Peoria Promise Academy offering food boxes for families hit by the pandemic

PEORIA Ill.- Peoria’s Promise Academy is helping those hit by the COVID-19 pandemic by offering food boxes to anyone in the community that needs one.

Promise Academy handed out the food boxes to families Tuesday night and will continue to hand out boxes Wednesday.

Bishop Timothy Criss, the senior pastor at Promise Academy, says the food boxes come from a donation by the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA is helping faith-based organizations across the country and Bishop Criss was fortunate enough to add Peoria to that list.

Bishop Criss says this is the third shipment the church has received, totaling in over 4,500 boxes of food. The boxes weigh 40 pounds and are filled with milk, perishable items, fruits and vegetables and other healthy options.

Bishop Criss says he’s proud to not only help those hit by the pandemic, but to help families in the food desert that exist in Peoria. “Many of us, we are in the heart of everything, we see what happens in our communities sometimes first hand. This effort has reverberated around the nation. I asked to be a part of it, to have Peoria included. And it’s been a very wonderful set of events that caused us to be a part of the list.”

Promise Academy is offering food boxes until 9 p.m. tonight at the church located at 919 S. Matthew Street. The church will open back up on Wednesday morning at 8 a.m. to continue offering food boxes to families in need.