A group of students from Henry Ford College, headed by Cassandra Fluker, director of Student Activities volunteered on Saturday, September 27 at the Forgotten Harvest warehouse center in Oak Park. Students helped shuck corn and prepare them to be distributed.

Forgotten Harvest is a nonprofit organization dedicated to combat hunger in Wayne, Macomb and Oakland counties. It helps utilize surplus food “from 455 sources, including grocery stores, fruit and vegetable markets, restaurants, caterers, dairies, farmers, wholesale food distributors and other Health Department-approved sources” (forgottenharvest.org). These perishable items will then be distributed to 280 emergency food providers in Detroit and its surrounding suburbs (forgottenharvest.org).

Karl Fischer, a student volunteer from HFC said, “I enjoyed shucking corn with my fellow contemporaries, it is good to know that we as students can get together and help feed those less fortunate than us.” Each month, the abovementioned organization delivers 3,000,000 pounds of food to soup kitchens, pantries and shelters. This amounts to 45.5 million meals a year (forgottenharvest.org).

Forgotten Harvest was established in 1990 with an intent to fight against hunger and reduce waste. It not only rescues food items from going into trash cans, but also has farms of its own, from which it grew and harvested 880,000 pounds of fresh produce in 2013. Their goal for 2014 is to provide 2.8 million pounds of food to people in need in the metro Detroit area (forgottenharvest.org).

Cassandra Fluker said, “I enjoy giving students the experience of caring about others and the community. I believe that is a means of resonating compassion for a more civil society.” Volunteering opportunities are available at the warehouse center as well as at the farms. Tax-deductible donations can also be accepted.

According to their website, Forgotten Harvest is metro Detroit’s only “mobile food rescue organization”, and hence it appears as though the work it accomplishes can possibly affect many lives. As student Karl Fischer said, “There’s so much we can do to help, I don’t see a reason why we shouldn’t.”