Northern Illinois Food Bank sends 21K meals to Maui as island recovers from wildfires

CHICAGO (WLS) — Tens of thousands of pounds worth of food is now headed from the Northern Illinois Food Bank to those in need on Maui as the island recovers from those wildfires.

More than 25,000 pounds of food, which is equal to over 21,000 meals, were packed into Aldi Disaster Relief Boxes.

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Each box contains Aldi foods with a long shelf life, including peanut butter, granola, energy bars, instant oatmeal, tuna and much more.

Forty-one pallets of food were loaded up into a donated Amazon truck earlier Wednesday morning that will be sent to California, and then Hawaii.

The president of the Northern Illinois Food Bank, Julie Yurko, said they were ready to answer the call for help.

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“For us to be able to help when you see a disaster strike just really fills our hearts and souls. We have these beautiful disaster boxes and for us to be able to get them out there in a small way, makes us feel like these families have what they need,” Yurko said.

Aldi has donated more than 22 million pounds of food to the Northern Illinois Food Bank to provide meals for families when a crisis strikes.

The Northern Illinois Food Bank is ready whenever a crisis unfolds.

“Every year we have a disaster packing event. We have almost 700 of their employees come out. They provide all of the food. We packed, this year, 6,000 boxes of food that we are able to store here and distribute when disaster comes,” Yurko said.

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The Northern Illinois Food Bank isn’t the only organization stepping up to help recovery efforts in Maui.

United Airlines is also preparing to send emergency relief supplies from O’Hare to Maui on Wednesday afternoon.