Nourishing Hope as a verb: ‘There is a future’

On a summer shift at Nourishing Hope's Sheridan Market, volunteer Lynelle Czarnecki packed diapers for distribution while other volunteers received deliveries, restocked shelves, and welcomed neighbors. The work was routine, but the numbers show its scale: 418 people from 223 households visited the market that day.

Czarnecki had been volunteering there for more than a year when Nourishing Hope profiled her in July 2025. Her connection to food access began much earlier, with a mother who ran a pantry from their family basement. As a retired therapist, she also saw how a visit for groceries could sit alongside concerns about housing, employment, and mental health.

What happens during a market shift

Senior Manager of Pantry Programs Angela Cimarusti-Clifford described roughly 40 volunteers per day at Sheridan Market, divided across two distribution shifts. Their tasks include checking in neighbors, distributing food, unloading trucks, and keeping shelves stocked. The market serves about 4,000 households in a typical month, she said.

Those figures help explain why volunteer consistency matters. Food has to move through several hands before a neighbor can choose it. Familiar volunteers can also make a busy distribution feel more welcoming, especially for someone returning regularly.

Food is one part of the service

Nourishing Hope reported 7,040 social services during fiscal year 2025. Those services included help with employment, housing, and utilities, as well as more than 3,400 free trauma-informed mental health counseling sessions. A bilingual case manager at Sheridan Market connected neighbors with social services in English and Spanish.

The numbers do not mean every person who visits the market uses every service. They show that the organization has built several ways to respond when a household's needs extend beyond groceries. Czarnecki's account gives that structure a human perspective: the quality of the interaction matters alongside the food itself.

How to take part

Nourishing Hope offers volunteer opportunities at multiple Chicago locations. Readers who want to see the available roles can use the organization's current volunteer information, rather than relying on a past shift schedule.

Read the original profile of Czarnecki and Sheridan Market.