Keeping pantries and stomachs full: PBJ Springfield's approach to helping those in need
The wafting scent of peanut butter and sound of laughter fill the halls of the Brinkerhoff mansion every Tuesday afternoon. Passing spatulas around the tables filled with white bread and empty jelly jars, volunteers are busy at work chatting while making PB&J’s for the unhoused and financially unsteady in Springfield.
“I just think it’s a really good opportunity to give back to the community,” Springfield resident Theresa Maggiore said. “Volunteering, I just like to do that.”
The volunteers are seated chair to chair at the tables and will produce between 400 to 600 sandwiches in one sitting, as they have been at the Brinkerhoff every Tuesday for over two years now.And they aren’t the only ones.
PBJ Springfield, a nonprofit run by Springfield resident Kathy Smith organizes volunteers to make the namesake sandwich in bulk batches to hand out at different locations, including at the Washington Street Mission, Salvation Army Shelter, Helping Hands, Contact Ministries or Breadline.
Smith has been helping the unhoused for almost two decades now, but only started the assembly line of sandwiches during COVID-19.
“People think that they can come to my house or that I have a place,” Smith said. “They can do it in the comfort of their own home and bring them to me … it used to be seven days a week and a couple trips downtown a day it was getting a little too much. … I’m starting to have the people deliver if they feel comfortable doing that.”
Towards the end of February, the non-profit hit a record setting number of handing out 2,500 PB&Js in a single week, thanks in part due to the number of volunteers increasing.
“It’s just grown unbelievably, and I give thanks because I couldn’t do it all,” Smith said.
Filling a need
A common misconception is that basic needs services are meant to only be used by the homeless, when in reality food insecurity can happen to those struggling to meet rent or pay for necessities.
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, last year a full-time worker needed to earn an hourly wage of $28.58 on average to afford a modest, two-bedroom rental home in the U.S., which is over double the minimum wage in Illinois.
31% of Illinois workforce earned less than $15 an hour and 482,705 households were behind on rent or housing payments at the start of 2023.
“When I’m at the breadline I do meet a lot of people, men or women, who drive up in a car and go and get some of the food that’s set out, that's extra food from the food bank,” Smith said. “They’ll say ‘I am a working person, but we cannot afford food.’”
Making a difference
Brinkerhoff joins Girls on a Mission, the Blessed Sacrament Moms and volunteers in their own self-made groups to make the sandwiches weekly. The groups are always looking for donations, usually in the form of peanut butter, jelly, bread, bags, or whatever the group has posted about on their respective Facebook pages.
Smith is proud of the groups who’ve come together to provide food while building a stronger community.
“It actually came across my feed and I thought ‘that looks like something I’d be interested in’ helping the community and the homeless,” Gail Hawker said, volunteering for the first time with the nonprofit. “My husband and I moved here back in May to Springfield, and I wanted to involve myself in some way doing something that made a difference.”
Not only is Hawker making a difference, she's doing so with a classic.
“Who doesn't like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? It’s quick and delicious,” Hawker said.
Contact Claire Grant at CLGrant@gannett.com, X (Formerly known as Twitter): @Claire_Granted
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Springfield nonprofit helping those in need with classic PB&J sandwiches
