The voices of hunger

My name is Anita Willis, and I work at the United Way’s 2-1-1 call center.

Every day, I take calls from local residents in need of assistance. I talk with up to 100 people a day about things like after-school programs, senior care, and credit counseling.

But in the past year, I’ve had more calls than ever before about food.

The story is too familiar: people who have lost their job, lost their home, and don’t know where their next meal will come from — for themselves and for their children. Often they call late in the afternoon, after the pantries have closed or run out of food.

I hear it every day, but it still breaks my heart.

That’s why I’ve written an open letter to Congress, urging them to make child nutrition their top priority this summer. The Child Nutrition Act is set to expire on September 30th, so we have to get Congress to act fast.

Please take a moment to sign my open letter to Congress and urge them to feed our hungry children.

Of all the 211 calls I’ve answered, one particular woman has stuck with me to this day.

She was a new mother, her voice desperate. “I only have enough formula for four more days,” she told me. “I don’t know what I am going to do.”

Well I know what we need to do. We need to speak up for this new mother. We need to speak up for the 200,000 tri-county children living in poverty. We need to speak up for the 4 million households at risk of hunger.

Right now, Congress is considering two bills that would re-authorize the Child Nutrition Act and expand eligibility so programs like school breakfast and lunch can reach even more needy children.

Help us send Congress a clear message that we won’t tolerate any more delay on these critical bills:

http://www.liveunitedsem.org/openletter

Thanks for standing with me in the fight against hunger.

Sincerely,

Anita Willis
Information & Referral Specialist
United Way 2-1-1

Family Fair store’s grant to help pay for improvements

BY MELANIE D. SCOTT
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Original Story: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100529/NEWS05/5290332/Family-Fair-store-s-grant-to-help-pay-for-improvements&template=fullarticle

Eli Thomas hopes to expand the produce section, buy shopping carts with sensors to prevent theft and get rid of the metal barricades surrounding the entrance of the Family Fair Food Center he co-owns with his brothers-in-law on Detroit’s east side.

The changes to the small, full service grocery store at the corner of Chene and East Lafayette are to be funded through the Green Grocer Project, an initiative the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. started earlier this month.

The three-year project was created to combat the city’s “food desert,” a term used to describe pockets or neighborhoods in Detroit where fresh foods are not available.

The project is designed to capture some of the money Detroit residents spend in grocery stores outside the city, help existing grocers and attract new independent or chain grocers interested in doing business in the city.

The growth corporation estimates Detroiters spend $277 million to $340 million a year on groceries at stores outside the city.

“Residents don’t have to leave the city to buy safe, fresh food,” said Sarah Fleming, project manager of the Green Grocer Project. “There are more than 80 independent grocers who have very strong businesses in the city, so it’s a matter of perception.”

A total of $700,000 was allocated to the project, but the goal is to raise $32 million, Fleming said. The project is funded by the Kresge Foundation, LaSalle Bank (now Bank of America), Detroit Investment Fund and the City of Detroit.

The program is open to full service retail grocers in the city — those that sell produce, meat, dairy, baked goods and basic grocery items.

Family Fair is the first store chosen to receive funding, although Thomas, 61, does not know how much he’ll get.

The store, in a building that used to be a Farmer Jack, was chosen because it has been open for seven years and the owners recently renewed a multiyear lease.

“These guys are serious and seem to be committed to staying in the city,” Fleming said. “That’s what we’re looking for, not someone who disappears in a couple of years.”

Shoppers like Louis Hill, 59, of Detroit said the proposed changes at Family Fair are just want the store needs, especially the removal of the metal barricades.

“I come here two or three times a week, and I always have to wait to be let in,” said Hill, an amputee who relies on a motorized chair to get around.

The Michigan Grocers Association said the project is a win-win — for residents and for grocers who need support.

“I applaud Mayor (Dave) Bing for moving along with this because it is pretty positive,” said Michigan Grocers Association President and CEO Linda Gobler.

The United Way of Southeastern Michigan works with local agencies to help make fresh foods available to all residents. “I think roughly 70% of Detroiters spend their benefits outside of the city,” said Dona Ponepinto, vice president of Basic Needs and Financial Stability for United Way. “Anytime you have to leave your community to get food, it’s very telling.”

