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| Mary Schlitt, Food Gatherers’ Chief Development Officer, showing the graph of protein and produce delivered in Washtenaw County this year. |
Food Gatherers, the Ann Arbor area food bank, has a goal of delivering nutritious food including produce and protein. As I have beenwriting this week, Food Gatherers collects surplus food and also buys food to supply its 150 partners. These partner organizations distribute the food through a variety of end-user programs for people in need. Most of the distribution is done through an ordering system; orders are collected from partner organizations, assembled and boxed at the warehouse, loaded onto the FG trucks, and delivered to the partners. Or partners pick up the orders.
A food pantry is also onsite at the Food Gatherers(FG)headquarters. Customers at this pantry are not end-recipients but are employees or volunteers at the partner organizations. With lists of foods that their recipients need and want, they visit the FG pantry, select the needed products, and take them back to their organization for use in hot-meal programs or distribution. Besides food, FG distributes personal care items and baby diapers to these organizations.
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| The food pantry at FG headquarters. |
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| Selecting foods: an employee of Avalon Housing. |
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| Low sodium soups and canned goods are among the most-wanted items for food drives. Other much-wanted foods include beans, rice, cereal, nut butter, and other low-sodium items such as canned fish, meat, and vegetables. |
For a list of Food Gatherers’ most wanted items:
I hope you will donate generously to Food Gatherers or to your local food bank, whether you give food or money!
