Food Movers began in 1992 as a prepared and perishable food rescue program sponsored by the Greater Lansing Food Bank. This program is a non-traditional form of food banking in that it rescues excess edible food in the Greater Lansing community. Teams of two volunteers pick up food from grocery stores, restaurants, bakeries, catered events, etc. The food is immediately delivered to shelters, community kitchens, community centers, senior citizen housing, subsidized housing and other places in our community where there is a need for food. Three refrigerated trucks are used so food quality is not compromised, and volunteers are trained in the safe food handling guidelines established by the Ingham County Health Department and the USDA.

Annual Food Mover Facts

• Food is collected from 150 donor sites and distributed to 40 different Recipient Organizations.
• 500,000 pounds of food is rescued with a market value of about $1.50/lb.
• 9% of the food is prepared and 91% perishable (i.e., breads, sweets, staples, produce, fresh meat).
• Volunteers donate over 7,500 hours, valued at around $127,500.00.
  For every dollar spent, the return is $3.80.

Another part of Food Movers is the Neighborhood Partnership Program. We work with seven neighborhoods in providing an open food distribution. Clients call the Food Movers office to register and are assigned a site closest to their home. They then pick up the food on the scheduled distribution day. The kinds of food available are dependant upon what has been donated at any given time. Through this Partnership Program Food Movers has served 6,000 households (16,500 people), 3,700 volunteer hours have been logged and over 225,000 pounds of food have been distributed each year.

Food Movers relies on cooperation between the private sector and community agencies, as well as on our generous volunteers. Working together we can substantially reduce hunger in our community.

For more information, contact Food Movers Director Phyllis Handley by phone at 517-482-1270 or email to FoodMovers@sbcglobal.net.