After encountering homeless people in the neighborhoods around her Forest Park home and in Chicago’s West Loop, where she works as a legal assistant for Geico, Latoya Rayner was moved into action.
“One day, I went into the Walgreens in River Forest and saw a man standing in there. It was nasty outside, so he was in there for shelter. I figured there was something that could be done,” Rayner said, recounting an experience she had in 2021. She started thinking of ways to help the local unhoused community.
“I couldn’t provide them with a house or anything, but I could at least make sure that they have food,” Rayner said.
Rayner started filling bags with non-perishable food items and toiletries, buying the items with her own funds and putting them together in her apartment. She kept the bags in her car and, when she saw someone asking for money on the street, offered them one.
Though it started as a grassroots effort, Nourishing Those in Need became a nonprofit last summer. In 2023, Nourishing Those in Need handed out more than 500 bags to homeless people in Chicago, the suburbs just west of the city, and Elgin, where Rayner grew up and some of her family lives.
The contents of the bags change seasonally. In the winter, they often contain hats, gloves and hand warmers. In the summer, those items are replaced with sunscreen and bug spray. The bags almost always have deodorant, toothpaste, feminine hygiene products, socks, water bottles and non-perishable food.
“To these people who are outside looking for food in the dumpsters or they’re freezing, whatever the situation is, it is a lot,” Rayner said. “I have not come across one person that doesn’t appreciate it.”
Rayner often delivers bags along Harlem Avenue, plus to nearby Metra and CTA Green Line stations. Latoya’s mother, Sophia Rayner, lives in Hyde Park, where she distributes bags that she picks up from her daughter’s apartment. Other members of their family hand out bags near a tent city in Elgin. Some of Rayner’s coworkers help distribute bags in their neighborhoods.
Rayner, her mother and sister, Tunisia Gary-Rayner, also occasionally cook and distribute hot meals to homeless people in Chicago.
“We don’t do it often because, you can imagine, making bags and meals is crazy expensive,” Rayner said. In the future, she hopes to partner with restaurants in Forest Park that can help her make home-cooked meals for the unhoused community.
In June, Nourishing Those in Need will hold its second annual bowling fundraiser. Last year, most of the money was raised during a silent auction, where attendees bid on gift cards and other items donated by local businesses.
As Nourishing Those in Need accesses more funds, Rayner has been able to add more contents to the bags, like CTA day passes to help homeless people get out of the cold, both in the suburbs and the city.
“Our people are Chicago’s people, too,” Rayner said. “They’re on and off of those trains.”
Chicago’s annual Point-in-Time count, an assessment of those experiencing homelessness that’s compiled in one night, estimated that there were 6,139 unhoused people on any given day in the city in 2023. With an influx of asylum seekers and migrants, that number has increased.
“It’s impossible to know how many we’ll ever need,” Rayner said of the bags. “There’s no such thing as too much when you know there’s homeless people everywhere.”
Those who want to contribute to Nourishing Those in Need can donate online at https://www.nourishingthoseinneed.org/donate or go to the nonprofit’s Amazon shopping list to buy in-demand items that are shipped directly to Rayner.