The Manna Food Project, serving Antrim, Charlevoix, and Emmet Counties, was honored by the Feeding America National Organization for its community building efforts.
According to an April 24 news release, The Manna Food Project was recently honored with a Network Celebration Award at the recent national conference in Atlanta, Georgia.
Feeding America is a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks and is the largest charity working to end hunger in the United States. Manna was one of six food banks recognized for excellence in community building.
The Manna Food Project, along with partner agencies, are seeing a considerable increase in the need for food assistance across the three-county service area that includes Antrim, Charlevoix, and Emmet Counties. To combat rising food insecurity, the Manna Food Project implemented a new home delivery program to apartment complexes to allow our neighbors to have access to healthy and nutritious food.
The delivery program started as mobile pantries at three fixed-income complexes in Petoskey, the highest-density city in our service area. Many people who needed food were homebound seniors or people with disabilities who couldn’t make it outside to the truck to get food. Many relied on neighbors to get food for them. Those who could make it to the truck often struggled to carry boxes of food that weighed over 40 pounds, plus bags of produce, frozen meat, and dairy products. We relied on volunteers to help people carry food back to their apartments and leaned on the complex managers to provide us with a list of homebound people they knew wouldn’t be able to come get food.
“After the first few mobiles, we knew we needed to make changes to how we were providing food,” said Carrie Klingelsmith, Executive Director at the Manna Food Project. Now, Manna provides a scheduled delivery service at the three housing complexes and brings food right to the door. “Our neighbors remain at the forefront of everything we do. When people don’t have an equal opportunity to access food resources, it is our job to pivot our approach to food access.”
The Manna Food Project constantly evaluates our service area and seeks out opportunities to increase food access. Manna is grateful to be recognized at the national level for the work that is being done in Northern Michigan. Programs like this are only possible with community support and Manna is incredibly grateful to all our donors, volunteers, and advocates that made this program a reality.
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