Peck Elementary teacher Sandra Ramirez has given out thousands of boxes of food to students’ families. ‘Her heart is so enormous.’
As the COVID-19 pandemic tightened its grip on Chicago in March, Peck Elementary teacher Sandra Ramirez learned that some students weren’t logging in for remote classes.
Ramirez called their homes and found out that parents were losing their jobs. Household internet connections weren’t working or were strained by multiple children doing remote learning. Adult relatives — many of them essential workers — were getting the coronavirus, and some were dying.
“I was hearing some very tragic stories,” Ramirez said.
So when the Christian charity World Vision, which works with Peck on other projects, called Ramirez to ask if she wanted to help start weekly food distributions at the Southwest Side elementary school, she didn’t hesitate.
“Let me know what I need to do,” she said.
Since then, Ramirez has gone above and beyond as the Peck food distribution program’s on-site organizer, according to World Vision Chicago site manager Jonathan Smith. She has hauled milk in her own SUV, coordinated a team of two dozen volunteers and personally handed out hundreds of boxes of food.
At last count, Ramirez and her fellow Peck volunteers have given away 3,000 gallons of milk, 600 boxes of fresh food and 4,200 boxes of food and essential supplies.
“I have to tell Sandra, all the time, to take a day off,” Smith said with a chuckle.
“Her heart is so enormous. She’s the type of person who just gives her all to be sure that someone has the same things that she has.”
At Peck, where Ramirez was recently honored at a school supply distribution for 150 families, the need is real. About 92% of students are low-income, according to Chicago Public Schools.
Peck principal Okab Hassan greenlighted the food distribution plan immediately and told Ramirez to send out an email asking for staff volunteers, Ramirez said. Within two hours, she was flooded with offers from Peck staff members.
When the last school year ended, Ramirez, 42, a bilingual lead teacher, offered to volunteer at the World Vision warehouse, but due to COVID-19, opportunities there were limited, Smith said.
Ramirez persevered, continuing with well-being checks in the school’s West Elsdon neighborhood and spearheading efforts to distribute donations of fresh food and milk over the summer.
“There’s no other teacher I know of in the city of Chicago that was doing that type of work,” said Smith.
When a summer donation of 150 to 450 gallons of milk came into the World Vision warehouse, Ramirez would get a 7 a.m. text. She’d quickly contact Peck staff members Vanessa Maeda, Camelia Almader and Maria Corona, who, together with Ramirez, became known as the Moo Crew. They would drive their own vehicles over to the World Vision warehouse for the 9 a.m. milk pickup.
Ramirez would cram about 160 gallons of milk into her navy Nissan Pathfinder, crank up the air conditioning and hold her breath when she went over bumps because her SUV was riding so low.
“It was really a labor of love,” said Ramirez, the mother of three daughters, ages 14, 18 and 23. “It took a lot of time from our families, but our families all understood.”
The Moo Crew would text teachers that milk was coming, so they could notify families in need. The news also spread via Facebook and word-of-mouth.
The families would rush in to get their milk, Ramirez said. Once, when a member of the Moo Crew drove her red pickup truck to the school to work on an unrelated project, people in need started appearing: “Do you have food?” they asked eagerly. “Do you have milk?”
Ramirez was particularly moved by a young man who walked by one of the milk distribution events. He was no older than 20, Ramirez said, and the volunteers asked him if he wanted free milk.
The young man took some, and the next day he came by again and accepted a food box. He started walking away but then stopped.
“I just wanted to thank you guys because both my mom and my dad lost their jobs,” he said. “I’m the only person working, and what I’m making isn’t enough. If it wasn’t for the food you guys are giving us now, we wouldn’t be eating anything tonight.”
Ramirez said she understands what the young man was going through.
When she was growing up in the low-income Back of the Yards neighborhood, one of five children of a single mom, her family sometimes had to turn to food pantries for help.
“I remember on TV — or the kids just being kind of mean to each other — they’d say, ‘Oh you get government cheese,’” Ramirez recalled.
“They wouldn’t say it directly to me, but it would kind of hurt a little, just because I was one of those people who received the government cheese.”
Now, she said, she feels grateful for the opportunity to help others.
A high-energy runner who finished her first Chicago Marathon last year, Ramirez is always busy, according to Peck parent Yajaira Feregrino.
“It feels like she’s my friend, like she’s part of my family,” said Feregrino. “She’s always there (if a parent has a problem), and if she doesn’t have the answer, she goes and looks for it.”
Food distribution has been suspended this week for Thanksgiving, and with December approaching, temperatures are starting to drop. But Ramirez said she plans to keep giving out food at Peck for as long as supplies last.
“We were born and raised in Chicago,” she said of her team. “A little snow won’t bother us.”
nschoenberg@chicagotribune.com
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