• Ford Motor Company Fund is working closely with hunger relief agencies across Metro Detroit to serve and deliver hot meals and stock food banks during the holiday season
• Ford Volunteer Corps will be out in force organizing food donations, preparing meals, decorating for holiday activities, and collecting and wrapping gifts for children
• Ford Fund has provided more than $1.5 million to assist hunger relief agencies in the United States in 2018, along with year-round support from Ford employee volunteers

DEARBORN, Mich., Nov. 20, 2018 – More than 650,000 people in Southeast Michigan will face hunger this year, according to Gleaners Community Food Bank, and Ford Motor Company Fund and its nonprofit partners are once again teaming up to address food challenges this holiday season. Ford Fund contributed more than $1.5 million to support hunger relief agencies across the United States this year, much of that in Metro Detroit where the agency delivered hundreds of thousands of meals and improved access to other basic needs for disadvantaged people and families.  

For the 11th consecutive year, Ford Fund is joining the Detroit Area Agency on Aging to support the Holiday Meals on Wheels Thanksgiving program. Ford Fund’s $50,000 donation to DAAA will provide a hot holiday meal to more than 6,000 homebound seniors. Ford volunteers will be on hand to pack and deliver food. The contribution will also provide dollars throughout the year toward daily meal service.

“As we say thanks and count our blessings during the holiday season, Ford Fund is stepping up its efforts to feed the hungry as a critical first step toward making people’s lives better,” said Jim Vella, president, Ford Motor Company Fund. “Serving people by meeting the most basic of human needs is key to the Ford Fund’s mission to build stronger communities and help all people reach their full potential.”

Here are some of the other ways Ford Fund is providing increased access to food and spreading joy this holiday season.

• Ford is a sponsor of America’s Thanksgiving Parade in downtown Detroit and is once again joining The Parade Company and Gleaners Community Food Bank to help feed the hungry. Contributions can be made at www.gcfb.org/.
• Ford Fund kicked off the holiday giving season this month by matching contributions on Gleaners Double Your Donation Day. Ford Fund is supporting several Gleaners holiday drives throughout Southeast Michigan.
• On Giving Tuesday, Nov. 27, Ford Fund will match donations up to $10,000 for each of the six nonprofits participating in this year’s Ford Thirty Under 30 philanthropic leadership course. The $60,000 will be shared by Cass Community Social Services, First Step, Habitat for Humanity-Macomb, Ruth Ellis Center, South Oakland Shelter, and United Way of Halton and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
• Ford and United Way for Southeastern Michigan operate a fleet of 20 Ford Mobile Food Pantries that travel the Detroit area daily collecting and distributing food for hungry families. Since 2010, the program has served more than 7 million meals to people in need. The vehicles will be active over the holidays making special deliveries of hot meals to seniors and gifts for children, and supporting events such as Pie-a-Palooza at University of Detroit Mercy, where students will bake pies for low-income neighbors in the community.
• The Ford Volunteer Corps has enlisted hundreds of Ford employees for dozens of hunger-related projects through the end of the year. More than 300 Ford volunteers will prepare and serve meals, among other activities with The Salvation Army. Gleaners will put 370 Ford employees to work stocking shelves, packing meal boxes and delivering food. Ford volunteers will also support the people served by Fish & Loaves Community Food Pantry, Focus:Hope, Forgotten Harvest and Yad Ezra among others.
• Food pantries at the two Ford Resource and Engagement Centers in Detroit have provided more than 1.5 million pounds of food to people in need, and will again be supplying holiday meals to families in the communities they serve. Both locations – in Southwest Detroit and on the city’s east side – will have Winter Wonderland events for families this holiday season, as well.
• Operation Good Cheer provides donated Christmas presents to foster children in Michigan. Started by Ford employees in 1971, the program has grown from 66 foster children to more than 6,400 in 2017 with hopes of even more in 2018.

Along with working to reduce hunger, Ford and Ford Fund have made community investments totaling more than $166 million in Southeast Michigan over the past 10 years. Ford and Ford Fund provide nearly $20 million a year for education, arts, culture, hunger relief and more in and around the city of Detroit. In addition to America’s Thanksgiving Parade, Ford also sponsors the annual Ford Fireworks in Detroit.

Since 1949, Ford Fund has invested more than $1.5 billion to build stronger communities around the world.