A Peoria soup kitchen is seeing a big uptick in need after enhanced SNAP benefits ended earlier this year.
The volunteer-run Sophia's Kitchen saw its busiest single month in June, serving around 10,000 meals to people in the greater Peoria community.
Program Director Claire Crone said summer is often a busy time for the kitchen because people are often able to commute better during the warmer months. She said it is particularly busy since the extra pandemic aid for the SNAP food benefits program ended earlier this year.
“What we saw was that when people had the COVID money, they were able to go buy what they wanted for their family. It is such a piece of dignity to be able to go to the grocery store and pick what your family likes,” Crone said. “Since COVID, money has dried up, they're coming back here in droves. I mean, our numbers have just doubled.”
The Illinois Department of Human Services said the policy change reduced family SNAP benefits by $95 to $250 per month.
The kitchen serves meals Mondays through Fridays, operates a Friday food pantry, and a Thursday pet pantry.
A peanut butter jelly sandwich, soup, salad, and a dessert is an example of one of the 500 meals served daily by Sophia’s Kitchen in Peoria.
Crone said they currently have more than 200 volunteers working to keep the kitchen running.
“Some of them are students that are here for the summer. We love having the students hang around. It's great,” Crone said. “Teaching them how to make a peanut butter sandwich for the first time and how to wash the table is my favorite. And then the kids learn how to take the garbage out, do all that kind of stuff. They learn compassion, they learn how to interact with other generations, because we have volunteers here from the age of 88 down to 12.”
Sophia’s Kitchen partners with other nonprofits to distribute sack lunches throughout the Greater Peoria Area. Kshe Bernard from the Jolt Foundation said feeding and housing people is often the key to their services.
Jolt distributes harm reduction supplies to people struggling with addiction, but Bernard said it’s hard for people to be healthy and their best selves if they can’t get food.
“Let's say you're staying in the North Valley. And if you're lucky, you have a bus ticket. And it takes about 40 minutes with the bus route to make it over to Sofia's Kitchen,” Bernard said. “Or you can walk but if it's below zero, if it's raining, like an extraordinary amount of effort goes into just obtaining one sack lunch. So we decided that feeding people is also harm reduction.”
Jolt program director Chris Schaffner said the partnership began during the pandemic. With everything getting shut down, he said it was more important than ever to have a way to bring food to people.
Schaffner said even after things reopened, they saw the benefits in continuing their partnership.
“When we say Sophia’s Kitchens Angels, we literally mean that they're angels, that they're doing really incredible work,” he said. “Sofia's kitchen is just an incredible resource to folks. And you should give money and you should donate food items and go volunteer and help because it's definitely a worthy organization.”
Crone said the kitchen is lucky to get a good amount of support from the community. She said whenever she feels like she might not have enough food, the doorbell rings with another donation.
“Donations are key,” Crone said. “We are very blessed with good donations, pantry donations. Things that you would find at the grocery store that you would buy for your grandkids are what I always ask for. So if it's something that you would want to feed your family, if it's something you want to feed your grandkids, that's what we need. As healthy of food as you possibly can.”
Monetary donations can be made to help pay for the peanut butter and jelly supplies, as well as keeping up with utility costs. Crone said food donations can be made at their location, 105 N. Richard Pryor Place.
“We want to feed anybody that's hungry, you don't need to have an ID, you don't need to have any identification,” Crone said. “You don't need to prove your income. You just come to me and tell me you're hungry. We will give you a sack lunch.”