Contact MELANIE D. SCOTT: 313-222-6159 or mdscott@freepress.com

Lace up your running shoes for United Way

Originally posted in the May 2010 e-Newsletter

For the second year, United Way for Southeastern Michigan is a participating charity in this year’s Detroit Free Press/Flagstar Marathon on Oct. 17. Events include a 5K, relay, half and full marathon races.

Making United Way your charity partner for the race is a great way to get your friends and family involved in your training while supporting our work to end the food crisis in Southeast Michigan. Participants will be cheered on by United Way volunteers at spirit stations along the course and those runners who donate or raise $35 or more will receive a free Live United running jersey to wear on race day.

To donate to United Way or host a fundraiser in conjunction with your marathon training, follow these steps:

• Log on to www.freepmarathon.com
• Click on Registration Information
• Click on the registration link
• Follow the directions to select the event of your choice
• In the Participant Information section, fill in your personal information
• When you get to the Official Charity Partners section, select United Way for Southeastern Michigan from the drop down list.
• If you are making a donation, enter the amount of your donation in the corresponding box in the Charitable Donation section
• If you are doing a fundraiser, select United Way from the Please Designate a Personal Charity drop down list (located at the bottom of the Participant Information page).

If you’ve already registered for one of the marathon events, but still want to make a donation or host a fundraiser for United Way, contact Megan Bracket.

Food banks add sites, partners to meet growing demand

By Sherri Welch
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20100404/SUB01/304049983/1069#

Metro Detroit’s three largest emergency food distributors increased their collective distribution by 25 percent, or 8.8 million pounds of food, last year to help meet rising demand.

Now Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan, Ann Arbor-based Food Gatherers and Oak Park-based Forgotten Harvest are making moves to increase emergency food distribution by another 12 million pounds this year.

The three distributed 43.7 million pounds of food to pantries, shelters and soup kitchens serving people in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw and Livingston counties last year.

But “demand has not been met yet,” said Gerald Brisson, senior vice president of advancement at Gleaners.

A 2009 report commissioned by United Way for Southeastern Michigan identified a current gap of about 120 million pounds of food or meals in the tri-county (Wayne, Oakland, Macomb) area alone and projected demand would outpace supply by about 300 million meals in 2013, when one in four people living in the region won’t have enough food.

Gleaners

Detroit-based Gleaners is doing due diligence on what would be its sixth and largest distribution site to help increase capacity.

The 100,000-square-foot building in north Mt. Clemens formerly housed light industrial work and would be donated by its owner. It could include a client-choice pantry to give people in need of food a grocery store-like operation, along with other services such as job training.

Northern Macomb County, north of M-59 and up to New Haven “is a growing area of poverty,” Brisson said. “We definitely need more space, especially to maintain the level of volunteer activity that we need to sort and pack food” at the Detroit warehouse.

Gleaners had more than 25,000 volunteers last year, an increase of about 1,600 from the year before, Brisson said. It added eight employees last year, bringing its staff to 62 along with 10-15 interns to help it run food education and summer meal programs.

By adding a site in Macomb, Gleaners is able to shift some of its food distribution and volunteer activities to an area of growing demand, Brisson said.

Gleaners distributed 30.8 million pounds of food, or 24 million meals, in fiscal 2009 ending June 30, up from 25.4 million pounds of food the year before, Brisson said. The food bank increased its number of mobile food pantries, going into areas not traditionally served by an emergency food provider, to 79 last year from just 10 the year before.

Gleaners’ revenue increased in fiscal 2009 to $67.1 million from just over $41 million in 2008, with the addition of a $1 million Federal Emergency Management Agency grant, about $1 million in additional cash donations and a much greater percentage of higher-value donated food such as meat, Brisson said

The food bank has a goal to distribute at least 36 million pounds of food this year by securing more food from manufacturers and food drives. It’s also helping establish more summer youth meal programs and planning to hire a staff person to teach people how to apply for food stamps to decrease the need for emergency food.

“It takes a lot of stress off the emergency food system if people who should be getting food stamps do,” Brisson said.

Forgotten Harvest

Forgotten Harvest rescued 12.5 million pounds of food in fiscal 2009 ended June 30 from local grocers, caterers, restaurants, casinos and other organizations, up from 9.5 million pounds of food last year.

Executive Director Susan Goodell is projecting the food rescue will secure 19 million pounds during fiscal 2010.

