In Champaign County, a family of four can spend an estimated $4,000 a month for basic expenses such as housing, food and childcare, according to calculations by the Social IMPACT Research Center.

RANTOUL-- At Broadmeadow Intermediate Grade Level Center in Rantoul, third graders quietly file through the cafeteria line and pick up a hot lunch of turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, corn and fruited gelatin. Eight out of every 10 children waiting in the lunchroom line this year are eligible for free or reduced lunch.

A program that sends backpacks full of food home with needy schoolchildren every weekend will expand to a fifth Champaign County site this fall.

 The Urbana Rotary Club has pledged $22,500 over the next three years to support the Eastern Illinois Foodbank´s BackPack Program at Prairie Elementary School in Urbana.

 The program combats hunger by providing weekend groceries for children, distributed in backpacks on Friday afternoons to ensure students return to school on Mondays fed and ready to learn.

After a day of wiping tables and sweeping french fries off the floor of McDonald´s, Kelly Gaddis limps home to the Courtesy Motel on North Vine Street in Urbana.

Gaddis, 53, cannot afford to buy a car or lease an apartment on the $8 an hour he earns as a lobby attendant at McDonald´s. He and his wife, who also works at the restaurant, rent a motel room by the week within walking distance of work.

Could a local branch of Grameen Bank work here in Champaign-Urbana?

Grameen America, the microfinancing organization for the poor, announced it has entered into discussions with Champaign developer Peter Fox about establishing a branch of Grameen Bank in East Central Illinois.

\Among the first steps would be conducting a study that would take a look at the population within a two-hour drive of Champaign-Urbana, including the area’s demographics and its recent immigrant population, said Grameen America President Vidar Jorgensen.

A team of Grameen employees, who had a hand in starting the New York City branch and most recently the Omaha, Neb., branch, will be involved, he said.

“Not credit-worthy.”

That is what the local bankers told Muhammad Yunus when he met with them in Bangladesh over 30 years ago to ask them why they would not loan to the poor in the village of Jobra.

At the time, he was a young economics professor, recently returned to his home country after earning a doctorate and teaching in the United States.

He sought the help of traditional banks because he wanted to help the village’s poor find an alternative to local loan sharks, street lenders who not only charged high interest rates, but also attached stipulations to the loans such as telling merchants what prices to charge for their goods or demanding that he or she sell all the product to the loan shark.

At the end of the Eastern Illinois Foodbank’s 2008 fiscal year, it was serving approximately 33,000 people. By the end of 2009, it was up to 43,000.

The food bank distributes food to 14 counties, including Champaign County. As more people have been using the services available, the places that provide those services need more resources to keep up.

The Safe Haven community began late in the spring of 2009 when a small group of homeless people began pitching tents in a backyard near the Catholic Worker House in Champaign.

The organizers were seeking a sense of safety and community in a group, supporters said.