The Berrien Community Foundation is raising money to help local food pantries through its Food For Good challenge. President Lisa Cripps-Downey tells us the foundation recently passed a $20,000 fundraising goal to help America West Michigan Mobile Food Pantries meet their funding gap. With the need for food assistance high around the community, she says the BCF is continuing the effort. Cripps-Downey says she’s heard from many pantries the demand is high.
“A couple of different things have happened,” Cripps-Downey said. “First, during COVID, families were receiving some additional supplemental nutrition assistance funding, and that funding went away in February. So, families saw a decrease in the amount of food budget that they had, while at the same time, food was getting so expensive.”
Cripps-Downey says in addition to the challenge that helped out Feeding America West Michigan, grants totaling $36,000 from the Food For Good Fund were awarded to eight traditional food pantries by the Berrien Community Foundation. Anyone can contribute to the ongoing effort at BerrienCommunity.org/FoodForGood.