The increased food is coming from new grocery partners including Costco, Meijer and new Walmart locations, increased food from the hydroponics industry in southern Ontario, local farmers and increased pickups from entertainment venues including the Palace of Auburn Hills, Joe Louis Arena, Comerica Park and The Henry Ford, she said.

Cash support — corporate, foundation and individual donations — is growing as well, Goodell said. The food rescue also received significant FEMA support this past year, helping bring its total revenue to $23.6 million from $17.8 million last year.

Additionally, Forgotten Harvest has increased its volunteer numbers by at least a third, to 1,000 people.

Forgotten Harvest has grown each year since 2001. The food rescue hired eight people this year, bringing its total to about 44 part-time and full-time employees.

Forgotten Harvest plans to expand its fleet of trucks from 21 to 25 by year’s end. It’s also planning a 10,000-square-foot addition to the 20,000-square-foot former Pep Boys site that it bought just over three years ago. The estimated $800,000 expansion should give Forgotten Harvest the ability to handle up to 60 million pounds of food, Goodell said.

In addition, the food rescue is stepping up its public-policy advocacy and actively seeking other agencies with similar missions to help get more food to the hungry, she said.

Managing such a high level of growth “is like a constant puzzle where we have to figure out how to attract the resources … and keep that all in balance,” Goodell said.

Food Gatherers

In spite of an 8 percent decrease in its total food and cash revenue, Ann Arbor-based Food Gatherers distributed 4.6 million pounds of food in fiscal 2009, up from 4.2 million pounds in 2008.

Food Gatherers ended 2009 with total revenue of $7.6 million, down from $8.3 million in fiscal 2008.

The amount the organization has distributed has increased 62 percent since 2005, said Executive Director Eileen Spring. But demand in the county grew by 138 percent during the same period, according to a Feeding America study.

Like Gleaners, Food Gatherers is beginning a program to get more eligible people signed up for food stamps, Spring said.

The organization is also rescuing more food, purchasing more and growing some of its of own at a new garden near its warehouse. The garden produced 21,000 pounds of collards, kale, cabbage, spinach, squash, tomatoes and carrots last year.

Food Gatherers last year launched a program to get churches to devote a part of their lawns to large community gardens that could help feed the hungry. Those gardens and donations from family gardens yielded another 21,798 pounds of produce last year.

Individuals have also stepped up to help in non-cash ways, Spring said.

Food Gatherers had 782 food drives last year, up from 340 the year before. And the number of volunteer hours rose by 14 percent to nearly 67,000 donated hours, accounting for more than two-thirds of all hours worked at the food rescue/bank.

Food Gatherers has set a target to distribute more nutritional food, such as protein, vegetables, fruit and bread rather than snacks.

“We need expanded freezer capacity,” Spring said. “When we built the building, we were doing 2 million pounds of food. Now we’re projecting 5 million (pounds).”

Sherri Welch: (313) 446-1694, swelch@crain.com

Metro Detroit pantries struggle to feed hungry

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100312/METRO03/3120398/1412/METRO03/Metro-Detroit-pantries-struggle-to-feed-hungry#ixzz0j0f87hVV

Catherine Jun / The Detroit News

Sterling Heights — Families across Metro Detroit, many facing hunger for the first time, are finding it difficult to navigate the limited hours and locations of the area’s food pantries.

Since Atheer Mansoor lost his job more than a year ago as a truck driver for a cement company, he drives five miles from Fraser to Sterling Heights each month to a food pantry. He takes home tomato sauce, vegetables and peanut butter — just enough free staples to keep his cupboards stocked until his monthly food stamps arrive.

The 57-year-old father says at times his car breaks down and he cannot make the trip.

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“Sometimes I stay home. If I have problems with my car, I have to leave it. I can’t fix it,” Mansoor said.

With widespread unemployment, hunger is creeping into new corners of southeastern Michigan, stressing a food assistance network that has until now mostly flowed from the suburbs into Detroit. With new pockets of hunger, food agencies and pantries are racing to fill the gaps, but finding the solutions are not simple.

“It’s a problem,” said Russ Russell, chief development officer of Forgotten Harvest, a food rescue agency based in Oak Park. “We know where there are pockets that are in need and are new.”

