At our Samhain rite a few years ago, as our offering to the Blessed Dead, we chose to "pay it forward". Instead of giving the ofering to the Ancestors, we gave it to their descendants instead. We had a food drive to bennefit the Greater Chicago Food Depository. At first this was intended to be a one time thing, but we realized how great the need in our community was especially during these trying economic times. So we decided to donate every month as part of our Grove's community service project. To date we have collected almost 500 lbs of food!

If you would like to help those in need in the Chicagoland area you can either bring a donation to our next High Day or you can also donate food or funds directly to GCFD, start your own Food Drive, or even become a GCFD volunteer! . The GCFD accepts all nutritious, nonperishable non expired canned and packaged foods (no glass, please), but they need Canned chicken and tuna, Canned corn beef, Canned fruit, Canned vegetables, Dried or canned beans, Fruit juice, Jelly, Macaroni and cheese, Pasta, Peanut butter, Rice, and Whole grain cereal the most.

This past Autumn Equinox we were tapped by the Nature Spirits and asked to put our money where our mouths are regarding our discussions of doing some volunteer work with the local flora and fauna. So we volunteered with the Forest Preserve of Cook County and our first project was litter removal. We chose Evans Field since we do many rituals there and have gotten to know the Nature Spirits and feel we should return the favor of their hospitality. We will continue to do litter pick up, as well habitat restoration, Garlic Mustard removal, and Nature Center projects at various locations in the Forest Preserve according to the season and weather. If you would like to volunteer with us please RSVP, it's a lot of fun and a great chance to commune with the Nature Spirits!

Another service project we are involved with is Project Linus, which is a program to make blankets for children who are seriously ill or traumatized. We first made some no-sew fleece blankets because we had no way to sew them but we hope to be able to make more now we have the Grove sewing machine up and running again! Let us know if you would like to help make blankets or donate fabric!