A Feed6 volunteer wants Oak Park and River Forest High School to host a gymnasium meal-packing event that would produce more than 8,000 shelf-stable food packets for hungry students.

Ron Elling, a volunteer with the Chicagoland hunger-relief group Feed6, laid out the proposal in a Wednesday Journal opinion piece published Saturday, Sept. 12. Elling called on the community to raise $21,228 and recruit 100 to 120 volunteers so Feed6 could bring its mobile meal-packing operation to OPRF's gymnasium or cafeteria.

The event would produce 8,242 packets, each containing six servings at 42 cents per meal and 9 grams of protein. Distributed over the school year, that works out to about 234 packets per week for what Elling called the school's Students Feeding Students (SFS) "food lockers."

"If, as a community, we can recruit 100-120 volunteers and raise the needed $21,228, then Feed6.org can bring to OPRF … a mobile, turnkey production system that has been used for 15 years to pack 9.5 million meals," Elling wrote.

He pointed to a May 9 event at Riverside-Brookfield High School where volunteers packed 50,544 meals in two hours. Forest Park Middle School held a similar event Jan. 19, packing more than 35,000 meals.

The proposal arrives as OPRF's student-led SFS group waits for the District 200 Board of Education to act on its own request. SFS asked the board to spend $157,119 to fund eight snack cabinets in school hallways for the 2026-2027 year. The board discussed the plan at its June 25 meeting but split on the idea. No vote was taken.

As of late August, the board still had not acted. SFS leader Nolan Krueger told the Wednesday Journal on Aug. 24 that the process had dragged on. Prior coverage used the term "snack cabinets" for the SFS distribution points; Elling's op-ed calls them "food lockers," and it is unclear whether the terms describe the same setup.

OPRF administration committed to stocking the existing four snack cabinets through the first semester, spokeswoman Karin Sullivan said in an Aug. 24 text message reported by the Wednesday Journal. Lee Williams, OPRF's head of equity and student success, said at the Aug. 20 board meeting that the school planned to form a committee to study food insecurity more broadly. An estimated 1,000 OPRF students experience food insecurity, according to a community letter published Aug. 25.

No response from OPRF or the District 200 board regarding Elling's Feed6 proposal has surfaced publicly.

Feed6, co-founded in 2011 by Bill Kanatas and Chris Coyne, operates under the nonprofit Outreach and has packed nearly 10 million meals across the Chicago area, according to its website. Elling invited residents to observe upcoming Feed6 events Oct. 24 and Nov. 1 at Allstate Arena in Rosemont, or to contact him at [email protected].

The District 200 board is scheduled to hold a public budget hearing Thursday, Sept. 24, at 7:30 p.m. in the Board Room, according to West Cook News.