More than a third of neighborhoods in southeastern Michigan have limited access to a food pantry, according to a recent report by the United Way for Southeastern Michigan. Families have the farthest distances to travel to reach pantries in communities such as Wixom, Harrison Township and Southfield, the report said.

Riverwood Community Church in northwest Sterling Heights operates one of just a few pantries in that part of Macomb County.

Each month about 60 families leave with a carton of bread, rice, frozen meats and canned soup. That’s double the number two years ago.

“In this area here, there wasn’t much of a need,” said Mark Frasard, head deacon of the church’s ministry. “Now there is.”

In the more rural parts of the county, pantries are even fewer and far between, said Sue Figurski, coordinator at the Macomb Food Program. “Unfortunately, they have to drive for everything.”

The hours that food pantries stay open — often during regular business hours — also pose a challenge, especially to those who work and still need supplemental food help.

According to the United Way report, most food pantries in a section of Detroit operate Monday through Friday, and between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Food agencies say this is also common for suburban pantries.

“The more evening and weekend hours you have, the more you can serve working poor families,” said Gerry Brisson, vice president for development at Gleaners Community Food Bank.

Part of the problem, however, is that most pantries are run out of churches and by volunteers with their own limited schedules, he said. And operating hours often need to be scheduled around other weekend and evening activities at the church.

“It’s easier for most pantries (to operate) during the day when most people aren’t at church,” Brisson said.

But many churches try to accommodate individual pick-up requests after hours and on weekends.

About a year ago, Trinity Presbyterian Church began operating a one-day pantry on Saturdays in a parking lot at Haggerty and Ann Arbor Road in Plymouth Township. Eventually, it was relocated to the church, and a surprising number of families, 350 each month, turn out from Plymouth, Canton Township and Westland.

“We’re (too) far west to have a pantry right here in our church,” Ellie Schupra, outreach director, recalled thinking a year ago.

For working mothers like Margie Elrod, evening hours are essential.

The mother of three has become the sole breadwinner in her home since her husband lost his job at a plant nursery last fall.

“Now it’s just me,” said Elrod, who works as a retail manager in Canton Township. “I can’t miss work. I need the hours.”

After multiple calls to food pantries, she found one that was open one day a week at 6 p.m.: St. Dennis Parish in Royal Oak. With only one family car, Elrod drives there after work.

Like many food pantries, its hours are further limited because of its modest food supply. Last year, it served 2,064 households, a 60 percent increase from 2008.

Ron Woywood, who oversees the pantry, said the church doesn’t have enough food to operate the pantry for more than one hour a week.

This year, food banks are responding by ramping up “mobile” food pantries — one-day food distributions at parking lots or churches in the outer suburbs where pantries are scarce.

Forgotten Harvest now drives a refrigerated truck full of food to sections of Rochester and Royal Oak and West Bloomfield. Last year, Gleaners similarly distributed food from parking lots beyond Detroit, and plans to double the locations to 70 this year.

“It’s a good short-term solution,” Brisson said.

This has resulted in a much higher volume of food shipments to suburban and rural areas than in years past.

In 2009, Forgotten Harvest sent 840,000 pounds of food in 2009 to Macomb County, a 40 percent increase over the previous year. Similarly, Oakland County received 1 million pounds, an 85 percent increase from last. That is still far less than the 13 million pounds delivered to Wayne County and Detroit, but delivery to the suburbs is unprecedented.

“We’re getting out there, but there are still food deserts for those in need,” Russell said.

cjun@detnews.com (313) 222-2019

Metro Detroit pantries struggle to feed hungry

Catherine Jun / The Detroit News

Sterling Heights — Families across Metro Detroit, many facing hunger for the first time, are finding it difficult to navigate the limited hours and locations of the area’s food pantries.

Since Atheer Mansoor lost his job more than a year ago as a truck driver for a cement company, he drives five miles from Fraser to Sterling Heights each month to a food pantry. He takes home tomato sauce, vegetables and peanut butter — just enough free staples to keep his cupboards stocked until his monthly food stamps arrive.

The 57-year-old father says at times his car breaks down and he cannot make the trip.

“Sometimes I stay home. If I have problems with my car, I have to leave it. I can’t fix it,” Mansoor said.

