Forgotten Harvest’s Harvest Heroes

Forgotten Harvest makes it easy to get involved in our mission of reducing food insecurity and surplus food loss in the metro Detroit area. If it’s possible for your situation, you can offer financial donations or sponsorships. Hosting food drives on behalf of our organization is a popular route for local businesses and school groups. And of course, we’re flush with fun volunteer opportunities year-round at our Distribution Center, Farm, mobile pantries, and specialty events.

One volunteer opportunity especially near and dear to our hearts is Harvest Heroes, a program designed to rescue food donations that are too small to send a Forgotten Harvest trailer. Harvest Heroes volunteer once a week for two to three hours at a time using their own vehicles to complete a mini food rescue route.

Each route is typically kept within a 10-mile radius and can include multiple food rescue locations and a designated food pantry partner. Some moderate lifting, up to 40 pounds is required. Most routes begin around 9:00 am and are usually completed by noon.

A Day as a Harvest Hero

One of our longtime volunteers, Mike LaGory, gave us an inside look at his typical day in the Harvest Hero cape. Though his route can be fluid depending on donation and delivery needs, Mike currently rescues food from a Fresh Thyme store and an Aldi store, and brings the donations to Open Door Ministry, a food pantry, job resource, and personal counseling site in Canton, every Wednesday.

On the day he graciously allowed us to ride along with him, we rescued over 1,000 pounds of food from both stores including yogurt, cottage cheese, milk, orange juice, English muffins, mushroom burgers, wagyu burgers and ground beef, hummus, chicken, fish, potato fries, soda, and bottled water.

Remember, Mike has been doing this for several years so his pickups have gradually grown in size — the average Harvest Hero donation per store doesn’t usually exceed 125 to 150 pounds!

Mike told us, “What I like most about the program is knowing that the donations are going directly to those facing food insecurity.” He got involved as a retiree looking for volunteer opportunities that fit his limited time availability while he and his wife were providing daycare for their grandsons during the week. “The Harvest Heroes was a perfect fit, and I liked the local focus.”

Get Involved!

Joining our team of Harvest Heroes is ideal for anyone looking to commit some of their time to a cause they believe in while forming deeper connections to their community.

In metro Detroit, there are hundreds of thousands of individuals facing food insecurity each year; there are also thousands of pounds of surplus food available to feed those individuals and we wouldn’t be able to connect one to the other without the Harvest Heroes.

This kind of exchange creates a natural fellowship between donor, rescuer, and recipient, increasing the goodwill throughout a community and tending to its overall health — something Forgotten Harvest is dedicated to doing. If you’re interested in learning more about Forgotten Harvest’s Harvest Heroes program, please contact Dan Burbulla at dburbulla@forgottenharvest.org or 248-930-4255.