Forgotten Harvest is planning to ramp up its grocery store-style and drive through food distributions across metro Detroit.
Since the holidays, the Oak Park-based food rescue organization launched three food distribution sites and will open two more next week. As many as 20 new programs are in the works. The nonprofit is expanding its services to areas where they say the need is highest but where there aren’t enough resources for food assistance.
“There’s a lot of families all across the nation, but particularly here in metro Detroit, that are struggling to make ends meet, and they’re making choices between whether to put food on their table or to refill their prescription, or to pay for the copay for their doctor’s appointment. We want to take those worries away,” said Kelli Kaschimer, director of client services at Forgotten Harvest.
There’s already demand at the newly launched sites.
Forgotten Harvest served 180 households on the day it launched a food distribution site in Washington in Macomb County earlier this month. That same day in Detroit at a new spot, the nonprofit distributed food to 160 families and has increased the amount of food going there because it’s a popular location.
Kaschimer said there are “pockets of need,” and Forgotten Harvest is looking to expand to Romulus and south and western Wayne County along with northern Macomb County.
Pantries and nonprofits have reported high levels of need that was only expected to grow in the winter. Forgotten Harvest projected a 15% increase year-over-year, for at least the next three years, in the number of households the organization expects to serve. One in seven people in Michigan face food insecurity, including about 378,000 children, according to 2022 data from the nonprofit Feeding America, a network of food banks and pantries.
Need has not subsided since the pandemic, Kaschimer said. In fact, Forgotten Harvest is serving more people now than it did at the height of the health crisis, and “that need not only has not decreased, it continues to climb up,” she said.
Forgotten Harvest partners with churches, community organizations, schools, shelters and soup kitchens to distribute food. The following locations recently opened as part of the recent expansion:
- Stoney Church mobile pantry: 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Wednesdays at 11711 26 Mile Road in Washington. Mobile pantries are drive through or walk up distribution sites and do not require an appointment.
- Jalen Rose Leadership Academy mobile pantry: 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Wednesdays at 15000 Trojan Street in Detroit. No appointment is needed.
These sites will open next week:
- ACCESS mobile community choice market: 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 2651 Saulino Court in Dearborn. Households must make an appointment by calling 248-268-7756.
- Lift Up a Child mobile pantry: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on the first and third Thursdays of the month at the Greater St. Paul Baptist Church at 15325 Gratiot Avenue in Detroit. No appointment is needed.
For information about resources for food assistance, call 211 or go to https://mi211.org/. Go to https://pantrynet.org/ and www.forgottenharvest.org/find-food/ to search for pantries.
Contact Nushrat Rahman: [email protected]. Follow her on X: @NushratR.
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