With widespread unemployment, hunger is creeping into new corners of southeastern Michigan, stressing a food assistance network that has until now mostly flowed from the suburbs into Detroit. With new pockets of hunger, food agencies and pantries are racing to fill the gaps, but finding the solutions are not simple.

“It’s a problem,” said Russ Russell, chief development officer of Forgotten Harvest, a food rescue agency based in Oak Park. “We know where there are pockets that are in need and are new.”

More than a third of neighborhoods in southeastern Michigan have limited access to a food pantry, according to a recent report by the United Way for Southeastern Michigan. Families have the farthest distances to travel to reach pantries in communities such as Wixom, Harrison Township and Southfield, the report said.

Riverwood Community Church in northwest Sterling Heights operates one of just a few pantries in that part of Macomb County.

Each month about 60 families leave with a carton of bread, rice, frozen meats and canned soup. That’s double the number two years ago.

“In this area here, there wasn’t much of a need,” said Mark Frasard, head deacon of the church’s ministry. “Now there is.”

In the more rural parts of the county, pantries are even fewer and far between, said Sue Figurski, coordinator at the Macomb Food Program. “Unfortunately, they have to drive for everything.”

The hours that food pantries stay open — often during regular business hours — also pose a challenge, especially to those who work and still need supplemental food help.

According to the United Way report, most food pantries in a section of Detroit operate Monday through Friday, and between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Food agencies say this is also common for suburban pantries.

“The more evening and weekend hours you have, the more you can serve working poor families,” said Gerry Brisson, vice president for development at Gleaners Community Food Bank.

Part of the problem, however, is that most pantries are run out of churches and by volunteers with their own limited schedules, he said. And operating hours often need to be scheduled around other weekend and evening activities at the church.

“It’s easier for most pantries (to operate) during the day when most people aren’t at church,” Brisson said.

But many churches try to accommodate individual pick-up requests after hours and on weekends.

About a year ago, Trinity Presbyterian Church began operating a one-day pantry on Saturdays in a parking lot at Haggerty and Ann Arbor Road in Plymouth Township. Eventually, it was relocated to the church, and a surprising number of families, 350 each month, turn out from Plymouth, Canton Township and Westland.

“We’re (too) far west to have a pantry right here in our church,” Ellie Schupra, outreach director, recalled thinking a year ago.

For working mothers like Margie Elrod, evening hours are essential.

The mother of three has become the sole breadwinner in her home since her husband lost his job at a plant nursery last fall.

“Now it’s just me,” said Elrod, who works as a retail manager in Canton Township. “I can’t miss work. I need the hours.”

After multiple calls to food pantries, she found one that was open one day a week at 6 p.m.: St. Dennis Parish in Royal Oak. With only one family car, Elrod drives there after work.

Like many food pantries, its hours are further limited because of its modest food supply. Last year, it served 2,064 households, a 60 percent increase from 2008.

Ron Woywood, who oversees the pantry, said the church doesn’t have enough food to operate the pantry for more than one hour a week.

This year, food banks are responding by ramping up “mobile” food pantries — one-day food distributions at parking lots or churches in the outer suburbs where pantries are scarce.

Forgotten Harvest now drives a refrigerated truck full of food to sections of Rochester and Royal Oak and West Bloomfield. Last year, Gleaners similarly distributed food from parking lots beyond Detroit, and plans to double the locations to 70 this year.

“It’s a good short-term solution,” Brisson said.

This has resulted in a much higher volume of food shipments to suburban and rural areas than in years past.

In 2009, Forgotten Harvest sent 840,000 pounds of food in 2009 to Macomb County, a 40 percent increase over the previous year. Similarly, Oakland County received 1 million pounds, an 85 percent increase from last. That is still far less than the 13 million pounds delivered to Wayne County and Detroit, but delivery to the suburbs is unprecedented.

“We’re getting out there, but there are still food deserts for those in need,” Russell said.

cjun@detnews.com (313) 222-2019

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100312/METRO03/3120398/Metro-Detroit-pantries-struggle-to-feed-hungry#ixzz0hyy3bGp6

Monroe on a Budget: Metro Detroit pantries struggle to feed hungry

From the Monroe On a Budget blog:

The Detroit Free Press has this report today: Metro Detroit pantries struggle to feed hungry.

This isn’t the typical “demand is going up” story about Michigan food pantries. The focus of this article is on the gaps in locations and convenient times for southeast Michigan families who are new to the social safety net.

