Ears of corn hang heavy on a tall stalk in the morning sun on a farm outside of Fenton, about 60 miles northwest of Detroit. Soon, they will be plucked by volunteers, stored for a few days in a refrigerated truck on site, and then on their way to the metro Detroit warehouse of Forgotten Harvest.
From there, they will be included with a box of nutritious food for a needy and deserving family, distributed at one of 200 food programs supported by the Oak Park charity.
This year, Forgotten Harvest expects to get about 530,000 pounds of corn, cabbage, lettuce, carrots, chili peppers, collard greens, eggplant, potatoes, and other vegetables from its 95-acre farm.
That makes them part of a different kind of “farm-to-table” story – but it’s only a taste of what Forgotten Harvest does.
In all, the organization expects to distribute over 42 million pounds of food this year – the equivalent of more than 35 million meals – most of it food that would otherwise have gone into landfills.
The surplus packaged food is “rescued” from nearly 580 food businesses, from big chains like Kroger, Whole Foods, Meijer and Trader Joe’s to smaller retailers. About 10 million pounds comes from restaurants like Panera and Starbucks, plus caterers, bakeries and others, all gathered by “Harvest Heroes” who use their own cars and trucks to collect it.
The enterprise really got started in 1990 after a suburban woman with a Jeep decided to do something about the travesty of perfectly good food being thrown away while families went without meals.
Now, Forgotten Harvest is one of the largest food rescue operations in the country. Among those helped are senior citizens on fixed incomes and those struggling because of the pandemic economy.
Besides its partners at mobile sites and traditional food pantries, shelters and soup kitchens, Forgotten Harvest also supplies pre-packaged meals to children who might not otherwise get something nutritious to eat.
The supervisor of the children’s food program is Marguerite Kaiser, a Grosse Pointe Woods resident who drives daily to the charity’s brand new 77,000-square-foot warehouse on Eight Mile Road in Oak Park. The new facility doubled the space the charity had to collect, store and package food.
Kaiser’s work concentrates on kids in suburbs like Sterling Heights, Flat Rock and Westland, places where you wouldn’t think kids go hungry. During summers when school is out and school meals aren’t available, the program feeds 75,000 kids. When school’s in session, they provide packaged meals to even more.
“It’s been an eye-opening experience for me, the things people take for granted, and how grateful our kids are,” said Kaiser, recalling one little boy who’d never seen a hard-boiled egg before.
The work is made possible by generous donors and 15,000 volunteers a year who want to help the hungry. More than 1,000 donors and volunteers are from the Grosse Pointes. Among them have been students from Grosse Pointe’s three high schools. And in September, the monthly hunger offering from Grosse Pointe Memorial Church will go to Forgotten Harvest.
“We can’t do what we do without our volunteers and donors; it’s a collaborative effort,” said Tim Hudson, the organization’s chief development officer.
And it couldn’t happen without those at the farm, the warehouse, those who drive the fleet of 50 donated trucks to food sites – and all of those who want to help their neighbors.
Reflecting on it all is Dr. Nancy Fishman, who started it all those years ago in her Jeep Cherokee.
“As long as the need exists, we will be there,” she said. “No one will be forgotten.”