David Bradley rushed into action when he saw a woman struggling to get up the stairs at Beyond Hunger, the Oak Park nonprofit that provides hunger relief to 13 zip codes across Cook County. The woman was carrying many bags along with a baby in a car seat carrier. Bradley carried the bags to her car and put them in the trunk. The woman thanked him for his aid and drove off.
It’s all in a day’s work for Bradley, whose story with Beyond Hunger began when he was looking to fill a community outreach requirement for his classes at Dominican University. His volunteer orientation was in 2010, which led to volunteering, coordinating and eventually working on staff.
Beyond Hunger meets a significant community need. The organization began in the late 1970s, when Patricia Funke formed a local group that provided holiday food baskets to families in need. Realizing that people needed help beyond that, they began providing food all year round. Hunger-related needs increased significantly after the COVID-19 pandemic, yet Beyond Hunger continued to persist in providing its services to meet the needs of all.
According to Beyond Hunger’s website, an estimated 7,000 people are food insecure in Oak Park. One in seven people in Cook County and one in five families with children struggle with hunger nationwide. Beyond Hunger serves over 65,000 individuals in a year.
As the pantry programs and food procurement assistant, Bradley works at Beyond Hunger five days a week. He’s involved in managing food, ensuring proper organization and storage, and assisting in coordination with volunteers to prepare for regular community food distributions.
“I grew up food insecure,” Bradley said. “So it was always a soft spot in my heart to give back to the community. I’ve always been involved, either here or in Detroit, where I’m from. I’ve always been a volunteer of some sort.”
“David engages with everybody that comes into our pantry,” said Monnette Bariel, the pantry programs manager. “David’s approach, kindness and understanding allows him to provide assistance to our families. Even in the busiest of times he takes care with each interaction he has with our clients and volunteers.”
Alek Pedersen, the pantry programs coordinator at Beyond Hunger said, “David is the perfect example of Beyond Hunger’s mission and values. He’s always looking for ways to improve people’s lives, and he makes lasting positive impressions on the people he helps.”
“Every time I’m out there working with him, we’re just making new memories and benefiting the lives of other people,” said Parker Griffin, a senior at Oak Park River Forest High School who has been a volunteer at Beyond Hunger for four years. “With him around, we always just have such a great time, and his kindness shows through whenever he interacts with clients and with staff and volunteers and everyone.”
“Just being able to bring food from one place and get it to a family who needs it—I think that that is something that has always inspired me,” Bradley said. Bradley’s father owns a church in Detroit, and he also runs a small pantry there, so when Bradley is in Detroit, he feels the same way about the people there who need to feed themselves and their families. “Watching the volunteers that come in, watching the people that give up their time every day–every week after week, watching the kids who come, and to lend a hand, and they get this awareness at a young age–I think that’s a very big motivator for me to keep doing this.”
Bradley said that the biggest reward is trying to lessen food insecurity as well as seeing the immediate impact it has on families within the community. “We’ve been a very vital role in this particular community to not only educate families but also to help be a source of fresh food,” Bradley said. “I’m always hopeful that families are able to leave here, and go home, and do better because of that.”
