Midland County Emergency Food Pantry Network

Every year our local postal workers join the National Association of Letter Carriers’ food drive in their “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive. The drive this year is Saturday, May 14. This is the largest single day food drive in the country. Just leave a bag of non-perishable food items by your mailbox. Your mail carrier will pick up the food. The food will be distributed to EFPN pantries as well as Salvation Army, Caregiving Network, Open Door, Shelterhouse and other pantries. We are very grateful to our local postal workers for all the work they do to make this such a success. Please support your local postal worker as they work to stock pantry shelves for the summer months.

Words are not adequate to thank the many volunteers who keep our organization running.  Because of our volunteers, many people will not go to bed hungry.  It is estimated that we have at least 400 volunteers in our organization. We wish we could personally thank each one of them.  It takes a lot of work and dedication to operate our eight pantries. Food for the pantries has to be purchased, counted in, shelved, and counted out.  Pantries also track which organizations, businesses or churches donated the items. Our BackPack Buddies Program has a dedicated volunteer who oversees the program.  The volunteer weekly monitors the numbers of students in the program at 11 elementary schools and 5 preschools and orders the necessary amount of food as well as working with the schools to make the process as efficient as possible.  We are grateful to the Midland Public School Grounds’ group and the staff from county schools who transport the food to each school and the many teachers and school volunteers who pack the bags.  Volunteers purchase and divide the fruit that goes into the backpacks each month. For some schools, local churches provide space and volunteers to store and pack the bags.  Our Senior Delivery Program has a group of people who each month deliver food throughout Midland County to low-income home-bound seniors. Each of our mobile pantries require many volunteers.  We have a crew of warehouse volunteers who meet the truck from Hidden Harvest as well as help with food donations.  All our board members volunteer their time.  There are many other tasks that are done by volunteers that are crucial to keeping our organization operating.  Volunteers have a choice as to where they spend their precious time.  Winston Churchill said, “You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give” Thank you to our many volunteers for giving their time to EFPN and making Midland County a better place for those in need of food.

April 3-July 2    

Between Sunday, April 3 and Saturday, July 2 stop by Meijer and purchase a $10.00 Simply Give gift card that benefits The Midland County Emergency Food Pantry Network. 

In the Simply Give Campaign, Meijer’s will contribute additional funds in addition to your $10.00 purchase.  All your donations and the Meijer additional funds will be given to the Midland County Emergency Food Pantry Network so we can buy items that we do not have donated or have in short supply. The Simply Give donation cards can be found near the checkout lanes at our local Meijer.

Saturday, June 18 will be a Double Match Day. On these days, for every $10.00 donation, Meijer will give an additional $20.00.  For example, your $10.00 donation becomes $30.00 for EFPN.  

Thank you for supporting this event.

The EFPN warehouse was emptied of all food during our recent renovation. We are now in great need to stock the warehouse. Our eight pantries use this donated food to help stock their shelves.  We also use the warehouse donations for stocking the pantries at Windover High School and the Academic and Career Education Academy. We pack boxes for our partnership with Home to Stay from the warehouse items.  As Home to Stay settles their clients into their new housing, they are provided a box of food to start  them in their new home. EFPN is also experiencing an increase of people coming to our pantries.  Please consider collecting food for the warehouse or for any of our pantries.  Below is a listing of pantries and our warehouse. Monetary donations are also welcome. We buy food from the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan at reduced costs. We also use monetary donations to fund our BackPack Buddies Program and our Nutritional Supplement Program.  For the 2019-2020 school year we have 819 children enrolled. This represents a 14% increase over the last school year.  Every donation counts, no matter how large or small. Thank you in advance for your generosity.

Donations can be brought to any of our eight pantries or warehouse.  Please call before delivering food & supplies to pantries to make sure someone is there to meet you.

