Local food pantries have seen a spike in demand this fall, as factors ranging from the suspension of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits during the federal government shutdown to immigrants’ fears of being suddenly taken from the street by federal agents have thrown more local families into food insecurity, program directors say.

The leaders are calling on parishioners and other neighbors to donate to and volunteer at their local food pantries and advocate with public officials for policies to reduce hunger.

“One big thing people can do is just get the word out, talk to their families, their communities, their churches, about what’s happening,” said Sofi Estrada, a representative of the Greater Chicago Food Depository. “Stay informed. Share that information with your  communities.”

The Greater Chicago Food Depository is a food bank that partners with community food programs in Cook County, including almost 50 run by parishes and other Catholic organizations. The Northern Illinois Food Bank partners with parishes and other community organizations in Lake County.

Food programs include pantries, which people can generally visit once a month, emergency food programs, and other programs designed, for example, to provide food to senior citizens or to children.

Cash donations to the Greater Chicago Food Depository and the Northern Illinois Food Depository, which can buy food at greatly reduced rates, can go further than donations of food, said pantry directors, but it is also effective to ask local pantries what they need.

Parishes across the archdiocese are expected to participate in “Harvest of Hope,” a food drive coordinated by Catholic Charities, in which parishioners and Catholic school families in different vicariates are asked to bring in different types of food, such a rice or pasta or canned tuna or chicken, Nov. 29 through Dec. 14.

“We’ve never actually done an archdiocesan-wide food drive before,” said Marie Jochum, vice president of community programs at Catholic Charities.

The first part of Harvest of Hope is working to create a list of Catholic food pantries, Jochum said. Parishes will be asked to deliver food to hubs in each vicariate, where Catholic Charities will pick it up and distribute it to pantries.

Catholic Charities has also committed to providing $500,000 that will purchase food not collected in the drive, primarily proteins and produce.

One of the goals, Jochum said, is to create an ongoing network that would include Catholic Charities and the parish food pantries and to do such drives on a more regular basis to help feed people across the archdiocese.

Parishes have long done food drives on their own, she said, noting that Harvest of Hope was timed so as not to conflict with ongoing Thanksgiving food drives.

At Most Blessed Trinity Parish in Waukegan, parishioners bring packages of rice and beans, both food pantry staples, the third Sunday of every month, said Auxiliary Bishop Timothy O’Malley, Most Blessed Trinity’s pastor.

The parish’s food pantry and lunch program fed more people in October than usual, Bishop O’Malley said, despite a 30 percent drop in Mass attendance because many parishioners feared being swept up by federal agents seeking undocumented immigrants during “Operation Midway Blitz.”

Kathy Moore, director of food programs at St. James Parish, 2907 S. Wabash Ave., said food programs there saw upwards of 300 new families or households both in September and October. The parish served more than 2,100 households in each of those months, up from a usual count of 1,500 to 1,800, Moore said.

St. James Parish has one of the longest-standing food programs in the area, Moore said. The pantry is open three days a week, lunch is provided for unhoused people four days a week, and 300 senior citizens get meals delivered at home.

The increase in need right now is being driven by several factors, she said, from people whose SNAP benefits were suspended during the government shutdown to international students at the nearby Illinois Institute of Technology whose visas do not allow them to work not being able to make ends meet.

Some of the new clients and guests have lost their jobs, she said, although she expects to see more people who have been laid off this fall come to the food programs early next year.

“If you had a pretty decent job, your first thought isn’t. ‘I lost my job, let me go to the food pantry,’” Moore said. “Your first thought is, ‘I’m going to find another job, let me stretch the food I have, I have a few dollars saved up.’ When that runs out, they will break down and come to the food pantry.”

St. Sabina Parish, which took over operation of a food pantry near the parish campus just over a year ago, also is seeing growing lines. In addition to the pantry, the parish is one of 10 sites that has been offering emergency food distribution from the food depository on Saturdays.

The food pantry saw more than 300 clients on Nov. 4, said senior pastor Father Michael Pfleger, about double the 150 to160 who usually come. On Saturday, Nov. 8, the parish gave away all 500 emergency food boxes provided by the food depository with people left in line in their cars; the following Saturday, the parish distributed 625 emergency boxes.

Pfleger said that in addition to advocating for government support and donating or volunteering at pantries, people should look out for those close to them.

“Knock on the door of the senior citizen on your block, knock on the door of the single mother or the immigrant who might be afraid to go out,” Pfleger said. “Ask them what they need.”

St. Francis de Sales High School, 10155 S. Ewing Ave., also operates a pantry and has been an emergency food distribution site, said Principal Roni Facen.

The pantry opened in September and is staffed by student volunteers, she said. About 70 of the school’s 180 students came on Nov. 8 to help with the emergency distribution, Facen said.

Facen, a 2006 graduate of St. Francis de Sales, decided the school had to do something to address hunger after she started as principal five years ago and someone rang the doorbell and asked for food.

“I was mortified that I had nothing to give her,” Facen said, adding that she went out to buy food for the woman herself.

Then a survey of the school community showed that 35 percent of families there were facing food insecurity.

The high school became a site for a monthly mobile food distribution until the pantry opened a few months ago, Facen said. The pantry provides food for the community, gives the students who volunteer skills in organization and dealing with people and allows the teenagers to help their community.

“I tell students that if you want to see change, you have to be active change agents,” Facen said, noting that most of the school’s students come from single-parent households facing financial need.

Facen added that operating a food pantry has demonstrated to everyone at the school that poverty has many and varied faces.

“It looks so different for different people,” she said. “The majority of people are working. They have one or two jobs, but it’s not enough to sustain the family. The overwhelming number of seniors and the overwhelming number of veterans who are in our lines, it’s daunting.”

Many people don’t think of seniors as needing supplemental nutrition, according to Cecilia Straney, chief development officer for Little Brothers-Friends of the Elderly, which offers support and companionship to older adults who need it.

Many of the older adults served by Little Brothers receive SNAP benefits, Straney said, and also receive bags of groceries from Little Brothers once a month, usually toward the end of the month.

“They run out of money before they run out of month,” said Straney, whose office sent out an email appeal in early November to provide extra groceries for older adults who might have missed their SNAP payments.

“I know we’re getting a lot of calls from folks,” she said Nov. 7. “No one knows exactly what happens next. It’s fine to say funds will eventually be released, but people need to eat every day.”

The good thing was the response from donors and volunteers, Straney said.

“We’ve had a remarkable response from our community,” she said.

Moore found the same thing at St. James.

“It’s brought out the best in so many people,” she said. “It’s a hard time, but it’s also a time where I’m seeing compassion, I’m seeing love, I’m seeing warmth. It’s just amazing what I’m seeing. … As much as I’m seeing things being snatched from people, people being used as pawns, I’m also seeing people’s hearts blossom.”