President Joyce and my fellow Rotarians , we recently concluded our 21st annual Rotary Fights Child Hunger Food Drive in support of our local food bank, Food Gatherers , to refill their coffers ahead of summer break. When schools are closed for the summer, families lose access to a critical source of food received through the National School Breakfast and School Lunch programs. Food Gatherers is the largest sponsor of the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) in Washtenaw County, which provides free summer meals for children and teens at sites located throughout the community. The federal budget currently under discussion is likely to include billions of dollars of cuts to anti-hunger groups and Food Gatherers will feel its effects, so this drive is even more crucial.
I mentioned this from the podium at the start of the drive, but to reiterate, inflation has eaten away at the math that translates money raised and food donated into meals provided. For many years, $1 equaled 3 meals, but now it only equals two. Last year’s drive netted $32,000 and donations of 6,000 lbs of food, which equaled 89,000 meals for the hungry in our community. Rotarians and our community members dug deeper this year and the money raised jumped to $48,000 which, along with food donations of 3,700 lbs. of food, equaled our goal of 100,000 meals. 100,062 to be precise. Thank you to all.
I’d like to thank the members of the Rotary Fights Child Hunger committee, Norman Herbert, Steve Kesler, and Greg Stejskal for their hard work to make this year a success. We are always looking to expand the drive, so if you’d like to join our committee and help us out next year or if you know someone who works for an employer in the area that you think might be interested in participating in next year’s drive, please let one of us know. Thank you.

s/Todd Kephart