had never seen food supply as low as it was last week, and that people have started lining up as early as 8 a.m. for bags of goods – a practice the township wants to discourage.
Other groups are helping by holding fundraisers or canned food drives, Collins said.
“We have put the invitation out there,” he said. “If someone wants to hold a benefit or collect cans, we say they should go ahead. Of course, if we know about it, we’ll show up. But we don’t want people to wait because they are asking for permission.”
The food pantry, which is available to Niles Township residents, is open Monday through Friday from 9:30-11:30 a.m. and 1-4 p.m.
