Laura Diaz inspects the shelves Friday morning at the Pan de Vida Midway Pantry, picking up pasta, grapes, cereal and a turkey — food she’ll use partially to fill out her Thanksgiving dinner. She’s planning a large family get-together for the holiday, and every little bit helps, she said.  Diaz, 59, of Brighton Park started going to the Archer Heights pantry about a year and a half ago. Her husband, a former machine operator, suffered a foot injury and now relies on disability benefits. As a stay-at-home mom, she struggles to afford rising food prices on top of the mortgage and utility bills. “I was always the giver, I was never the receiver,” she said. “It’s a struggle because of how the economy is. Prices are ridiculous. You go to the store, $100 you’re lucky if you get five things .… It’s hard. I’m like, I gotta break down and come to the food pantry, and you know what, I’m grateful I came. It helps us a lot.”  Diaz was one of about 160 families who received holiday food and other groceries Friday at the pantry inside New Life Community Church. She isn’t alone in struggling to afford groceries, according to pantry staff across the Chicago area, who say there’s been “extraordinary demand” for food assistance the past few years, with a noticeable jump during the holiday season.  Free grocery store-style food pantry opens in Waukegan; ‘People can shop with dignity here’ Verenice Martinez, director of food distribution services, said Pan de Vida Midway Pantry — which is open Wednesdays and Fridays — has seen a 30 percent increase this year in people seeking assistance. She attributes the increase to inflation and the rising cost of living, including elevated food prices, after the COVID-19 pandemic.  “The pandemic is clearly over, but we see that every walk of life is still being affected. There are some people that are still recovering from whatever COVID did to their families,” she said, adding that the pantry wants to get a walk-in fridge and freezer to increase its capacity.  There’s a lot of “silent need” in the community, Martinez said. Pantries are often seen as “something shameful to resort to,” a stigma she hopes to reverse. At Friday’s distribution, visitors grabbed a cart and meandered among the shelves and refrigerators filled with food before volunteers bagged the groceries. The pantry also gave out turkey and chicken for Thanksgiving. “It fills my heart,” Martinez said of distributing food during the holidays. “You see people from all ages. You see people from all origins, and I think that regardless of what that background is, you shouldn’t feel hunger pains in your stomach in the richest country in the world.” An increase in need appears to be a trend across the city. Man-Yee Lee, the communications director for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, said more families rely on its network of about 800 pantries in Cook County during the holiday season to serve a nutritious meal. She expects to serve holiday food to about 160,000 households, adding that the nonprofit started prepping back in February to help meet this demand.  Amid migrant crisis, Chicago food pantries experience unprecedented demand Just in November, Lee said, the GCFD distributed 2.3 million pounds of classic Thanksgiving fare: turkey, ham, chicken, gravy, cranberry sauce and cornbread mix. The organization spent about $2 million to buy those food items, she said.  “It’s a bittersweet thing for us,” she said. “While we are very grateful and very happy to be able to deliver so much food out into the community to our neighbors who really need it … unfortunately that also tells us that the need is increasing and there’s more families out there facing food insecurity, and that is a hard pill for us to swallow.”  People wait in line for food at a Thanksgiving food distribution event at the New Life Community Church Midway in Chicago’s Archer Heights neighborhood on Nov. 22, 2024. (Tess Crowley/Chicago Tribune) On the North Side, the Common Pantry will hand out around 350 turkeys Monday using money that Jewel-Osco shoppers at 4250 N. Lincoln Ave. and 3400 N. Western Ave. donate at checkout.  Meanwhile, there’s a Thanksgiving distribution Saturday at the Pilsen food pantry. Director Evelyn Figueroa said there are only three pantries in the neighborhood, noting that the South and West sides tend to have less resources. Holiday dinners help bring families together and create happy memories for kids that help their development, she said. ‘A year-round problem’ However, Lee stressed that “hunger is a year-round problem.” The Greater Chicago Food Depository has reached 25 percent more visitors this year compared to last. Because of the increase, she said, the organization has bought more food the past few years, partially through fundraising. Part of the demand increase is due to a post-pandemic reduction in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, she said. SNAP is a federal program that provides food benefits to low-income families to supplement their grocery purchases. She said she worries about further cuts to SNAP next year in a new farm bill.  “When they have their benefits cut, it really seriously impacts their ability to feed their families,” Lee said. “While our pantries are really trying their best … we as an emergency food system, we can’t do it alone. We can’t end hunger alone.” Kiu Chen, center, fills up her cart with food at a Thanksgiving food distribution event at the New Life Community Church Midway in Chicago’s Archer Heights neighborhood on Nov. 22, 2024. (Tess Crowley/Chicago Tribune) Volunteer Maria Martinez, center, hands out potatoes while Israel Martinez carries boxes of food, right, at a Thanksgiving food distribution event at the New Life Community Church Midway in Chicago’s Archer Heights neighborhood on Nov. 22, 2024. (Tess Crowley/Chicago Tribune) The demand also has ballooned for the Northern Illinois Food Bank, which includes a network of about 900 food pantries in 13 suburban and rural counties, according to President and CEO Julie Yurko. She said the average number of visits per month has doubled in the past five years and last month hit an all-time high of 620,000 visits. “At this time of year, we are all leaning in more to purchasing presents, decorating our homes, inviting people over. All of those additional expenses add to the stress of a family’s budget, and for the families that are food-insecure, it is a resource gap,” she said. “They are not earning enough to cover all their expenses, so that crisis gets exacerbated during the holiday season.”  Quigley could bring $2.3M to Palatine Township to expand food pantry facility, services The Northern Illinois Food Bank plans to give out 50,000 holiday meal boxes during the next two months. The nearly 15-pound boxes contain meal trimmings such as stuffing, corn, hot cocoa and canned fruit. Neighbors also will receive a turkey, turkey breast or ham, depending on the location, Yurko said.   After an unexpected job loss about 15 years ago, Yurko had to put her children on free and reduced-cost lunch and free health care — something she described as a “great fear.” The experience inspired her to work at a food bank, and she said it’s important to understand and empathize with people who need a little extra help.  “Whether it’s a job loss, like it was in our case, or a health crisis, if there’s some other change in your living arrangement, what we need to do is honor and support and — I’m going to get hokey here — we need to love one another,” she said.