Gleaners is running short on food. Angela Moloney, the organization's new president and CEO, says the pressure is stacking from multiple directions at once.
The drive works simply. Letter carriers collect non-perishable items left in bags by mailboxes, on their regular routes, on a single day. Gleaners is headquartered in Detroit and serves five southeast Michigan counties. The Detroit Free Press reported Monday on the organization's current strain.
Moloney joined Gleaners in January. The job she stepped into was already shaped by converging problems: tightened federal work requirements for food assistance benefits, a demand spike last fall when SNAP benefits were briefly in limbo during the government shutdown, and a donated food gap the organization cannot fill on its own.
Last year, donated food fell by more than 9 million pounds, the Free Press reported. More than 5 million pounds of that total came from reduced USDA donations in the last fiscal year alone. Federal food has historically made up as much as 30 percent of what Gleaners distributes. Moloney told the Free Press there is no indication that USDA food will come back.
Gleaners distributes to more than 300 partner agencies across the region, including soup kitchens, food pantries, shelters, and schools. Despite the shortfall, the organization moved more than 47.4 million pounds of food in the recent fiscal year, according to the Free Press. That required purchasing more food to cover the gap and launching what Moloney described as a sustainability plan built around sourcing, fundraising, and volunteers.
Summer makes it harder. Gleaners typically sees demand climb when school ends and students lose access to school meals. The organization has a Hunger Free Summer matching gift campaign running to address that window directly.
Postal service officials ahead of the drive have cited figures showing that many Americans are currently unsure where their next meal is coming from. In Michigan, the scale of food insecurity predates the current federal disruptions. Feeding America's 2023 data, cited by the Free Press, counted more than 1.5 million state residents who struggled to put food on the table.
Residents can leave non-perishable donations in a bag by their mailbox Saturday and a letter carrier will collect them as part of a major annual food drive. Gleaners also takes donations and volunteers at gcfb.org.
The food bank has been operating in southeast Michigan for close to five decades. Moloney told the Free Press it has weathered changing conditions before. The gap it is carrying now is one the organization can no longer close alone.
