An organization that helps immigrants and underserved families is getting a brand new space to expand on the Northwest Side.
The organization, Onward Neighborhood House, plans to install a food pantry in the space at 2644 N. Central Ave. in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood and eventually house partner organizations there as well.
At 31,000 square-feet, the new space is roughly the size of a warehouse and will alleviate a pressing need for room.
“This building will be good for us to expand our services and add other services,” said longtime executive director Mario Garcia.
The organization provides free access to adult education, food and child care.
Founded in West Town, the organization moved in 2008 to the Northwest Side neighborhood that’s home to the largest Hispanic population in Chicago, according to the most recent U.S. Census figures.
The food pantry and child care programs are among their largest programs, and they’ve been running out of room at their locations on the 5400 block of West Diversey Avenue, where they serve about 150 children, ages 2 to 12.
The weekly food pantry serves about 200 people, up significantly from before the pandemic when they served around 60 people every week, Garcia said.
The new pantry will look like a store and be stocked in part by a rooftop garden. The organization aims to open in March 2023 and will host monthly food giveaways there until then, beginning Saturday.
This weekend’s giveaway will run from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and will also be a resource fair, where attendees can get information on housing, child care and accessing health care if uninsured. Organizers expect to feed around 450 families.
Beyond the pantry, Garcia hopes to install a welcoming center for immigrants there and open a medical clinic, business incubator and community center where people can “charge their phones, watch a movie, read the paper and just hangout,” Garcia said.
The building was donated by the Reva and David Logan Foundation, which began working with the organization in early 2021 after foundation officials made a surprise visit to one of their food giveaways.
Every inch of the space was maximized, recalled program officer Lyle Allen.
“The fact that they could run such a busy food program out of that space, we knew that if we could help build a bigger place for it, the people would come,” Allen said.
Michael Loria is a staff reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South and West sides.
