By Dawn Wolfe Gutterman
Forgotten Harvest gets food to those who need it most
The two unwanted bananas from a bunch of ten. The milk, juice, or yogurt a shopper reached around to get the same item with a slightly later "sell by" date. Vegetables that were cut up by your favorite restaurant that somehow didn't make it into today's soup.
This everyday waste is the stuff that hungry stomachs dream of. Forgotten Harvest, a fifteen-year old metro Detroit agency that transports unwanted food to non-profit agencies in need, makes those dreams come true every day.
In 2004, Forgotten Harvest distributed 5.2 million pounds of food to roughly 93 metro Detroit agencies, including Alternatives for Girls in Detroit and HAVEN in Pontiac. The donations come from Kroger, Baker's Square, Whole Foods, and other area groceries, specialty food dealers, restaurants and caterers that would otherwise throw the food away.
Anyway you cut it, supporting Forgotten Harvest is a recipe for hope.
For more information or to make a donation, contact Forgotten Harvest at 21455 Melrose Ave., Suite 9, Southfield, MI, 78075, call 248-350-3663, or visit the organization's web site at www.forgottenharvest.org.
They've got a friend – Michigan's wildlife, that is
Even suburban Michigan residents find them. A baby raccoon, or a bird, or a squirrel that hangs around for days and seems to have been abandoned by his or her parents. Wild animals that have been injured by cars, or natural accidents, or by thoughtless humans.
Those of us who try to help these animals don't have to do so alone – Friends of Wildlife, an Ann Arbor-based nonprofit organization, is here to help.
Friends of Wildlife provides training in wildlife rehabilitation to volunteers, and when another citizen comes upon an abandoned or injured wild animal, the organization places that animal with one of their trained volunteers. Then, rather than being killed by an animal control officer or dying lonely and painfully in the wild, the animal is treated, raised to maturity if necessary, and released back into the wild to get on with his or her life.
It's the least we can do for our animal neighbors.
For more information, to donate, or to help, contact Friends of Wildlife at P.O. Box 1505, Ann Arbor, MI, 48106, call 734-913-9843, or visit their web site at http://www.comnet.org/friendsofwildlife.
