Barack Obama joins volunteers at Chicago food bank

Volunteers at a Chicago food bank were joined by an unexpected guest to help them prepare Thanksgiving food parcels – former president Barack Obama.

The Greater Chicago Food Depository distributes free groceries to the city’s neediest families all year round, including special Thanksgiving meal packages to mark America’s national holiday, which falls today.

The organisation’s volunteers were working to prepare the holiday food parcels on Tuesday when the former president “arrived with bags of donated food and donned latex gloves to work side by side with volunteers”, CNN reports.

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During his stint, Obama chatted with fellow workers and “helped fill bags of potatoes”, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

Mobbed by starstruck volunteers, the ex-commander in chief “dished out hugs and handshakes” as well as food, says ABC, but otherwise kept a low-profile in jeans and a baseball cap.

Obama, who began his political career in Chicago, was back in the city for the annual conference of the Obama Foundation, a philanthropic organisation he founded with his wife, Michelle, after leaving the White House.

After the Obama Foundation shared a photo of the surprise appearance on its Twitter account, the former president retweeted the image with his own holiday message.

“I am grateful for the next generation of leaders – the young people who are tolerant, creative, idealistic and doing the work to create the world as it should be. Who understand that hope requires action,” he wrote. “From the Obama family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving.”