(WXYZ) — Forgotten Harvest has partnered with several food pantries across Southeast Michigan to feed hungry families, including Nexus Detroit.
Every Wednesday, folks line up outside the Mount Vernon Missionary Baptist Church in Detroit, waiting their turn to wheel away a cart full of nutritious food.
One in six people in metro Detroit face hunger or food insecurity at some point in their life. That's why WXYZ has partnered with Forgotten Harvest to raise money for metro Detroit's largest food rescue organization.
RELATED: DONATE TO FORGOTTEN HARVEST
Forgotten Harvest has a fleet of 39 trucks on the road five days a week to pick up food from over 520 food donors. Volunteers then clean and repack the food into family-sized portions, and distribute it to families in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. Last year alone, Forgotten Harvest was able to rescue and distribute over 51 million pounds of food.
From milk to fruits and vegetables, as well as canned food items, 75-year-old Ricardo Rakin is extremely grateful.
"Sometimes it's not for us, it's also for people who live on our street, they can't get out of the house, so we take it and give it away," Rakin said.
Nexus Detroit’s Herb Alexander says all the food that comes from Forgotten Harvest gets loaded onto the carts. Meanwhile, folks in need sign up and wheel away a load full of nutritious food. 02
"We get a lot of people that come the next week, the week after or we see in the community. That reminds us like, wow I was down to my last 20 bucks," Alexander said.
He also said currently, the nonprofit feeds up to 800 households per week. 02
"We started this when the housing market crashed. We were boarding houses and children were asking for food. And it just grew from there, it went from a half a truck to a full load of a truck over the years," he said.
Every cart that gets wheeled out of here is feeding a unique story. Some say they gonna share some of these food items with their elderly neighbors, while others are taking it for their young kids and the rest are just grateful because they haven’t had food for days.
One retiree named Cathy says food pantries like these are a lifeline for many. 03:22
"If this food bank program wasn’t there, what would people do?" she asked. I"t would be a hardship for many people. You would find some people stealing at grocery stores trying to feed their families."
There are over 200 food pantry locations across southeast Michigan.
