Health |

Attorney’s annual food giveaway grows to 1,200 dinners: ‘There’s a lot of grateful, smiling people today’

Courtney Wedryk’s turkey costume wasn’t the most important part of her gear Monday, but it wasn’t not important, either.

Situated at the west side of the Wicker Park Social Center parking lot, Wedryk, who works part time for Lake Area United Way, danced and enjoyed herself while directing people to the promised line of Thanksgiving dinner free-of-charge. A radio in one hand and a bar of soap to write on windshields in the other, she alerted the food distributors to those who were registered and those who weren’t so they could make sure everyone who passed through got a little something.

Dressing up as a turkey for the second year in a row was just icing on the cake for the 20-year-old Calumet College student from Chicago’s Hegesich section who also works for the LAUW.

“There’s a lot of grateful, smiling people today and that makes it nice,” she said. “I didn’t think we were going to be this busy, though. At one point, we had cars lined up all the way from one end of the park to the other.”

If Wedryk was surprised at the crowd, LAUW President and CEO Lisa Daugherty definitely wasn’t. Normally, her organization sets up registration for its annual Turkey dinner giveaway, sponsored by attorney Ken Allen a week prior to the actual giveaway, and it takes all of that, usually. But this year, it took 36 hours to fill up 1,200 spots, the exact number of dinners for which Allen chipped in, she said.

For comparison, Allen provided 1,000 turkeys for last year’s distribution, she said, and 800 the year before.

Those who didn’t get a spot during the initial drive weren’t walking away empty-handed, though. Food processor Cargill, of Hammond, partnered with Strack and Van Til to provide $5,000 worth of gift cards entitling recipients to pick up their turkeys from the store, she said. And newly elected State Rep. Mike Andrade, D-12th, was able to add more than 50 turkeys he procured through small businesses, he said.

With the pandemic continuing its stranglehold on the economy, LAUW and its partners already foresaw that the holiday was going to be extra-rough for everyone, not least of which are the so-called working poor, for whom the giveaway was staying open until 7 p.m., Daugherty said.

“We went to remote March 16, and since then, we’ve been seeing that food is the No. 1 item for which people are seeking assistance,” she said. “I was talking recently with the (Foodbank of NWI Executive Director) Vic Garcia, and he said the need is five times what it normally is.”

Making sure everyone who registered — and even some who didn’t — got something to take lighten the load off was such a happy thing for Daugherty and her staff, in more ways than one.

“Since we’re doing this outside, this is the first time I’ve seen my staff and many of my volunteers since once this summer, when we had a socially distanced picnic here (at Wicker Park) this summer,” she said. “It’s nice to see everyone.”

Allen stopped by the drive early, as he normally does, before catching a flight, Daugherty said. But the drive wasn’t without well-known helpers, including Andrade and new U.S. Rep. Frank J. Mrvan, D-Highland, who picked up the slack for Allen in the afternoon.

“We’re doing what we can to make sure people have food and a good, safe holiday,” he said.

Theresa Hellems, of Hammond, and her son, Joe, have participated in Allen’s Thanksgiving Drive every year since it started. It’s close by, she said, plus it gives her one less thing to think about for the holidays.

“It really is a blessing,” she said.

Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.