NEW BUFFALO — With approximately one in five Harbor Country families needing food assistance, The Pokagon Fund since inception has granted over $600,000 to support 25 different organizations that help feed students, families and seniors throughout Harbor Country and the other communities surrounding Pokagon Band trust land consolidation sites in Michigan and Indiana.
“The organizations receiving our grants have a proven history of addressing the immediate concern of inadequate food supplies as well as creating longer-term benefits for our most vulnerable audiences,” said fund Executive Director Janet Cocciarelli. “In children, we have seen that nutrition can affect physical, cognitive and behavioral development, with the result that hungry students are less likely to focus and learn, and more likely to struggle with social interactions. At the other end of the spectrum are our senior citizens, who may live away from family and are unable to shop or prepare food on their own.
“With studies revealing that 14 percent percent of our local families are uncertain about where their next meals are coming from, The Pokagon Fund is working to resolve this pressing issue by searching for ways to increase the levels of healthy, nutritious food distributed.”
Among the organizations that The Pokagon Fund helped sponsor this year are:
• Meals on Wheels of SW MI/ Senior Nutrition Services, which delivers hot meals to our home-bound senior citizens as well as congregate meals to the River Valley Senior Center in Harbert and two locations in Dowagiac. Not only does this service help reduce hunger and support overall health, it also allows those delivering the meals the chance to socialize with the recipients and check on their overall welfare.
• Feeding America West Michigan, which reclaims safe surplus food from farmers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers. In 2016, Feeding America’s mobile pantries will distribute more than 90,000 pounds of fresh produce, dairy, bread and other non-perishable goods in Three Oaks, New Buffalo and Chikaming Townships.
• Blessings in a Backpack (BIB), which provides elementary students with food throughout the school year. Approximately 50 percent of schoolchildren in the River Valley Area Schools qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, which are paid for by the federal government during the week. BIB supplements that program by sending those students home with easy-to-prepare, nutritional meals for the weekends.
• A.C.T.I.O.N. Dowagiac, which distributes through their church pantry U.S. Department of Agriculture commodities aimed at improving the health of low-income elderly persons at least 60 years of age by supplementing their diet with high-protein food.
• St. Margaret’s House, which, among its many services, provides hot lunches and a continental breakfast every day to anyone who walks through the door.
• Harbor Country Rotary, which annually distributes beautiful food baskets to 24 families in need whose children attend New Buffalo Area and River Valley schools.
“As we approach Thanksgiving, a time when we pause to reflect on our blessings, it is important for us to reach out to those who are in need,” said Pokagon Fund Board Chair Rob Gow. “One of the Fund’s key initiatives is poverty reduction and there are few things in life more dispiriting than hunger, which takes both an emotional and physical toll on the afflicted. We are grateful to all of our partners and to the many volunteers who help serve the hungry across our service area.”
The Pokagon Fund is a nonprofit, private foundation supported by revenue from the Four Winds Casino Resort in New Buffalo, Michigan. The fund’s mission is to enhance the lives of residents of southwest Michigan through the financial support of projects aimed at supporting education, alleviating poverty and community vitality.