The local nonprofit 5Loaves2Fish will now distribute meals in Peshawbestown at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Church every Thursday from 4-6 p.m., adding another location to its growing list of meal sites to help those who are hungry or who live with food insecurity.
Corrie Piersma, 5Loaves2Fish director of development, said the meals to-go included sweet potato, black bean and corn enchiladas, some salads, soups, and pizzas, as well as chocolate chip cookies for dessert for the launch last Thursday. Piersma said over the years, a lot of people have wanted to make the launch happen. The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians (GTB) tribal council and other GTB members made the final location possible and helped find site volunteers to staff it and hand out food.
“We just want to feed people, so we’re trying to do it in a respectful and honoring way in whatever community we’re serving,” Piersma said. “... Many women from there (Peshawbestown) would come to Suttons Bay (Friendship Center site) to pick up meals for different families. I asked them one day, ‘what if we just have a site up there?’ Especially as winter is coming and everything is starting to change, the traffic and driving…” Hundreds of homemade meals by 5Loaves2Fish are served or distributed to people in Grand Traverse, Leelanau, and Benzie counties. In addition to Peshawbestown, they also deliver and distribute prepacked meals at Veterans Park and Safe Harbor in Traverse City, Leelanau Christian Neighbors in Lake Leelanau, Empire Food Pantry, Lake Ann United Methodist Church Food Pantry, the Friendship Community Center in Suttons Bay, and Bethany Lutheran Church in Northport. Hot community meals are served at Leland Community United Methodist Church, where 5Loaves2Fish’s kitchen is located, every Tuesday.
Piersma said they have numbers that they target every week in terms of how many pre-packaged meals they get out to each site. It’s based on experience, history, and growth, so the nonprofi t is always adjusting and tweaking its numbers.
ALICE, which is the acronym that stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed, represents the growing number of families who are unable to afford the basics for things like housing, childcare, food, transportation, healthcare and technology. It’s a metric created by United Way that measures poverty and looks at the struggles of households that earn above the federal poverty level, but not enough to afford a barebones household budget.
According to the 2022 ALICE in Focus Children Report, nearly 44% of northwest Lower Michigan, or over 26,000 children in 2019, lived in a household with an income below the ALICE Threshold. In that 2022 report, Kasson Township had the highest percentage of families below the ALICE threshold at 52%, while Leelanau Township followed at 50%. Elmwood Township had the third highest percentage at 46, just above Cleveland Township at 45%.
There continues to be a great need for meals to-go, Piersma said, adding that the hardest thing about seeing growth in their organization is seeing it be met with the rising need consistently. The reason for their growth, she explained, is not only because of the people in the community uniting together to make things happen, but the number of those in need is rising due to so many factors like inflation and the cost of housing.
“The need exists greatly,” Piersma said. “... These are the people (those within the ALICE limit) who are having to choose between filling up their car with gas or putting a meal on the table. It’s one of the things Caleb and I monitor because the ones in the ALICE limit are often the ones that you miss, they’re in limbo. We’re hoping that the stigma is changing because a lot of what we do and one of our core values is dignity, so we want to reduce all the stigma and the shame and judgment because it’s not helpful.”
