HCS Family Services

Empowering Families. Changing Lives.

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Join Our Virtual Food Drive

Help us continue our mission of providing food to those in need in our community.
Join our Virtual Food Drive. Donate. Start a Team. Join a Team. #fillacart #fillaheart

About the Campaign

We’re addressing food insecurity within our community.

Since the onset of the pandemic, HCS Family Services has experienced an increase of 170%. Our doors have remained opened as we have scaled and redefined our operations to support our neighbors in need.

Today, we are asking you to join us in this work. Our mission is to spread awareness and raise money to fight hunger head-on.

Your involvement is critical to our success and solving this issue.

Executive Director’s Update

Full Bellies. Full Hearts.

During the Thanksgiving week, we were visited by more than 300 neighbors in need seeking food support for their Thanksgiving meals. Thanks to everyone who supported our effort with their time, talents, and treasures.

A Bird’s Eye View of the Need

At the onset of the pandemic, we shared with you the lines of cars that wrap around our block in Hinsdale. The lines continue to grow and we are now rounding the fourth corner of our block with folks seeking food support. The need has increased by 170% since the onset of the pandemic.

In the coming weeks, as we move towards electronic curbside registration, we will invite our neighbors to visit during specific timeframes. As a core value, we believe that nobody’s time is best spent waiting for food. In addition, we value our Hinsdale neighbors and thank everyone in town for continued patience and understanding of our long lines as we navigate these challenging times together.

Watch how curbside distribution allows us to safely and efficiently provide nutritious food to our neighbors in need in this video taken by former Youth Board President George Bull of GB Aerial Photography.

Working Together to Serve Our Community

At the onset of the pandemic, leaders of Anne M. Jeans Elementary School in Willowbrook, where our school food pantry is located, generously donated the use of their entire gymnasium – the size of two full basketball courts – for our food storage and pack-out preparation.

Over the past months, we have worked to transform, deep clean, and reorganize our Hinsdale Pantry so that all food storage and shelf-stable packaging can be moved from Anne M. Jeans Elementary gymnasium to the basement of the Memorial Building in Hinsdale. Big thanks to all the people involved in making our move a reality, most notably the Hinsdale Central Hockey Club, who moved all our items out of the gym last Tuesday.

Looking back, we loved our temporary home at the Anne M. Jeans Elementary School but we knew it was just a place to rest during the pandemic and not a place to stay forever. We are thankful to Superintendent Tom Schneider of the Community Consolidated District 180 and Principle Tracy Richey of the Anne M. Jeans Elementary School for allowing us to take temporary residence in the school gymnasium.

For anyone needing food support in the Willowbrook area, please come visit us each Wednesday from 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. Each week we serve upwards of 150 neighbors and are there to serve!

If you, your friends or family need help putting food on your table, please visit our Food Pantries page for our distribution days, times and locations.

With gratitude,

Amy Wickstrom-signature

Amy Wickstrom
Executive Director

Giving Tuesday 2020

Dear Friends,

Today is #GivingTuesday, a global day of giving and unity as an emergency response to the unprecedented need caused by COVID-19.

Access to nutritious food is more important than ever. We are serving 170 percent more of our neighbors in need since the onset of the pandemic. Many of these people are first-time visitors, our friends and neighbors who never dreamed of needing assistance but now need our help.

Unfortunately, we expect the number of people needing food assistance to continue to be high, as businesses face the uncertainty of prolonged closures and our neighbors feel the effects of unemployment.

If you are able, please consider giving what you can. Or, join our Virtual Food Drive. Donate. Start a Team. Join a Team. #fillacart #fillaheart to help us continue our mission of providing food to those in need in our community.

