Alicia's House Doing Wonderful Things

Alicia's House Food Pantry continues to do wonderful work. On Saturday, December 12, 2020, the Alicia's House Food Pantry hosted their annual Christmas Party, with 300 children receiving gifts, stockings, and a visit with Santa.

Alicia's House was named to honor the memory of Alicia. who passed away at the age of 4, January 14th, 2001. Her Grandma Stella and Poppy Juan started the non-for-profit food pantry.

Alicia loved people and loved helping people. She would spend hours working with her Grandma Stella, at the church food pantry, making bags of food to hand out to people in need. Although her Grandma had a specific way to nutritionally pack the bags, Alicia would always add her special touch by making sure each bag would contain an extra treat, usually candy. Alicia's House continues feeding hundreds of hungry families and each bag of food contains Alicia's special loving touch.

I first became aware of Alicia's House through my friend Glen Rylko. Through their social media posts, I saw Glen and his wife Alicia (who coincidentally shares her name) regularly devoting their time and energy to Alicia's House. Their dedication of time and effort is truly heartwarming.

Glen was kind enough to send a recap of Saturday's event. Glen wrote, “This took a lot of creativity given Covid-19, but the team was determined to give to children in South Chicago Heights and surrounding suburbs, who otherwise would have nothing. This area is often bypassed in terms of attention by the media, etc.

Companies and individuals helped by holding toy drives, sponsoring children, sorting and staging gifts, wrapping gifts, shopping, packing gifts, and making stockings. This was all done via drive through. The gifts were brought to the vehicle. At the curb they had pop up tents with heaters.

All the volunteers who worked that day were busy from dawn to dusk by setting up, tearing down, standing in the rain and cold for hours, all to make sure these children had a Merry Christmas.”

What a wonderful event and group of people. Putting together an event like this in normal times is a tremendous undertaking. Doing this during the pandemic, with all of the extra steps, is nothing short of miraculous. Organizations, people and events like this need to be applauded and promoted.

Alicia and Glen's son Patrick made a beautiful video montage of the event which is posted on the Alicia's House Food Pantry Facebook page. It's incredibly moving to see the various aspects of the event.

As great as this day was, there is more wonderfulness coming. On Saturday, December 19, Alicia's House will have a food distribution similar to the one they did on Thanksgiving.

The folks at Alicia's House and all who volunteer their time are regular people doing extraordinary things. They have done amazing things for years, but this year their efforts might just be the most amazing.

Thank you to Glen, Alicia and Patrick for helping me write this story. I appreciate all they do, but mostly I appreciate their friendship.

For more information, go to AliciasHouse.org. Also, check out the Alicia's House Facebook page for more frequent updates.