Greater Chicago Food Depository

Chicago deserves better than a PR-driven institution sitting on Wall Street-size reserves. Do your research! They look impressive,have shiny signs,big marketing,emotional ads.But their financials tell a different story. They operate like a corporation, not a food charity. Over $70 million is sitting in investments and endowments while people go hungry,they have 10 highly paid executives with better retirement plans than most people volunteering or donating, an excessive chunk of donations go to salaries, bonuses,benefits, consultants, and fundraising, NOT FOOD! Want actual context? Compare them to other major food banks: Houston Food Bank: 96–97% program spending, extremely low fundraising costs, massive food volume distribution. LA Regional Food Bank: 97–98% program spending, 110 million pounds of food distributed. Greater Chicago Food Depository: 92% on paper, but only about $56M is spent on FOOD of the $283M revenue each year. They have extremely low distribution! The branding is polished. The hunger relief? Not nearly as strong as people assume. If you donate, read their audit first and compare them to better performing food banks. They do a good job of developing a workforce, which is admirable, but they are a food bank, not a workforce development agency, that should be part of their massive marketing budget.

This place is AMAZING. Talk about an organized organization! My church group has been coming every few months & they really do things so smoothly here! It’s super easy for first-timers, & they really help you notice the difference you are making as an individual volunteer. Luis was in charge last time we went, & he’s great. We all had lots of fun, & 3 hours went by too quickly!

From Volunteering to touring the facility the GCFD is a great place to gather information and learn from. Lots of kind people to help you with any project that you may have. A great place to volunteer.

After reading some of these reviews I can confidently say that the only people really loving this place are volunteers, not the patrons. And why does the CEO make 400,000 k+ a year? Maybe some of that could go to feed more people and have organizational leadership.

I am really glad I had the chance to volunteer at the Greater Chicago Food Depository. It is unbelievable the size and organization of the complex. People need help and without a doubt I'll come back many more times to assist the best way I can.

More of a PR partnership concept than an actual program meant to address food scarcity issues. As a client of a food program, I was left with little to no food while programs blasted their social media pages with propaganda images telling companies that partnering with them would improve their image. They also market themselves to volunteers seeking that feeling of weekend warriorism, and to those needing to meet volunteer requirements for schools and various programs. My fridge and cupboards are completely bare. As a disabled person without food stamps and medical bills piling up, I think what they're doing is atrocious. While they push images of grocery bags bursting at the seams with fresh produce and clean food, I usually get a few rotten items, expired frozen meat, a few cans of dollar store beans, white rice I can't eat because I'm diabetic and moldy bread. Calling and messaging the Greater Chicago Food Repo doesn't help because they too are mostly concerned with partnering for PR purposes; their contact page has the subject-selector that is 99% dedicated to PR and Business related subjects. Even the reviews here on Google Reviews and Yelp are mostly fluff from volunteers and not clients. That's review manipulation and corruption in my eyes. Additionally, if a pantry stiffs a client, that's if for that month because the Food Repo has strict guidelines about only seeing one place a month. The Repo also is known to turn a blind eye to pantries knowingly keeping the fresh produce for the staff and volunteers. It's a sad state where only the "volunteers" and "workers" have positive things to say because they're the only ones benefiting from this program. The rich are eating the poor. They do not care. The poor are a commodity being used for PR purposes. They would pose with our corpses and empty cupboards if they thought they could still market it. Some of us clients have factually have never once received a "months supply of groceries" as marketed, while we sign all sorts of contracts up and down. But I have seen with my own eyes volunteers and workers move multiple months-worth of fresh produce and boxes of food, after service hours, out the backdoor and into their expensive SUVs after the service day. I overhear the same pep-talk they give each other each time at different pantries: "otherwise it'll go to waste!". Again: my fridge and cupboards are completely bare. The Greater Chicago Food Depository staff have called me to tell me they don't believe me, they don't care, they will NEVER investigate and they won't even visit my home. They're soulless. They even removed their public email for clients (PR contact is still available, go figure) and instead have implemented an online form which seems to indicate they don't want to leave a paper trail that could leave them open to accountability (so if you're a client screenshot before you click submit). Edit: Added are some photos showing some rotten produce they gave me, along with a sheeting showing the delivery was on the 7th but the meat was already expired on the 5th. I have serious health conditions including heart failure and diabetes and I can't play around with expired food.

This place runs like an well-timed engine by volunteers! What a way to spend few hours helping out our larger community by packaging some dry foods for non profit organizations to collect for those in need. Highly recommend folks trying to give few hours of service here for a great cause!

Truck drivers dock 2-8 if open just park in there 7 am delivery I arrived at 3:30am parked in door 2 they woke me up 6:30 checked in they unlock door around 6:40 lumper kicked azz I was empty 7:30 paperwork in hand but I had one product lettuce from Santa Maria ca so might take longer if u have multiple products 5 star all around no issues make sure u write ur phone numbers on back of paperwork ALSO MUST SHOW IDENTIFICATION or u wont be unloaded also must have ur po start with p or d 6 digits to check in for delivery