With gratitude,

Amy Wickstrom-signature

Amy Wickstrom
Executive Director

Monthly Update: August

Greetings friends,

What a wonderful welcome I have received in my first two months as the new leader of HCS Family Services, and many thanks to each and every person who has taken the time to reach out. I feel very fortunate to have joined this organization on the heels of former-board-member-turned-Executive Director, Stan Cook, and want to thank him again for his tremendous leadership to further elevate this critical organization at a time when vital food support is so desperately needed.

I have spent much time during my initial months on the “front-lines” of our operations, working hard to understand the stories of our pantry guests and to ensure service-delivery excellence while keeping everyone safe. During one food distribution, I had a chance to speak with an elderly man who had “hitched” a ride, as he said, to the pantry with a friend from his retirement community. He appreciated the food because he “was often stretched thin at the end of the month due to the five medical bill plans he is on.”

While he and his friend provided their gratitude for drive-through services in light of COVID-19, they also shared their hope for the eventual return to in-person shopping so they could again be part of the pantry community. They told me of their appreciation for the human connection of our interaction (I also felt the same gratitude), and they eventually commented with joy that they would be bringing me flowers to next week’s distribution in thanks for stopping by their car. I politely declined, but this selfless offer caused me to pause in reflection for how, regardless of our situations, we are all in this same boat right now – wanting to bring joy to others, needing to feel a connection.

Our work at HCS Family Services is only possible because of connection. The connection between our volunteers and supporters and the care demonstrated for our neighbors-in-need. The connection between our Board of Directors and our mission – in partnering with me to achieve a vision for the future amidst these uncertain times. A vision, by definition, is a shared belief about the future we are trying to create. If you were me, what is the vision you would work to create for the people served by HCS Family Services? I would like to hear from you and encourage you to send me a personal note or share your feedback in this survey.

It’s with a heart of gratitude that I, again, offer my sincere thanks to every single person who has taken the time to reach out with words of welcome, to cheer me on with words of support, to make a gift to support our cause. And, with admiration, I also am so in awe of the many college students, board members, high school students, National Charity League members, Hinsdale Junior Woman’s Club members, Junior Board members, and concerned Hinsdale and surrounding community members who have rolled up their sleeves, firmly situated their masks, and armed themselves with hand sanitizer to serve approximately 20,000 grateful hearts and bellies since the onset of this worldwide pandemic.

You guys are the heroes of these unchartered waters and I offer my heartfelt thanks.

With gratitude,

Amy Wickstrom-signature

Amy Wickstrom
Executive Director

School Partnership Helps Meet Increased Need

An HCS Family Services volunteer at Ann M Jeans Elementary School

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, HCS Family Services is serving 78 percent more people. To help us meet this increasing demand for food assistance, officials at Anne M. Jeans Elementary School in Willowbrook have generously donated the use of their entire gymnasium – the size of two full basketball courts – for our food pack-out preparation.

This expanded space will allow us to welcome larger groups of volunteers, speeding the packing of food bags for our weekly distributions, while maintaining safe social distancing guidelines.   

Read more about these efforts in this May 7, 2020 The Hinsdalean article by Pam Lammon, “HCS has new digs for packing groceries“.

  • HCS volunteers at Ann M Jeans Elementary School
  • HCS Family Services Volunteer at Ann M Jeans School gymnasium
  • An HCS Family Services volunteer at Ann M Jeans Elementary School
  • Overview of volunteer set-up for food bag packing at Ann M Jeans Elementary School
  • HCS Family Services volunteers pack food at Ann M Jeans Elementary School
  • Overview of volunteer set-up for food bag packing at Ann M Jeans Elementary School
  • Overview of volunteer set-up for food bag packing at Ann M Jeans Elementary School

Meeting the Increasing Need with Curbside Service

Lines of cars wrapped around the block the past few weeks as more people than ever have sought out food assistance from HCS Family Services. In fact, we are serving 78 percent more people than we were two months ago.   Our new curbside distribution allows us to safely and efficiently provide nutritious food to our neighbors in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Video courtesy of former HCS Family Services Junior Board President George Bull of GB Aerial Photography.