In the news: Wednesday Journal
Michele Zurakowski, chief executive officer of Beyond Hunger, has overseen the nonprofit’s significant growth during the past 17 years. She is retiring at the end of next month, leaving the nonprofit in a stronger position after weathering the Great Recession and COVID.
Zurakowski joined what was then known as the Oak Park River Forest Food Pantry in 2008 as a part-time co-chair. The role was originally intended to be voluntary, but she insisted that it be a paid position.
“It was the kind of work that we often expect women to do for free,” said Zurakowski. “But only women of a certain economic class have the freedom to do that. Pay equity and healthcare are important. I’ve strived to provide both for my staff.”
Banking on Zurakowski was obviously a good investment. During her first year, the food pantry’s budget jumped from $40,000 to $70,000 and the number of people served almost tripled. In 2019, the Food Pantry changed its name to Beyond Hunger to reflect its expanding reach into 13 zip codes and initiated new programs to meet the needs of a growing number of people experiencing food insecurity. In 2024, Beyond Hunger’s budget was $4.5 million and it now serves more than 65,000 people.
During COVID, the organization was forced to pivot from a market model to a drive-thru model of distributing boxes of food in First United Church’s parking lot just off Lake Street.
“Food insecurity [in the country] lessened dramatically during COVID because the government committed significantly more resources. We ended hunger for four million children. It really showed that we, as a society, can solve hunger any time we want with resources and logistics and political will,” Zurakowski said.
One of the programs of which Zurakowski is most proud is Summer Meals for Kids, which was launched in 2014, in collaboration with West Cook YMCA, at St. John Lutheran Church in Forest Park. Zurakowski wanted to expand the summer program into Oak Park schools but federal guidelines stipulated that in order to receive funding 25 percent of a participating school’s student population had to qualify for free and reduced lunches. None of Oak Park’s schools qualified.
“But that still meant that 25 percent of our kids were going hungry in the summer. I knew we had to do something for those kids,” she said.
Zurakowski worked every angle with Oak Park and River Forest High School but the administration balked at offering a summer lunch program. She finally got a meeting with the superintendent.
“I told him that he needed to understand that my spirit animal is the cocklebur and that I was going to be just like a cocklebur on the inside of his pant leg until we could make something happen,” Zurakowski said, laughing.
Eventually, she and the high school worked out an agreement whereby Beyond Hunger would provide meals for “8 to 9 Connections,” a summer program designed to help struggling eighth grade students prepare for high school. Federal funds were used to cover the cost of meals for students who qualified for free and reduced lunches, and Beyond Hunger and the high school split the cost for the other students. The program was so successful that it was expanded to District 97.
“It was important to me that all of the kids got the meals so no one would know who was getting the free meals,” Zurakowski said.
The program had special resonance for Zurakowski. Growing up with intermittent poverty, she was the recipient of free and reduced lunches. Kids like her had lunch cards that were a different color than other kids’ cards. It was a source of shame that she was determined not to replicate.
The youngest of five children in a strongly religious family, Zurakowski moved frequently — by the time she graduated from high school in Warsaw, Indiana, she had lived in 17 different places. Her parents were very involved in their church and regularly tithed, even as they struggled financially and refused charity. As a teenager, Zurakowski was expected to tithe a percentage of the money she earned as a babysitter.
A stellar student in the top 10 of her class, Zurakowski went to Finland as a Rotary Youth Exchange student during her junior year. Away from home for the first time, she struggled to learn the language. It was her first experience with failure but it also sparked a sense of wanderlust.
Zurakowski attended Manchester College, a small, religiously affiliated institution in northern Indiana. She met her husband John the first weekend of school. They married soon after graduating and went to Poland for two years as part of the Brethren Volunteer Service. Arriving shortly after Poland’s Solidarity movement had been crushed and marital law had been instituted, they relied on ration coupons for staples such as flour, sugar and meat.
After returning to the U.S., they found jobs with an outfitting company that John’s sister and brother-in-law owned in Durango, Colorado. Using llamas as pack animals, they worked as camp cooks and day laborers in the summer and in retail during the winter.
Needless to say, Zurakowski’s adventurous spirit was different than most of the people with whom she grew up. This didn’t go unnoticed by some folks back home.
“But my mother was very proud of me. I remember her telling one of her friends, who had asked when John and I were going to settle down, that we were living the lives they all wished they could,” Zurakowski said.
The Zurakowskis next landed in Minneapolis where Michele pursued graduate studies in rhetorical criticism at the University of Minnesota. They moved to Oak Park when John got his dream job as the head squash pro at the University Club of Chicago. As a stay-at-home mom with her first son, Zurakowski was very active in Oak Park’s Parenthesis Parent Child Center — she still refers to the friends she made then as her “posse.” She was also active in the Lincoln School PTO.
While Zurakowski maintains that she didn’t come to Beyond Hunger with much organizational experience or business acumen, she has drawn on her strengths for galvanizing people around a common vision and for creating community. She has relied on a local network of strong women leaders for support — and the occasional venting.
“Through Beyond Hunger, I’ve learned how important community is. This community now feeds 65,000 people a year. We decided, as a community, that this is a worthwhile endeavor and we are willing to make the sacrifices to make it happen.”