By Mike Kruzman / news@whmi.com

With one week left in their annual holiday campaign, Gleaners Community Food Bank continues to match donations while offering other meal assistance to families-in-need.

Yesterday, Gleaners crossed over $13,000 in donations for their 12 Days of Gleaners campaign with the event still running until next Saturday. That’s without matching dollars yet, that have been pledged by the Ford Fund. Every $20 raised this year will feed a family of four for the holidays. On top of that, Bob Maxey Ford of Howell is donating $20 that will be matched for everyone who comes in and takes a test drive during the campaign.

Bridget Brown, Director of Food Secure Livingston, said there’s been an increased need this year, with nearly every appointment slot at Gleaners full. They’re considering opening new time slots and are asking for everyone’s help to be sure that they can provide holiday meals to all who need them. Brown pointed out a pair of other programs outside their Shared Harvest work that people can take advantage of.

One is the Fresh Market, at the Door Road location in Genoa Township. Brown said the concept there is to increase access and frequency to nutritious foods that might cost a little less than other items, like canned goods. Once open only Wednesday evenings from 5 to 7, the Fresh Market is now open an additional 3 hours, from 10am to 1pm. The extra hours have given an opportunity to roughly 70 additional families each week who can shop for fresh food including eggs, milk, and cheese.

Gleaners also continues to run their COVID Response Mobile Pantry. The focus of the mobile pantry is to deliver meals to families in school districts that may have unmet needs due to fallout from the pandemic. Before the pandemic, 1 in 14 Livingston County children were “food insecure.” That number during the pandemic is now 1 in 6. All drop offs from the mobile pantry are done by trunk delivery for the safety of staff and recipients.

For more information, or to donate, visit their website, www.gcfb.org.

To hear more from Brown about Gleaners’ efforts, listen to WHMI’s Viewpoint this Sunday at 8:30 am when she will be the special guest.