By 8:30 on a Tuesday morning, Phil Walroth is already at the front door of the Greater Chicago Food Depository, greeting volunteers as they arrive.
“You’re having an impact,” he tells people — a reminder that every shift helps put food on the table for neighbors across Cook County. With 1,285 volunteer hours logged, Phil’s own dedication reflects the deep commitment volunteers bring to the Food Depository’s mission.
Phil is one of nearly 37,000 volunteers who gave their time to the Food Depository last year — sorting and repackaging food, working events, and serving neighbors — collectively contributing more than 102,000 hours in support of our mission to end hunger. Together, they help power our network of 850-plus partner organizations across Chicago and Cook County.
Food Depository volunteers show up to help their neighbors every day.
Those extra helping hands are needed now more than ever. Cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — the federal nutrition program that helps millions of Americans afford groceries — are expected to strip food assistance from 150,000 Illinois residents in May alone — and up to 250,000 over the course of the next year.
As people lose benefits, demand at Food Depository partner pantries is expected to rise sharply. The charitable food system delivers only a fraction of what SNAP provides, and no food bank can fill that gap alone. But Food Depository volunteers aren't stepping back. They’re answering that call — and showing up.
Coming back to volunteering
Walroth has been volunteering with the Food Depository for years — at first annually with his workplace, then two or three times a month after he retired. He has volunteered at our repack sessions (repackaging the bulk food we acquire into family-sized portions), with food rescue, and by salvaging quality, excess food at community trade shows where he collects donated food on behalf of the Food Depository.
He volunteered regularly at Common Pantry, a Food Depository partner on the North Side, handing food directly to neighbors whose gratitude, he says, was unmistakable.
Phil Walroth in action as a volunteer ambassador.
"I saw the value it gave people," Walroth said. "They were so appreciative. Their gratitude was obvious."
Three years ago, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He went through surgery and 12 rounds of chemotherapy. For more than a year, he couldn't volunteer at all. "When I was sitting at home on my sofa recovering, I missed being around like-minded people."
When he finally had enough strength to return to volunteering about a year and a half ago, the Food Depository welcomed him in a way he didn't expect. Other volunteers had made him a quilt, and there was a box of goodies waiting for him.
Walroth’s role has evolved. He no longer volunteers at the pantry, where the physical demands aren’t a good fit anymore. Now a volunteer ambassador, he comes to the Food Depository twice a week, greeting newcomers at the door, helping the volunteer sessions run smoothly, and talking up the Food Depository to anyone who will listen.
Walroth (left) and his fellow advocates at a Food Depository lobby day in Springfield, IL.
When cuts to federal food assistance programs began making headlines this year, Walroth stepped up his advocacy. In March, he attended his first Lobby Day with the Food Depository in Springfield, where he spoke directly with elected officials about what those cuts would mean for the neighbors he has spent years serving. “It was invigorating,” he said. He signed up for the next Lobby Day before he left the building.
"My heartfelt memories of putting food right in the hands of neighbors keep me volunteering," he said.
"My favorite thing is the impact I'm having on people."
Building something from scratch
Every other Saturday morning, Daniel Wu and Grace LaBelle, high school seniors at the University of Chicago Lab School, arrive at the Hyde Park-Kenwood Food Pantry with a group of fellow student volunteers as part of their school club, Humanity Hyde Park, which they founded as freshmen.
The school club now runs pantry shifts every other weekend, fundraisers to support food-access work, community fridges, and a small-batch bakery, with proceeds going to food-access organizations.
Daniel Wu and Grace LaBelle at the Hyde Park-Kenwood food pantry.
LaBelle was first introduced to volunteering through her church. For her, the work became personal the moment it stopped feeling like service and started feeling like relationship. "I kept coming back because of the people," she said. "You start to know someone's name, what they like, what they're going through.”
Wu remembers one Saturday at the pantry when a man from Nigeria was searching for cassava, an ingredient that would make a meal feel like home to this neighbor. Wu helped him find it among the pantry’s selection of food. The man was so overwhelmed with gratitude that he hugged Wu hard enough to lift him off the ground.
"Hunger is not invisible," Wu said. "It's not distant. Two hours of your time can matter."
For Wu, that conviction reaches beyond the pantry. His interest in public policy shapes how he understands the work to end hunger, and protecting nutrition programs like SNAP is something he has pursued beyond the pantry, too. He and LaBelle joined the Food Depository’s recent Rally Day in Springfield, meeting directly with elected officials to advocate for food assistance funding.
Wu and LaBelle (middle) prepare to talk to legislators about the changes to SNAP. (Photo by Jim Vondruska for the Greater Chicago Food Depository.)
For Wu, stocking pantry shelves and showing up for advocacy are responses to the same problem. Volunteering, he believes, is a way of investing in community — and something anyone can do.
"You don't have to have it all figured out," he said. "You just have to be there and do what you can.”
A call that keeps getting louder
Next Tuesday, Walroth will be at the Food Depository, welcoming volunteers at the door. On Saturday, Wu and LaBelle will be back at Hyde Park-Kenwood Food Pantry helping guests access groceries.
They represent a network of volunteers serving neighbors across Chicago and Cook County every week. As challenges to the food safety net continue to grow, and more neighbors turn to our network for assistance, our volunteers’ service becomes even more vital.
Walroth sums up his volunteer experience simply: "I definitely get more than I give."
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