A great local Ravenswood / Lincoln Square organization helping to serve the underserved and hungry in the area. By working with shipping volunteers (among others), shoppers are able to pick out food with dignity. I've only volunteered here once so far but I think they're doing some really good work. Sign up to volunteer via their website! read more

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The Friendship Center is doing some good things for three community. I've always wanted to help out my neighbors by volunteering, and what a pleasure it has been to dedicate my time here. TFC treats all shoppers with dignity and respect and does it's best to provide a much-needed service to those in need. Operating in 4-hour increments, shoppers have the opportunity to pick out their choice of groceries from an assortment of items. Shopping volunteers guide them around the pantry and bag the items for the shoppers. Hot meals and delivery meals are also provided on occasion. I encourage anyone interested in volunteering to come by and help out. It could not be easier or more fun. I also encourage anyone in need to check to the website to see if they qualify. read more

Get an estimated *JACKPOT* of $150 to $200 worth of food each visit. Mamma! That's in today's dollar. *KACHING!* No one but Dwyer writes this kind of an insider and laser-introspective review. Because I'm the best, that's why! Also fell on hard times, Dwyer did. (My even more laser introspective reviews than this one got taken down by management, on request of the establishments which couldn't face the truth about themselves.) Thus with my best taken down, all you have is my worst that are still up.) Here goes this one: I did my estimate by by looking up the prices of similar items at Jewel. It doesn't matter that you can eat most of it on the bus ride on the way home. Go tell everybody, so they learn of this place. All come at once! Come in, the water's fine, why would I send you where they hardly give you any food? The back room management gal says, to the effect of, "We understand that everyone has their own reasons for needing food at some time." She truly, deeply understands. Say, "ommm", and meditate on the profundity of it. Her amazingly gray eyes help. I forgot to ask her if she is a sensitive, or a "clair"-anything. Just that kind of a look. They keep her hidden in the back, because she is just way-way too beautiful to show in the ugliness that's up front. If they see her in that waiting area, which looks like everyone must be either decrepit, or waiting for their turn to die, all the world's gathering of paupers would accidentally drop their number tags, in a mild swooning reaction. She needs to know that she looked her best the couple of times she wore this thing that looked like a hair wreath around her head. She keeps trying other looks, but bypassed the one that's best on her, her "killer look". No one there to cares to tell her so. Wasting her life there. Among the best quality food to be had for free anywhere in Chicago. Most of it is donated from a nearby prohibitively expensive high end food store, itself patronized only by the super rich. --Oh, but help me, I'm so sick of getting for free what is the most uber quality French goat brie, filet mignon, and the type of pate which Dr. Huxtable told his kids not to touch, because it's for the guests. These have all been frequently appearing items in their refrigerator, so don't let no one lie to you on the facts check of this review. The ubiquitous big guy, the one who brags that he makes all the decisions, lets you come only twice a month. He said that he would not let his own mother come more often than that, not even if she were dying. I, for one, still don't know what to make out of people like that, who brag that they would not even save their own mother. Met enough of his kind. Does his statement say that he is callous? More on him in a bit, it's inevitable, because his face, of what Nixon-the-woodsman would look like, is quite the face of the Friendship Center. On the surface of it, they have a well working numbers system, but it takes l-o-o-o-ng. It's one of those curious things, whereby they hand out numbers, yet even the people who had lined up early to wait, from three hours ahead, it still takes them three more hours, to get food. The loving goodness ends there, and evil lurks under the surface, (read the whole review), so more power to you if you can work it, to get the food you need. To tell you up front, nearly all chatritable free food pantries become magnets for entrenched bad people to various degrees. That's what I've seen out there. Thus, again, if you can find a way to make yourself real blind to it, the way Jackie Kennedy did to the constant dalliances of JFK, which is, by compartmentalizing, then more power to you. To go on, at this pantry, they have a tall American civilian guard in charge, living in a very prestigious area of Cook, (he volunteered that himself, no one asked him, because he is precisely a braggard who loves to run his big mouth all about himself), yet for being rich and living in a mansion, he dresses like a bum, the Japanese would say, "out of shame". The general color of his clothes is muddy brown. He's tall, bearded like a woodsman, and in muddy browns, and that's who I'm talking about, you'll see him, can't miss him. He is so ubiquitous in his non-stop pacing around, as if he were taking himself out frequent walks. His bragging is quotable, as much as the nature of it is not too smart. Or you tell me what word you would use for it, for this verbatim bit: "This is how I want it, if there's a decision, to make, I just ask one of my volunteers, so that if anything later, I'll just get rid of him, not me,". He has repeated that brag so often, every day of every week, for months on end, that by now he would have absolutely no idea on this earth, who was around to hear him say it, and thus what bastitch wrote this GD review. The rich North Shore types poison the place, volunteering there to scratch their itch to secretly feel superior, by being around those less fortunate than them. read more

Moldy expired foods given out, staff rude to people, staff rude to volunteers. I would not recommend going here, other pantry's hire people who love to help others and provide healthy fresh food to people in need. read more