Joliet's St. John The Baptist Food Pantry Commits To Staying Open

JOLIET, IL – As the director of the St. John the Baptist Food Pantry, Mary Cottrell has witnessed first-hand the impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on her community. While many food pantries across the city and Will County have either been forced to close or dramatically reduce the days they remain open, Cottrell is committed to keeping her doors open on Division St. as long as she possibly can.

Like many, Cottrell – who has worked or operated food pantries for 20 years – faces a high level of uncertainty on a daily basis. As the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus continue to climb daily, Cottrell fears that things are going to get worse before they get better. She has already seen the number of volunteers who work at St. John the Baptist go from anywhere from 10-20 to just four to six because many of her army of volunteers are older adults. The sources from which she receives donations, whether they be churches or grocery stories, have diminished as the virus takes its toll on other areas of society.

Yet, despite the growing number of clients she aims to serve – many of whom have either never heard of a food pantry or have never relied on one – Cottrell, who also works as a social worker in two area emergency rooms, can’t bear to continue to serve her community the only ways she knows.

In recent weeks, Cottrell has experienced an interesting shift. In addition to seeing the number of people coming through her doors increase dramatically, she has also witnessed a larger numof younger clients coming looking for food than ever before. Due to the number of layoffs that have associated the pandemic over the past two weeks, more local residents are relying on pantries like St. John the Baptist and as families continue to lean on one another for support, the bigger the individual orders get. Despite the growing number of obstacles, Cottrell can't bear to turn anyone away.

“I just don’t have the heart to close that food pantry,” Cottrell said Tuesday. “I just can’t.”

On a recent Monday, Cottrell arrived to find 14 people who had been waiting since 6 a.m. for the pantry to open at 9 a.m. She encountered a man who said that he could no longer was able to afford food at the grocery store and was down to a half a gallon of milk and some rice to feed a family of four.

While some of the local pantries that remain open offer curbside service, 70 percent of Cottrell’s clients are walkers, which has required St. John The Baptist to allow people to continue to come in to get food, doing so three people at a time. While a typical Monday would draw maybe 40-100 people, Cottrell has seen as many as 325 people come for food over a 2 ½ hour period that she is open on Monday mornings.

As her options from where she gets food diminishes, Cottrell has to pre-plan more to make the food she can get for the pantry last as long as possible. Her main source remains the Northern Illinois Food Bank, which – until recently offered anywhere from 10-13 pages of online offerings from Cottrell to choose from. That has now gone down to seven to eight pages with fewer and fewer options to choose from.

Despite being hit hard and living with the feeling that she and her volunteer staff are putting themselves at risk of being exposed to the coronavirus, Cottrell chooses to solider on. At this point, she feels, she has no other choice.

“I just feel like I have to do this for the community,” she said. “I have to keep my doors open because where else are (people) going to go?