On November 1, 2025, nearly a million neighbors across Chicago and Cook County woke up worried about how they would afford food without their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. The government had been shut down for a month, and federal authorities had paused SNAP benefits until the government reopened.
On the same day, at six locations throughout the city, the Greater Chicago Food Depository distributed emergency food boxes, each filled with staples including canned fruits and vegetables, pouch tuna and chicken, pasta and peanut butter. These distributions were additive to regular food pantry operations throughout our network.
This immediate response was thanks in large part to the faithful support of our donors and volunteers. The response was also a reflection of our goal to provide emergency food access to all in need.
Carolyn Nicholas, 37, was one of many SNAP participants who attended the distribution at St. Sabina Church. As she stood in line, she said, “My kids are looking at me saying, ‘Mama, what are we going to eat?’” Minutes later, box in hand, she was relieved to have an answer.
In November 2025, Nicholas was one of approximately 900,000 SNAP participants in Cook County. Most of these neighbors were already struggling to make ends meet amid elevated food prices, housing costs and utility bills. The pause in SNAP, our nation’s most effective anti-hunger tool, pushed many of these families into crisis mode.
As the Food Depository quickly prepared our response, we were moved by the outpouring of support from the community. Just days before our first emergency distribution, hundreds of volunteers rallied to pack food boxes in our warehouse. Many of the staple foods included in each box were bought with funds from generous donors.
In coordination with our partners, we continued the emergency distributions for three more weeks in November, until SNAP benefits were restored. By the end of the month, we’d distributed nearly 9,000 emergency food boxes.
At the same time, our partner pantry network throughout Chicago and Cook County saw a spike in the number of guests they served. In the month spanning October 26 through November 24, our partner food pantries and emergency distributions served more than 240,000 household visits, a record in the Food Depository’s nearly 50-year history.
“The pantry helps me so much. Because of this place, I eat and I can cook food for my family. I’m very grateful.”
– Noemi Guzman, St. Cyprian food pantry guest
This past year, we also deepened our relationship with City Colleges of Chicago, driven by the realization that food insecurity among college students is an underreported crisis. Many of these students are balancing school with jobs, caregiving responsibilities and rising living costs, making them particularly vulnerable to food insecurity, which can undermine academic success.
In late 2025, the Food Depository and City Colleges of Chicago launched Food Security for Life to help ensure that students and their families have consistent access to nutritious food while they focus on education and career pathways that lead to thriving wages. The initiative expands food access through enhanced on-campus markets stocked with groceries, nutritionally balanced frozen meals to take home and free snack stations available throughout campus.
That fall we also opened a partner food pantry at Legler Regional Library in West Garfield Park, our first permanent food pantry in a Chicago Public Library. Stocked with fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy, protein and other essentials, the pantry brings healthy food right into a trusted and familiar community space. The pantry serves about 600 households a month, filling a critical gap for families facing food insecurity in an area where grocery stores are limited.
These new initiatives join our year-round work to provide emergency food access to all in need through our network of more than 850 food pantries, soup kitchens and other programs across Chicago and Cook County. Throughout fiscal year 2026, the Food Depository distributed 119 million pounds of food, or the equivalent of more than 99 million meals, at no cost to our partner pantries. With that food, our network served more than 2.26 million household visits to pantries.
Several of those visits were from Noemi Guzman, a retired grandma who relies on St. Cyprian food pantry in Chicago’s Dunning neighborhood to help feed her son and two grandsons, who live with her. “The pantry helps me so much,” Guzman said during a recent pantry visit. “Because of this place, I eat and I can cook food for my family. I’m very grateful.”
