It’s always a great thing to see nonprofits making a difference in the community. Forgotten Harvest, a 501(c)3 organization that began in 1990 to fight hunger and waste, has proven to be a leader in reaching society for the greater good.
Hunger is considered by many in the U.S. to be the inability to obtain sufficient food for their households. According to Forgotten Harvest, “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 five children lives in poverty. That’s about 500,000 people in the tri-county area who are suffering from poverty.
Forgotten Harvest’s mission is to relieve hunger in metro Detroit through rescuing surplus, prepared and perishable food and donating it to emergency food providers, according to the organization’s Web site.
In one year alone, Forgotten Harvest rescued 19.4 million pounds of food from grocery stores, restaurants, caterers, dairies, farmers, wholesale food distributors and other sources. That food was then delivered free of charge to emergency food providers and was served to diverse individuals and families of the community.
Each month, the organization transports 1,600,000 pounds of rescued food on average. Forgotten Harvest has more than 455 food donors and covers all of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties – that’s 2,000 square miles per day.
Forgotten Harvest is funded by grants, individual and corporate contributions, religious organizations, service groups and fundraising events. Donations are tax-deductible and contributions are eligible for the Michigan tax credit.
Jennifer Griffin, Contributing Writer and Public Relations, GreeningDetroit.com
Jennifer is pursuing a degree in Journalism and English from Wayne State University, and she is also a Contributing Writer for The South End.