The Farm2Neighbor program purchases fresh fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, eggs and minimally processed (canned or frozen) produce from local farmers and distributes them to food insecure people and their families through food pantries and meal sites in Northwest Lower Michigan.

Support the Farm2Neighbor program today! Your donation goes directly towards purchasing healthy food for people in need!

Farm2Neighbor is a Northwest Food Coalition program, run in partnership with Food Rescue, a program of Goodwill Northern MI, and the Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities.

Program Benefits

• Increases access to fresh produce, lean proteins, and other nutritious foods to improve health.
• Supports Michigan farmers by increasing the market for local food and investing in the regional food system economy.
• Promotes nutrition and culinary education in food pantries and meal sites through Harvest of the Month, collaboration with Michigan State Extension, and other educational materials.

How does it work?

• The Northwest Food Coalition raises funds and gathers input from its members to decide what food products are most desired and most in need by its food pantries and meal sites
• The Groundwork Center builds relationships with farmers and coordinates food purchases on behalf of the Coalition
• Food Rescue handles the logistics of food pickup, repacking and delivery out to member food pantries and meal sites
• Northwest Food Coalition members receive the purchased food and distribute it to the people they serve

Snapshot of our Progress

In 2018 we distributed roughly 8000 lbs of fresh local food from 7 farms. Every year since then, we’ve increased the amount of purchased food, the number of farms we’ve been able to support, and the number of different products we’ve been able to purchase.  

In 2024, the Northwest Food Coalition purchased more than 130,000lbs of locally grown food for over 70 food pantries and meal sites. This represents $334,710 in food purchased from 23 farms and food businesses in Michigan. In total, the Farm2Neighbor program has supported over 30 unique farms and purchased products like parsnips, carrots, radishes, turnips, asparagus, tomatoes, green beans, pears, acorn squash, butternut squash, apples, beets, cabbage, eggs, ground beef, lake trout and more.

Providing Education 

Farm2Neighbor also provides nutrition and culinary education in our pantries and meal sites, in partnership with the Groundwork Center’s Harvest of the Month materials and with recipes, resources, demos and more from Michigan State Extension. Check out our recipe cards, Harvest of the Month materials and videos that are provided to member food pantries and meal sites to distribute along with the purchased food.

In The Media

The Rescuers: How Leelanau-Peninsula Grown Produce Is Getting On The Plates Of Its Own Struggling Families – August 2021

Farm2Neighbor Gives Gift of Fresh Food in Northern Michigan – November 2020

Farm to Neighbor Offers a Healthy New Equation for Food Pantries and Farmers – June 2020, Groundwork Center

Behind the Program

Our Farm2Neighbor program began in January 2018 with generous seed capital from local area Rotary clubs and other donors. It arose from our system map that asks the question “What factors affect a food insecure person’s ability to meet their nutrition needs?” Many thanks to Rotary Charities for sponsoring the class to helped us map our system.

Farm2Neighbor Program – System Map

Our Impact

Increasing the amount of fresh and healthy food in food pantries was identified as a key leverage point in the system. Leverage points are where you apply a little bit of resources in a system to get a big ripples effect of positive change. In 2020, we completed a Ripple Map evaluation of the Farm2Neighbor program with the help of MSU Extension. We found many positive ripples from this program, including building resiliency in the food system.

Farm2Neighbor Program – Ripple Map