SUN CITY – From wooden wheels rolling across floors on Christmas morning to turkey dinners served at tables seldom covered with food, Sun City residents have helped make the holiday season a little brighter for those in need.
Working with the Grafton Food Pantry, Sun City residents have given back to their community for years. Starting with Thanksgiving, the holiday season sees more giving than any other…and this year is no exception.
The Sun City Woodchucks have been making toys for children for about seven years. In those early days, Woodchucks community projects coordinator Al La Pelusa recalls making the toys from leftover construction wood, cutting between the knots for usable pieces.
Woodchucks Wayne Belskis and Steve Sit secure wooden
pieces for a toy truck. (Victoria Diamond/Sun Day Photo)
The program has grown since then and, in recent, years has received donations from residents of about $1,000 to make toys.
The Sun City Woodchucks make toys like this plane for local children and offer them through the Grafton Food Pantry. (Victoria Diamond/Sun Day Photo)
“Now we buy good hardwoods when we make them,” La Pelusa said.
This year’s toy haul includes favorites like cars and planes as well as new creations – jewelry boxes for girls, a caterpillar, dump truck, and wagon for carting toys. The Woodchucks make about 300-350 toys every year. La Pelusa estimates 85 percent of those go to Grafton Food Pantry with the rest going to the Elgin Crisis Center and St. Monica’s Catholic Church in Carpentersville.
On the feeding front, Grafton Food Pantry Secretary Harriet Ford said the response from Sun City has been overwhelming.
“I can’t even begin to tell you the impact Sun City has,” she said. “They’re a very generous, caring group that donates on all different levels.”
One such group was led by N.36 residents Art Smock, Laurie Larkin, and Annalee Boles. They organized a multi-neighborhood food drive (now in its sixth year) by asking neighbor¬hood chairpersons to distribute flyers to their neighbors letting them know of the drive.
Left to right: Art Smock, Laurie Larkin, and Analee Boles of N.36 organized a multi-neighborhood food drive this year to raise food and items for the Grafton Food Pantry. (Photo provided)
With 1700 flyers distributed this year, the collection week of Nov. 4-11 was a busy one for Boles, whose living room was full of donated food and items.
“I don’t go anywhere for that week because I feel it’s important to take the packages from the people to say ‘thank you’ rather than just leaving it at the front door,” Boles said.
Boles recalled one neighborhood’s big donation.
“We had to take 18 trips just to bring the food in from their vehicle into the house and so that chairperson really got on their neighborhood,” she said.
For N.28, Oktoberfest is more than a celebration of culture and food. Recently completing its third year, the event has also become known for its live and silent auctions – the proceeds of both benefiting the Grafton Food Pantry.
Auctions feature every¬thing from homemade goods to household fixtures to sports merchandise. N.28 residents Jim Runtz and Helen White organize the auctions as well as a neighborhood food drive for the pantry also held in October. Be¬tween the two events, the neighborhood raised $4400 – a new record.
Runtz credited N.28’s social committee for making the charitable events a fundraising success by giving them a friendly, collective spirit.
“They’re all fun functions,” Runtz said.
This year, the pantry served 160 turkey boxes – stocked with a turkey, potatoes, stuffing, fruit, bread and a gift card – for families that otherwise may go without a Thanksgiving dinner. In total, the pantry served 671 individuals in November.
The Pantry also accepts gift cards as donations.
For those who wish to volunteer with their time, Ford said the Pantry can really use help on Monday, Tuesday, and every other Thursday morning. Thurs¬days are truck delivery days, and Ford said help is needed from those who can unpack and sort items.
To help:
Contact the Grafton Food Pantry at 847-495-0922 or visit graftonfoodpantry.org
