Nearly one in five individuals face hunger in metro Detroit. FEED and Shinola teams collaborated to create a a limited run of tote bags, with proceeds benefiting Forgotten Harvest — the city’s only food rescue organization. With every purchase made, 100 meals will be provided to children and families in need.
We sat down with Rebecca Gade–Sawicki, Forgotten Harvest Director of Corporate Relations, to hear what it’s like to run America’s largest and most efficient food rescue organization.
Shinola will celebrate the launch of this limited collection on June 25 at the Washington DC Shinola store Block Party from 3-8PM and at the Shinola x Fancy pop-up at Gurney’s Montauk Resort from June 23-26.
Purchase the bags at Shinola stores in Detroit, DC and NY or find them online, here.
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View the tote bags, here.
The donations raised through the sales of the FEED + Shinola Tote are going to help the families you serve through Forgotten Harvest. Help us understand the context of food insecurity in Detroit. Are there any statistics you can share about the populations you help?
As metro Detroit’s only food rescue organization, Forgotten Harvest is dedicated to relieving hunger in metro Detroit and preventing nutritious food waste. Established in 1990, Forgotten Harvest rescued surplus fresh food last year — the equivalent of nearly 41 million meals — from 800 donor sites including wholesale distributors, farmers, dairies, restaurants and 267 grocery stores. This perfectly good food is delivered at no charge to 257 food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and mobile pantries across metro Detroit.
When people in the U.S. speak of hunger, they define hunger (“food insecurity”) as an inability to obtain sufficient food for their households. People skip meals, cut back on the quality or quantity of meals, and may potentially suffer malnutrition over time. In Macomb, Oakland and Wayne Counties, one in four children (24.8%) lives in poverty. In the tri-county area, 644,000+ people, including 217,000+ children, live in poverty.
In the City of Detroit, over 57% of children under age 18 live in poverty. Using poverty rates as a proxy for hunger, over 1 in 2 children in the City of Detroit are at risk of hunger. Nearly four million (3.9) households in Michigan live at risk of hunger.
Handling the issue of hunger and feeding people has nothing to do with not having enough food – in the U.S. alone, approximately 70 billion lbs. of food is wasted annually. We believe it’s a logistical challenge to find these sources and rescue that food in a timely manner and deliver it to those in need.
How many families do you serve each year? Approximately, how many of those families have children?
Standing in a food line can be a very humiliating experience for many – because of that we do not collect information or count heads. We do not want to create any barriers to stop people from feeding themselves or their children. We estimate that we help thousands of families and hundreds of thousands of people in metro Detroit.
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One of the 34 Forgotten Harvest trucks.
What does a day at Forgotten Harvest look like?
Our drivers generally hit the road around 6 – 7 a.m. They have a set route of pickups in the morning, which can include Kroger stores, restaurants, Costco, farms and many other food distributers/stores. In the afternoon they turnaround and deliver the food they picked up to several different agencies. These can be children’s organizations, soup kitchens, churches, etc. We have a fleet of 34 trucks that are on the road six days a week and rescue food from partners in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties.
Back at our warehouse, we have volunteer groups as large as 50 (two shifts a day) repacking food like vegetables, dairy products, prepared foods and much more. This food is packed into family sized portions, which is distributed at our mobile pantries. Mobile pantries are set up like famer’s markets. We take a semi-truck load of food, anywhere from 10,000 – 60,000 lbs., and set up so families can come through and pick out what they like and will utilize. We have 69 mobile pantries that serve anywhere from 60 – 300 pus families.
We also have a farm out in Fenton which is in operation from spring to late fall. The farm was started as a way to increase the nutritional mix of food we are providing to families. At the farm we are growing kale, collards, squash, broccoli, navy beans, zucchini and corn. Volunteers are out on the farm all season helping to plant vegetables, harvest and keep the farm running. In the 2015 growing season, FH Farm grew over 880,000 pounds of nutritious vegetables, selected for their high nutritive values, with the support of 5 staff and about 2,000 volunteers.
How has Detroit’s recent comeback affected those hungry in metro Detroit, if at all? Have you noticed any positive changes since downtown has slowly come back to life?
The positive developments in employment, entrepreneurship, housing, infrastructure, building construction, recreation, entertainment, and many other aspects of economic growth in downtown Detroit are thrilling and serve as catalysts for further positive economic growth.
Unfortunately, Forgotten Harvest has not seen any reduction in the demand from its partner agencies across Metro Detroit for emergency food to serve people facing food insecurity.
We serve people who live below the federal poverty threshold and people who work but do not earn enough to meet their basic living needs. Since people in our region work in a variety of jobs and in many different locations, the positive economic growth that is occurring in downtown Detroit is a reflection of positive developments across Metro Detroit. As employment expands in the region, more people are finding jobs – a positive development for all.
Learn more about Forgotten Harvest, here.