Food banks are at the center of hunger-relief efforts in their service areas. They need the capacity to store large food donations so that food pantries and meal programs don’t have to. Partnership with a food bank enables local hunger-relief agencies to access manageable quantities of food to serve their neighbors in need.
Up until late last year, Feeding America West Michigan’s Southwest branch had only a very small freezer that couldn’t store much food. Without enough freezer space, it’s tough to run a food bank. This meant Rich, the branch manager, had to regularly rely on shipments from our main warehouse to refill the freezer and often had to turn down local donations of frozen food.
Kind support from our national organization changed this. At the end of last year, they provided a new, larger freezer for the branch.
“Now I can store a lot more,” Rich said.
The larger freezer is good news for our partner pantries and meal programs in Van Buren, Cass and Berrien counties.
“The availability of more frozen items will help us in stocking our proteins,” said Jan Buckman, pantry coordinator at the Decatur Food Pantry.
“I have noticed that the options for frozen items have increased in variety,” said Becky Peters, Vice President of ACTION Ministries Center. “I like having the option to choose different frozen items, particularly frozen meat options. We like giving our clients items that they can create many different meals with and now those options are growing and changing sometimes on a weekly basis. I think our clients enjoy getting those different items and trying new meals. The Southwest branch’s new freezer has been a great improvement during a challenging and stressful time.”
Feeding America West Michigan always appreciates support from our national organization as we work hard to end hunger in our service area.