For more than 25 years, Community Covenant Church in Calumet Park has been serving others via its food pantry, and its volunteers want something besides donations of food: more people to use its services.

The food pantry is available from 10 a.m. to noon every Wednesday at the church, 12446 S. Loomis St., volunteers are gearing up for its annual Thanksgiving food basket event. It’s set for 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nov. 18.

“When the Greater Chicago Food Depository drops the food off, we pack it up and people come and get the baskets,” said coordinator Vielnia Drain. “For Thanksgiving, they are giving us turkeys and whole chickens. Those are the whole meats that we have,” she added, explaining that patrons can pick which one they would like. Green beans and all the other trimmings of a Thanksgiving meal also will be available.

A special Christmas pantry is planned Dec. 16, when hams and whole chickens will be distributed.

Volunteers pack baskets of food for the holiday events, but normally patrons can pick out what they would like to take home, similar to a small store.

“For us to not have any confusion, we put up numbers in front of everything so you know what you can get to make sure everyone can get food,” Drain explained. “It’s just like store shopping. We have a cart and they pick out what they want. … It’s just for Thanksgiving and Christmas that we have it already bagged up.”

Volunteer Lawrence Nickerson said that’s something he likes about the church’s approach. “We’re not forcing you to take a can of pumpkin or a can or garbanzo beans,” he said with a laugh.

“When you first come in is the bread. There’s a large table with a number 1 on it. You can get one bread item,” Nickerson explained. “Then you see three long tables with nothing but canned goods. You’ll have the number 4 about every foot or so. … You might say you can have five bundles of greens and one watermelon and one cantaloupe, one bag of potatoes. The bags are 5 to 10 pounds depending on how many we have.”

Patrons can pick one cabbage. “They are really huge,” Drain said. “The onions come in a bag so you pick up a bag of onions, sweet potatoes. Apples come in a bag. Oranges in a bag. They can get one bag of those.”

The pantry even offers gluten-free and keto bread and frozen waffles.

Nickerson said the most popular item is produce. “Twice a month we have fresh produce, and that goes very fast, but we also have canned goods of a variety of things. We have dried goods, a little bit of everything. It’s like you’re going to Jewel.”

Drain said the pantry also gives out masks and COVID-19 tests, hand sanitizer and wipes. Every now and then, toilet paper shows up, and toothpaste and toothbrushes are provided by the Greater Chicago Food Depository, which has given a grant “to purchase other items for the pantry that we need. That’s been for the past couple of years.”

Although the church’s partnership with the depository means it doesn’t accept food donations, it will take other items such as baby clothing and diapers for babies, toddlers and adults. “Commonwealth Edison donates light bulbs. “We just finished a coat drive,” Drain said.

The pantry now serves 190 to 225 people per month, which represents about 90 to 100 households, Drain said.

One aspect that makes this food pantry different from many is that it doesn’t have income requirements.

“For the monthly (pickup), individuals have to come in and show us their ID, driving license. They show us some proof of identity and residence. Once they do that they can come in once a month and choose their food,” Drain explained.

“We accept everybody. We get people from all parts of Chicago. Sometimes we get them from Indiana, but I can give them food only once. (They have to be from Illinois because of the Greater Chicago Food Depository’s guidelines.) We do not require proof of income.”

Patrons register through Drain, who asks them to fill out a form they request by calling the church office at 708-385-7477. Once that happens, they can receive food monthly. “We also give food to homeless people,” she said. “Last week someone said their house burned down, so they didn’t have ID. We do not turn down anyone.”

Seniors who cannot pick up their food can request a proxy form that allows someone else to get their food for them, Drain added.

Nickerson said numbers began rising amid the pandemic and demand continues to go up. “The amount of people showing up has increased ever since COVID and it seems to be growing every week,” he shared. “We notice we get a lot of new people signing up for the first time every week.”

Drained noted that being in the Chicago area means some people might show up at the church’s pantry on Wednesday and another pantry on Thursday, “wherever they can get food. I have some people coming every week saying they don’t have food at home,” she said, including people with green cards, whether it’s migrants or people on work visas. “I can’t turn them down … You don’t turn down anyone who said they don’t have anything at all.”

The church has no problem staffing the pantry. Just over a dozen people volunteer, with everyone having a job to do, including cleaning once a month.

“It’s a very popular ministry and everyone wants to do it,” Nickerson said. “I guess it’s part of the duty of the church to go out and feed the poor and the hungry. It’s a missionary thing.”

He began volunteering a few years ago. “Once I retired, I wanted to give back, and that’s one of the best ways to give back is to serve,” he shared. “I get there at 8 a.m. and I don’t leave until 12:30 or 1 p.m. On Tuesday when the truck comes up, we’re there for about five hours. It depends on the amount of food coming in.”

The Calumet Park Police Department has been spreading the word about the Thanksgiving baskets, and officers stop by the pantry on days it’s open to check for “people who want to act up,” Drain said. “They come keep an eye on them. We sometimes get some rowdy people.”

Although most pantry days run smoothly, sometimes something surprising can happen, and that was the case for Nickerson a few weeks ago.

“A lady came in and had a green card for ID. She walked in and asked how many canned goods she could have. I said you could have four of each can. … You can literally have about 50 cans of food,” he explained. “She started crying because she said she had no food and this was such a blessing. That made me cry. I thought that was the coolest. She thanked us repeatedly.”

Melinda Moore is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.