Late last year, migrants from Central and South America started coming to Oak Park. In November, the village board passed an emergency declaration that gave its manager, Kevin Jackson, spending authority to help around 200 migrants staying in Oak Park gain access to food and transportation. A month later, the board announced it would send away buses of new arrivals because of its lack of resources.
As Oak Park struggles to accommodate the influx of migrants to the area, local businesses and organizations have stepped up to help out the community in crisis. From restaurants to churches, these places have donated food, clothes and even haircuts to people who are new to town and have little to nothing in their possession.
Elevate Creative
Elevate Creative, 321 Harrison St., has donated six haircuts to migrants and will soon start offering more. Gail Coughlin, owner of Elevate Creative, said that her friend helps organize resources for migrants in Oak Park. In October, she asked if Coughlin would trim the hair of an Oak Park and River Forest High School student who had just journeyed to the area with her family.
With her friend’s assistance, Coughlin has given away four other haircuts and is now scheduling them weekly. Starting this month, her co-workers will also donate weekly trims.
“It’s really easy for us, and the people who have been coming in have been so polite and gracious and thankful,” Coughlin said. “It’s just nice, a little treatment and a quiet place.” She adds, “Everybody feels better about themselves when they look better.”
Takeout25
Ravi Parakkat, a trustee on the Oak Park village board, founded Takeout25 in 2020. When indoor dining shut down at the start of the pandemic, this campaign encouraged people to spend a weekly $25 on takeout from restaurants.
After indoor dining restrictions were lifted, Parakkat spoke with restaurant owners and community members and concluded that while it seemed like Takeout25’s original pandemic-focused mission was no longer as relevant, this campaign had enough momentum to continue in another form: food insecurity in Oak Park.
“It was not sitting right with me, the disconnect between food getting wasted on one side and the food needs being unaddressed,” Parakkat said. In early 2022, he started raising funds to buy food from local restaurants, which subsidized the cost. Takeout25 then delivered the food to two warming shelters that Housing Forward and the Oak Park Homelessness Coalition helped open for those who are unhoused.
In May 2023, Parakkat heard about the migrant population staying at the District 15 Police Station in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood.
“We didn’t have the wherewithal to handle that on a long-term basis, but we could potentially create a small bridge by providing food,” Parakkat said. Takeout25 used funds it had already raised to again buy subsidized food from local restaurants and donate it to the migrants staying at District 15.
Later in the year, Parakkat said he used personal funds to buy food from restaurants for more than 80 migrants staying at the Carleton of Oak Park Hotel. Cozy Corner at 138 North Marion Street also donated food to the Carleton.
In late 2021, Takeout25 started an annual holiday initiative, selling gift cards for local restaurants to encourage people to visit them in the first months of the year, when business is often slowest. In December 2023, Takeout25 sold $8,000 worth of gift cards. The organization also raised $6,000 in donations — half of which Parakkat and his wife matched with their own funds — used to buy additional restaurant gift cards that were donated to Grace Episcopal Church, Housing Forward and West Cook YMCA, which help support migrant families.
St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church
St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church’s supply closet offers toiletries, clothes, coats, underwear and shoes for migrants.
Emily Culbertson, a digital strategist for non-profit organizations, started the closet around Halloween with the church’s junior warden, Mark Schneider, and his wife, Eileen Murphy-Schneider. Last year, they heard about migrants who, during cold weather on Halloween, moved from the District 15 Police Station to Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. When St. Christopher’s rector, George Arceneaux IV, asked Good Shepherd how to help, the church requested assistance in collecting donations.
“People from neighboring counties, and even neighboring states, reached out to bring us supplies,” Culbertson said of the donations that St. Christopher’s received.
St. Christopher’s, 545 S. East Ave., distributes forms to organizations that host migrants in order to collect individual requests for clothing and shoe sizes. The church regularly updates donation requests on its website, plus the Oak Park Supports and Activate Oak Park Facebook groups. Donations can be dropped off on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Wednesdays from noon to 2 p.m.
Volunteers pack requested items in a bag to be picked up on Monday from 10 a.m. to noon, or on Wednesday or Saturday from noon to 2 p.m. St. Christopher’s also maintains a closet at the Carleton of Oak Park Hotel, where some asylum seekers are staying. Culbertson estimates the closets have provided for at least 350 people.
“We’re really grateful that we can send clean, warm, dry clothing for people who have never experienced winter before,” Culbertson said. Those working with, or hosting, migrants can email St. Christopher’s closet at supplies@stchristophersoakpark.org.
St. Edmund
Earlier this month, the building that once housed St. Edmund School opened a closet where migrants can pick out their own clothes.
The closet started in June at St. Catherine-St. Lucy Church at 38 N. Austin Blvd. to provide migrants staying at the District 15 Police Station with underwear, clothes and showers, located in the church’s rectory. But, with an influx of donations, clothes started spilling into the church.
“We turned the baptistry into Famous Footwear,” said Celine Woznica, a coordinator for the closet at St. Catherine-St. Lucy, and now St. Edmund. “As it got colder, they needed blankets and coats,” she added about the over 300 migrants who typically came to distribution days at St. Catherine-St. Lucy.
So when The Children’s School moved out of the old St. Edmund School building at the end of last year, the closet moved into a larger space.
On Jan. 4, the first day that migrants could access the new closet at St. Edmund, 200 S. Oak Park Ave., they walked from room to room for breakfast, then to “shop” for free clothes, shoes, outerwear, blankets and toiletries. Distribution will continue on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m., though Woznica said some people line up outside as early as 6 a.m.
Donations can be dropped off on Mondays between 9 a.m. and noon. St. Edmund updates donation requests on its Amazon wish list, though people can buy similar items and sizes from places other than Amazon.
Volunteers from Venezuela, who are staying at the Carleton of Oak Park Hotel and the West Cook YMCA, help organize donations at St. Edmund and collect information about what other migrants need. If you are interested in volunteering, contact immigrantministry@gmail.com.