Michigan food bank CEO says USDA cuts are "a real challenge"
In late March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it was canceling $4.3 million worth of shipments to food banks in Michigan.
According to Eileen Spring, president and CEO of Food Gatherers in Washtenaw County, the impact is significant.
"USDA food had been 30% of our total distribution," said Spring. "And to have it cut in half without a lot of notice – actually no notice – is a real challenge. And it was very valuable food."
For Food Gatherers, this means a loss of 1.5 million pounds of food, or 1.2 million meals, valued at $2.5 million. Spring said Food Gatherers is now turning to the county, the city and local philanthropists to fill in that gap.
Food Gatherers serves 60,000 people annually in Washtenaw County through 140 partner agencies, including the breakfast at St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Ann Arbor. The free breakfast program has been serving members of the community every day for more than four decades.
It relied heavily on the USDA food shipments delivered by Food Gatherers.
"USDA food is all the best food," said program director Sue Nishi. "It's the most nutritious and it's quite likely the most expensive. It's the meat, pork, chicken, ground beef, we get sausage sometimes, pork chops. It's some of the fresh produce, it's the dairy, so cheese, milk, eggs."
According to a new study by Feeding America Map the Meal Gap, one in seven residents in Washtenaw County do not have reliable access to nutritious food.
According to the state's ALICE report, more than 40% of families in Southeast Michigan have a hard time affording basic needs, including food, health care and housing.
"If we lose access to things like meat and dairy and good fresh produce at no cost to us, we're going to have to really evaluate what our menu looks like moving forward because we don't have money in our budget to buy the amount of food that we've been getting at no cost from Food Gatherers," said Nishi.
"This is the food that is really nutritious that I have to believe is improving the health of our guests, both the mental health and the physical health, and if we lose that, it's going to have a big negative impact on the folks that we serve here in this community."