Bullock Creek Outreach Pantry:  Messiah Lutheran Church, 1550 S. Poseyville Rd., 835-7143

Coleman Railway Family Center: 4839 N. Coleman Schools Drive,  465-2079

EFPN Warehouse: 503 S. Saginaw Rd., 486-9393

HELP Pantry:  Memorial Presbyterian Church,1310 Ashman St.,  835-6759

North Midland Family Center Pantry:  2601 E. Shearer Rd. • 689-7770

SAMS Food Pantry: sponsored by St. John’s Episcopal Church at 503 S. Saginaw Rd., 631-2260

Sanford Food Pantry: Sanford United Methodist Church, 2560 N. West River Rd., 687-5353

Wheeler Road Church of Christ Pantry: 1123 E. Wheeler Rd., 835-8559

West Midland Family Center Pantry:  4011 W. Isabella Rd., 832-3256

Any Food, Personal Care and Cleaning Supplies are welcome. Here are some ideas:

• Kid Friendly Foods-Macaroni & Cheese, Peanut Butter & Jelly, Cereal,  Soup, Pasta & Pasta Sauce, Canned Meals, Canned Fruit, Granola Bars, Pancake Mix & Syrup, Hamburger Helper, Tuna
• Baking Items-Flour, Sugar, Baking Powder, Baking Soda
• Beverages-Coffee, Juice
• Personal Care-Toothbrush & Toothpaste, Deodorant, Soap, Shampoo
• Cleaning Supplies: Laundry & Dish Detergent
• Other: Ketchup, Mustard, Salt, Pepper, Cooking Oil, Miracle Whip, Mayonnaise

Recently there was a dedication of a Habitat For Humanity home in Coleman. The EFPN Coleman Pantry representative was there to bring the family a welcoming gift of food. We always feel food makes a house a home.

One of the programs of the Midland County Emergency Food Pantry Network (EFPN) is the student assistance program which helps low income college students monthly with food. Often these students are single parents returning to school in order to get a better job in the future. Students must provide proof that they are a student. EFPN wants them to focus on getting their education without having to worry about having enough money for food. EFPN had around 28 students per month for the 2013-2014 school year.

AmazonSmile is a simple and automatic way for you to support  EFPN every time you shop at no cost to you. When you shop on AmazonSmile,  you will find the exact same low prices, vast selection and convenient shopping experience as Amazon.com, with the added bonus that Amazon will donate .5% of the purchase price of eligible AmazonSmile items to EFPN. Tens of millions of products on AmazonSmile are eligible for donations. You will see eligible products marked “Eligible for AmazonSmile donation” on their product detail pages.

In order to get donations for EFPN you need to shop at http://smile.amazon.com .   If you do not have an Amazon account you need to create one.  On your first visit to AmazonSmile (after you have logged into your account),  it will have a spotlighted charity but it will give you the option to choose a charity.  Please  search for Midland County Emergency Food Pantry Network.   Amazon  will remember your selection, and then every eligible purchase you make on AmazonSmile will result in a donation to EFPN.

It could be happening to an important person in your life and you may not even know it. Grandmothers choosing between their medication or buying groceries. Grandfathers passing up meals to pay the mortgage. Senior hunger is a serious problem, but often hidden. During the winter months, EFPN provides extra assistance to seniors referred to us by DHS so they don’t have to choose between food and medication or higher utility bills. Often the food is delivered directly to the senior recipients. EFPN also provides gift certificates for nutritional supplements like Ensure for low income elderly clients.

Take the short AARP quiz below to see if you are aware of senior hunger.

https://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/info-2016/food-stamps-snap-hunger-seniors.html#quest1

EFPN was awarded the Beacon of Light Award at the conclusion of the Harvest Gathering of the Food Bank Council of Michigan (FBCM) in recognition of our leadership in establishing new programs and our outstanding delivery of food to those in need in Midland County. The food gathering was begun nearly 20 years ago by Midland’s own Bill and Cynthia Schuette in an effort to raise both funds and food to support the 13 regional food banks throughout Michigan. The FBCM is comprised of member regional food banks. The regional food banks, along with their subsidiary distribution organizations and branch warehouses, safely store and provide millions of pounds of surplus vegetables, fruits, and other grocery items to more than 2500 local agencies serving each of the 83 counties in Michigan. These products are made available to the agencies at a low cost (about 10 cents per pound for goods with an average retail of about $2.00 per pound). Types of agencies include food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, hospices, domestic violence shelters, head-start programs, afterschool programs, half-way houses, and group homes for the mentally ill. The Food Bank of Eastern Michigan is the regional food bank used by EFPN This award is a testimony to more than 700 EFPN volunteers who move the food through the pantry, food bank, or backpack buddy program to those in need. Everyone,including our nearly 1000 donors, should be proud of this award!