A snippet:

More than a third of neighborhoods in southeastern Michigan have limited access to a food pantry, according to a recent report by the United Way for Southeastern Michigan. Families have the farthest distances to travel to reach pantries in communities such as Wixom, Harrison Township and Southfield, the report said. …

The hours that food pantries stay open — often during regular business hours — also pose a challenge, especially to those who work and still need supplemental food help.

Click here to continue reading.

Food navigator program part of larger effort to close hunger gap

By Sherri Welch
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20100228/SUB01/302289992

United Way for Southeastern Michigan‘s food navigator program is part of a three-pronged approach to meet the rising need for food in a depressed economy.

United Way is using a report completed last summer by Minneapolis-based McKinsey & Co. as a guide.

The report, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Kresge Foundation, projects that by 2013 one in four people living in Southeast Michigan won’t have enough food. It also identified a current gap of about 120 million meals and projected demand would outpace supply by about 300 million meals by 2013.

Based on the report’s recommendations, United Way is focused on three goals:

• Increasing the number of people registered for public benefits.
• Increasing the capacity of the local nonprofit food distribution system.
• Advocating policy changes that will make more people eligible for benefits.

Currently, about half of the emergency food coming into the region is through public programs such as free lunches, food stamps and the Women Infants and Children program. Friends and relatives of those in need contribute another quarter of emergency food assistance.

Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan and Oak Park-based Forgotten Harvest distribute another 6 percent of the total emergency food coming into the region — about 45 million pounds per year at last count.

“Clearly our strategies are around the best ways to eliminate the gap,” said United Way President and CEO Michael Brennan.

Bank of America recently made a $400,000 grant to United Way to help fund its efforts to improve access to benefits.

The Michigan Association of United Ways is developing a Web site — supported with a $275,000 grant from the DTE Foundation — to serve as a portal for eligible Michigan residents to apply for benefits and reduce the amount of public benefits currently left on the table, Brennan said.

Aligning with another study recommendation, United Way last year designated $600,000 over three years to develop additional client choice pantries, which look and operate much the same as a grocery store and offer longer hours of operation.

United Way also is overseeing grants targeted to the pantry network for purchasing food and improving access to it, Brennan said.

The agency is also chairing a local board that’s overseeing more than $2 million in federal funds from the Emergency Food and Shelter Program to support local efforts to feed and house needy people.

Sherri Welch: (313) 446-1694, swelch@crain.com

United Way plans program to help schools feed more kids

By Sherri Welch
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20100228/SUB01/302289994

The United Way for Southeastern Michigan plans to launch a pilot program in March to embed “food navigators” in school districts in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties to make free and reduced-cost meals more accessible to needy students.

The program also hopes to increase the number of students registering for existing programs.

The state of Michigan requires districts with needy students to offer free and reduced-cost lunch programs and to offer breakfast programs if more than 20 percent of students enrolled qualify for the programs.

But no such mandate exists for making after-school snacks, suppers and summer meals available to students, said Bill Sullivan, director of the 2-1-1 health and human services hot line for United Way.

Offering other free meals “is at the will of the school or district. Schools are relying on their own assessment of need and their capacity to provide those programs,” he said.

Parents often are unaware of free meal programs, and for some, illiteracy prevents them from filling out applications to enroll their children in the programs.

Union rules and unwillingness among some administrators and teachers to offer free meal programs at the start of the school day, rather than before it, also presents challenges at some schools, Sullivan said.

“Schools ask where they would get money to staff the (free) meals, keep the lights on, or bus the students home,” he said.

The money to develop and run free meal programs at schools is reimbursable from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he said.

“But throwing money at the problem isn’t the answer. I think it’s about introducing new ways of (schools) doing business,” Sullivan said.

Enter the food navigators.

United Way plans to hire four people to serve as food navigators by March and another six by the end of the year, Sullivan said. The navigators will help set up free meal programs at schools that express readiness to put them in place, Sullivan said.

They also will be called on to help willing schools and districts shift their breakfasts to the beginning of the school day, rather than before it, so more children get fed.

“We want to help so that kids who are hungry can be fed. We think the food navigators will help schools achieve this, and by doing so … permanently (change) the system.”About 290,000 children in the tri-county area are eligible and most are receiving free lunch, Sullivan said. But less than a third of them are getting free breakfast.

