The State of Our Community

The state of our community
Last year found us shaking our heads in disbelief, wringing our hands and also shouting for joy.

At ICA Food Shelf and ResourceWest, we witnessed a 26 percent increase in people requiring our services from right here in the western suburbs.

Our clients are your neighbors who find themselves struggling to make ends meet.

Most of out clients work, but do not make enough money to cover the basic needs of their families.

They are individuals and families who have been placed into situational poverty by a myriad of reasons: decreased work hours, job loss, housing expenses or a medical crisis.

The average client has 3.2 family members and a monthly income of $1,098 (a 9 percent decrease from 2008).

More than 44 percent of the family members are unemployed (a 36 percent increase from 2008). Most of the people we help never thought they would find themselves walking through our doors for help. In fact some of them have been past donors and volunteers.

ResourceWest by the numbers

In 2009, requests for information, referrals and program services jumped to more than 9,000 at ResourceWest.

Project Starfish clients increased from 350 in 2008 to 450 in 2009 and the new Computer Technology Center has had more than 430 visitors looking for help writing résumés, applying for jobs online and filing unemployment.

ICA Food Shelf by the numbers

In 2009, ICA served more than 7,000 individuals groceries compared to 5,628 individuals in 2008. ICA gave 894,000 pounds of food, which is a 26 percent increase over the previous year.

Individuals now receive more than 45 pounds of non-perishables, fresh meat and produce at each visit.

Thank you
We could not do the work that we do without the steadfast support from volunteers who keep our organizations running smoothly.

In fact we always need help from clerical, technological and data entry to plain old heavy lifting.

Our local businesses have helped us keep afloat with food, school supplies, coats, cash and toy drives. Their local focus has made all the difference. The greater faith and civic community also have made giving to basic needs a priority and for their committed service we are humbled.

Our organizations collaborate and share resources. We work together to solve the needs of our common clients either through our own resources or by partnering with other social service agencies. We stand united in not duplicating services thus stretching the community's resources even further.

Together we can help our neighbors survive the tough times knowing they have the support of our caring community,

Judy Elling is the executive director of ResourceWest and Cathy Maes is the executive director of ICA Food Shelf.