Food Gatherers says it’s in crisis, calls on Ann Arbor to help close $2.5M gap

ANN ARBOR, MI — The CEO of Ann Arbor nonprofit Food Gatherers has issued an urgent message, calling on city leaders to help deal with federal cuts for hunger relief efforts handed down by the Trump administration.

“We and other food banks throughout the nation will not be able to food drive our way out of this crisis,” Eileen Spring told City Council on Monday night, May 5, asking the city to consider allocating more resources to the local food safety net.

“We estimate it will cost us an additional $2.5 million to replace the loss of federal food,” she said.

9 takeaways as Ann Arbor’s Food Gatherers faces rising needs, funding challenges

Food Gatherers is advocating for restoration of federal resources, as well as seeking support from local government entities and private philanthropy, Spring said.

Ann Arbor officials so far haven’t allocated any additional funding to help close the gap, but City Council is expected to decide the city’s budget for the coming fiscal year on May 19. The city also has a $1 million contingency fund set aside to deal with the local impacts of the Trump agenda.

Food Gatherers is forced to do some grim scenario planning, Spring said, saying she sent an email to city officials about a week ago with a link to a survey asking for input on which local food programs to possibly scale back and which sectors to prioritize, whether it’s people who are unhoused and food insecure or children and military veterans.

“I ask that you help us avoid having to make these choices in the future,” she told city officials.

Spring said she was speaking on behalf of more than 140 community partner programs that rely on Food Gatherers for daily distribution of food in the form of free groceries and meals at shelters, affordable housing sites, food pantries and health clinics throughout county.

Their network provided about 9.9 million pounds of food to about 60,000 different people in fiscal year 2024, she said.

Counting every person in each household each time they got services, there were about 1 million total visits in fiscal year 2024 and 20% of the people served live in Ann Arbor, Spring said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been a reliable source of food and food purchasing grants for food banks like Food Gatherers over the years, but in March the nonprofit was informed half that food source was being abruptly cancelled.

“This type of USDA food was 15% of our total food distribution, the equivalent of more than 1.2 million meals,” she said. “This is highly desirable food — milk, cheese, eggs, pork, fruits and vegetables.”

The community also has benefited from a federal food purchasing grant that enabled Food Gatherers to source food from local farmers in a 200-mile radius, Spring said.

“This grant ends in September of this year and will not be renewed,” she said.

Annual funding Food Gatherers has grown to rely on from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s emergency food and shelter program also is paused, Spring said.

Food Gatherers has been dipping into reserves to purchase more food in order to maintain services to community members who rely on them, Spring said.

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