Research shows that offering breakfast to all students in low-income districts at the beginning of school day decreases tardiness and absenteeism and improves performance, said Madeleine Levin, senior policy analyst at the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit working with United Way.

According to FRAC, 81.5 percent of schools in Michigan provide a breakfast program.

“But the problem is it’s harder for kids to participate in breakfast than in lunch because … the buses would have to get there on time,” Levin said.

There are also other barriers to participation, she said.

“Kids that walk to school in Detroit may want to hang out in the school yard with their friends rather than eating breakfast…What we have been promoting with United Way in Southeastern Michigan is for schools to establish that breakfast program at the beginning of class,” for all students, Levin said.

The work is fraught with issues, Levin said.

“Any time you make a change in a school building, there’s going to be a little resistance; you’re going to have to change the way people do their jobs, such as janitors and the cafeteria folks.

“It takes a little bit of getting used to, but in the end everyone thinks the effort is worth it because kids benefit so much,” Levin said.

United Way’s food navigator approach is laudable, she said.

“The schools really need help in these tight times. This is a wonderful public-private partnership.”

FRAC is also working with United Way to encourage more schools in low-income areas offering after-school snacks, supper and summer meal programs.

“There are other organizations like health departments and YMCA and YWCA that can do the programs in the summer with (fewer) hurdles.”

Sherri Welch: (313) 446-1694, swelch@crain.com

Yes He Can: ‘One Can A Week’ Program Inspires Imitators

First Posted: 02-15-10 06:00 PM | Updated: 02-15-10 06:20 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/15/yes-he-can-one-can-a-week_n_462827.html

Peter Norback took Barack Obama’s campaign talk of hope and change to heart. He said it inspired him to launch a campaign to get his neighbors in Tucson, Ariz. to contribute just “one can a week” to feed the hungry.

“When President Obama got elected there was an attitude change,” Norback told HuffPost. “When a sensitive guy came along and said we should be responsible human beings, that really hit a note in everybody and all my neighbors said, ‘Yeah, we should do something.'”

While hope has turned to cynicism for many, Norback has kept the faith. Every Sunday since early 2009, he’s spent four hours collecting cans and other goods from his neighbors. He delivers the payload to the Community Food Bank in Tucson. In 2009, he delivered more than 9,000 pounds of food.

“Some weeks people forgot, but he never forgot,” said Community Food Bank development officer Pauline Hechler. “He has shown them he is going to be there week after week, so they do their part. They don’t want to let him down.”

Hechler said demand for food in Tucson had increased 40 percent over the past year. “It’s unbelievable,” she said. The food bank distributes enough food for 48,000 meals a day.

Norback documents his work in a weekly email and blog post. Last week brought the first rainy Sunday in the program’s 57 weeks, and Norback wondered if everyone would still participate. They did.

“It just really, really surprised me,” said Norback, a 67-year-old computer teacher. “It showed me that I’m going to keep on pressing on. It is affecting people, it’s getting to them…Nobody called anybody. That means that I have to really be responsible. If you’re really responsible, the citizens will follow you.”

People are not only following Norback, they’re imitating him in other cities.

“Peter’s One Can A Week program was our inspiration when my son began a
weekly food collection for the veterans in our community,” wrote Carol Reed of Wake Forest, N.C. in an email to HuffPost. “We stumbled across his blog on the Internet, and being former Tucsonans, it caught our eye. I wrote to Peter who sent all his materials which we adapted for what we are doing. Basically, every Sunday my son collects non-perishables from our neighborhood of about 65 homes. He started in late August, and has collected over 800 pounds of food so far. He delivers it to the American Legion Post where the veterans who are in need of assistance can come to receive it.”

For anyone interested in starting a One Can A Week program, Norback’s got a starter kit on his site. The United Way of Southeastern Michigan adapted the guide and is promoting the concept as well.

“Imagine if every household in your neighborhood donated one can of food, every week, to your local food pantry,” says a message on the United Way’s site. “Would anything change? Would there be less hunger in metro Detroit? If you look at the One Can-a-Week program created by one neighborhood in Tucson, Arizona, the answer is yes.”

HuffPost readers: Is there a One Can A Week program in your neighborhood? Are you starting one? Tell us about it — email arthur@huffingtonpost.com.