The Green Apple Pantry Continues to Step Up to Feed Kent County Residents in Need
Jake Newby
| 5 min read
There’s a palpable energy to The Green Apple Pantry that you can’t help but feel when you walk in the building. Staff members, volunteers, community members and food distributors hustle in and out of the doors all morning long. Food comes in, food goes out and boxes are constantly unpacked. Folks work as one cohesive unit with one goal in mind, and that’s to feed the approximately 1,600 Kent County residents who visit the pantry every month.
At the center of all the action, directing traffic and calling plays, is The Green Apple Pantry Executive Director Nancy Cromley.
“Every day there’s something happening that brings joy,” Cromley said. “All of the people that are in this pantry aside from three are volunteers, and we all come to this organization with a passion to serve the community with grace and dignity.”
The Green Apple Pantry serves about 45 square miles in southern Kent County, making it one of the largest, most frequented pantries in that area of Grand Rapids. The stories of the pantry’s neighbors are responsible for filling Cromley’s heart with so much joy. There’s one family Cromley thinks about often.
“We have one family with 11 children. mom and dad, they work, but they have so many mouths to feed,” Cromley went on. “They always tell us they come here first, and then the mom goes home to create her grocery list and bases it on what she doesn’t receive at the pantry”.
The Green Apple Pantry serves shelf-stable and fresh food to thousands of Kent County families each year
The Green Apple Pantry is in the city of Kentwood, one of the most diverse communities in the United States. It serves people of all ages, ethnicities, backgrounds and family sizes.
“There are over 116 languages spoken at Kentwood High School, which tells us the kind of diversity we have and the population that visits the pantry,” Cromley said.
The Green Apple’s top priority is to serve food that’s as healthy as possible.
“Yes, we’re giving out canned goods, but we’re also distributing fresh produce,” Cromley said. “In the summer we partner with some local farms and local gardens, so we get a lot of fresh things coming in. But we also have fresh food coming in from places like Aldi and Whole Foods.”
Neighbors can visit the pantry once every 4 weeks and recipients walk away with a box of shelf-stable food, several meats, fruits and vegetables, dairy products, sweets and breads.
“We try to hit on all the food groups making sure families receive enough food for at least a week,” Cromley said.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) and its partners helped The Green Apple Pantry meet its growing demand by providing a refrigeration unit through the Food Pantry Grant Program. The program has reached 179 local food pantries since 2022 and has impacted more than 64,000 food insecure community members monthly. United Dairy Industry of Michigan, Blue Cross Complete of Michigan and the BCBSM Foundation partner with BCBSM to offer the program to increase the capacity of local food pantries to provide fresh, refrigerated food options.
“That refrigeration unit has all dairy products in it, from soft and hard cheeses to yogurts, cottage cheese, sour cream and milk. We would not have had enough room with all the other products that we carry for those additional dairy items,” Cromley said. “So, it was a blessing.”
When does The Green Apple Pantry distribute food?
The Green Apple Pantry has seen a 38% month-over-month increase in households served and a 53% month-over-month increase in individuals served as of October, highlighting a growing need in southeastern Kent County. It offers food to those in need on a first-come, first-serve basis multiple times per year, including:
- A regular monthly pantry available to neighbors in their service area. Neighbors can come every four weeks and receive a shopping cart full of food.
- They offer a monthly senior pantry. This is the only monthly pantry tied to income. Seniors visiting for food at this time must fall within the Federal Poverty Level Guidelines to qualify.
- A quarterly pantry consisting of 500 boxes of food. This occurs quarterly each March, June, September and December and is available to everyone in Kent County.
- A special Thanksgiving pantry that includes about 250 food bags filled with classic boxed and canned Thanksgiving items and sides. Then, as Thanksgiving gets closer, turkeys become available on a first-come, first-serve basis.
There is also a cart in front of the building that is always stocked with perishable food, like breads, produce and dairy items. Anyone can drive up, stop, and grab food from this cart. Though no one who is struggling should feel shame to lean on the pantry for food, Cromley knows first-hand how important the cart’s anonymity factor is.
“We put food outside, because we don’t want food to go to waste,” Cromley said. “If it is close to the expiration date it goes outside. Then people can stop anonymously and take whatever they can use. People stop all day long and we know this extra is helping.”
Learn more about The Green Apple Pantry’s services – including food assistance, referrals and how to support – at this link.
Continue reading:
- Teen HYPE Amplifies the Voices of Black Youth in Detroit Through Innovative Mental Health Programming
- Strong Foundations to Bold Action: 2024 Healthy Safety Net Symposium Highlights Ongoing Need to Bolster Services for Michigan’s Marginalized Populations
- What is Virtual Dental Care?
Photo credit: Michael Miller/BCBSM
