Respond Now Inc

RESPOND NOW, a United Way agency, began providing services and answering the emergency needs of south suburban Chicago residents nearly 50 years ago. In 1969, a local association of ministers recognized a growing need within the community for emergency food and other basic necessities beyond what government programs were able to provide. The congregations pooled their resources and formed Respond Now. Although we are still a food pantry, we now also provide funds to address many other emergency needs in the south suburbs.

Who we are today…
RESPOND NOW is the premier emergency service agency in South Suburban Chicago- serving Chicago Heights, Ford Heights, Park Forest, Sauk Village, Lynwood, Lansing, Calumet City, Steger, Crete, Monee, Peotone, Beecher, University Park, Richton Park, Matteson, Country Club Hills, Flossmore, Homewood, Olympia Fields, South Chicago Heights, Glenwood, and Thornton. With the critical support of many volunteers, Respond Now is on the front lines combating poverty case by case- providing emergency food, rent/mortgage assistance, utility assistance, prescription medications, emergency lodging, clothing, transportation, furniture, toiletries and personal hygiene items, holiday toy drives, counseling, and a senior nutrition program. We provide these services to families that find themselves in dire financial crisis, and pride ourselves on delivering service in a manner that maintains dignity and choice. In 2007, the organization expanded- developing a satellite food pantry in Sauk Village. With the current economic crisis, we serve approximately 1000 residents monthly, and pride ourselves as being the leader of social service agencies in Chicago’s South Suburbs.
Apart from simply providing services, Respond Now recognizes the responsibility to help people out of their current situation. As a result, we have designed programs that teach financial literacy, organize advocacy days (lobbying, meeting with representatives, letter writing campaigns), and have created a community garden where residents can grow their produce and have a place to call their own.

Our vision for tomorrow….
At Respond Now, we strive to be stalwart advocates for the needy, assisting and educating our community to help lift themselves out of poverty. We recognize, however, that for many families the need is urgent and cannot wait for the promise of a better tomorrow. With respect to this need, and understanding that Respond Now doesn’t have the resources to need these needs directly, we work toward establishing ourselves as the hub of need-based services in Chicago’s south suburbs. Centralizing resources will advance and refine the delivery of emergency services. This would involve improving the system by which individuals are matched with available community resources based on their need, other community resources that are available, and increasing the level of services Respond Now already provides.
The rationale behind this vision is the realization that Respond Now is in a position to connect a large number of people to the additional services they need. Approximately 100 people walk in our door on any given day. Respond Now is committed to addressing people’s immediate needs, but many times, this is not enough. Many families are in need of long term services we are not prepared to deliver. However, if we expand our capabilities to provide sound referrals, we will be able to assist families in accessing those additional resources. These could include SNAP benefits, WIA (job training) funding, child care subsidies, or any of the other many services and programs from which our clients can benefit. Other agencies may already do this, but Respond Now is in a position to be a hub for this service based on the large number of people that we see on a daily basis. In addition, our vision over the coming period is to maintain and increase our recent high level of services that we provide to the community.