COMSTOCK PARK, Mich., March 25, 2020 — Newberry native Mary Archambeau will represent the Upper Peninsula as Feeding America West Michigan’s newest board member. Archambeau has fought hunger in Luce County for 23 years and has volunteered in the Newberry community for more than 40.
Archambeau is director of the Luce County LINK, Newberry’s community resource center, which offers an emergency food pantry and Mobile Food Pantries for the community, as well as Meet Up and Eat Up meals for kids throughout the summer. All three resources are made possible by the organization’s partnership with the food bank, so Archambeau understands how Feeding America West Michigan functions.
The rurality of the U.P. creates a different environment and, as a result, a unique set of needs. Archambeau is eager to represent these needs on the board.
“I just want to make sure that the UP is heard,” she said. “We are so different. We are so rural. Things that work down here won’t work up there.”
Archambeau knows what it’s like to face hunger, and resonates with the neighbors she serves. At the LINK and at home, she refuses to let anyone go hungry.
“There’s nothing I’ve got that they can’t have,” she said.
By joining Feeding America West Michigan’s board, she hopes to make an even bigger impact in her region.
“We are excited to have Mary’s perspective on the board,” said the food bank’s President and CEO Kenneth Estelle. “Her many years fighting hunger first-hand in the U.P. will be a valuable asset.”
About Feeding America West Michigan
Serving local families in need since 1981, Feeding America West Michigan reclaims safe surplus food from farmers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers. That food is distributed through a network of more than 800 food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and other hunger-relief agencies in 40 of Michigan’s 83 counties from the Indiana border through the Upper Peninsula. For more information, visit FeedWM.org or call 616-784-3250.
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