Near Detroit, nothing goes to waste

• Food rescue group in Detroit has tripled in size over past four years
• Group has reclaimed 44 million pounds of food

Carl Littlejohn doesn't fit the profile of someone fighting hunger.

He owns a home in Livonia, Mich., a middle-class suburb of Detroit. But a motorcycle accident left him disabled, so he now lives on $698 a month in Social Security Disability and he's trying to keep his home.

"I struggle to pay the taxes on it," he said. "I wouldn't have enough for an apartment."

Littlejohn, 61, learned of a mobile food pantry that visits Livonia monthly, offering fresh vegetables he can't afford to buy.

"It's very important to me," Littlejohn said recently as he pushed a shopping cart through the makeshift market in the city's municipal complex. "It gets you through the month."

The food comes from Forgotten Harvest, a Michigan non-profit food rescue group that has tripled in size since 2008. In the past year, the group has rescued almost 44 million pounds of food from grocery stores, restaurants, even Detroit's major sports stadiums, where leftover hot dogs are repurposed to feed the hungry.

"It's fast and efficient and it gets food to people that can use it that day," said Russ Russell, chief development officer at Forgotten Harvest.

Grocers with food that reaches its sell-by date can freeze it and call Forgotten Harvest to pick it up. They'll transport it the same day to a food pantry, soup kitchen or shelter.

Susan Anderson supervises the Livonia program. She said it's better than government bulk-food programs because it offers perishable food instead of just canned goods and cereals.

"A semi pulls up with pallets and pallets of food," she said. "It was like Christmas."

Wisely also reports for the Detroit Free Press