Pedaling for pounds of food
Staff Writer
Last year, Rex Roof had a one-track mind when he participated in Cranksgiving, a charity event to raise food for Food Gatherers. Roof was determined to win the prize of 50,000 frequent flyer miles.
Win them he did, and with that out of his system the Washtenaw Community College Unix Administrator is focusing a little more on the food-raising aspect this year – first getting a total of $260 in donations from his friends and then hauling about 78 pounds of groceries.
[flagallery gid=1 name=""]
Cranksgiving first came about in New York City on the week before Thanksgiving in 1999. The event has spread across the country to places like Chicago, Los Angeles and Madison, Wis.
And on a cold, blustery Sunday afternoon in December, 29 avid bike riders from Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti joined Roof biking back and forth to local grocery stores and hauling back cans and sacks of non-perishable food for Food Gatherers – a food rescue organization and food bank that works with 150 community programs that serve families in the area. Many of the riders were paying for the groceries out of pocket. Sanford Bledsoe III, of Ypsilanti, brought and, to his surprise, spent about $100 of his own money on groceries. But like many other participants, Bledsoe was humble about his contribution.
“It’s a really good excuse to ride bikes and meet other people that ride bikes and you get to feel good about it,” Bledsoe said. “ . . . One of the cool things about this is that it’s super relaxed and it’s not competitive. It’s just a bunch of people doing something for the community.”
Overall, Cranksgiving brought in a total of 800 pounds of groceries, including rice, pasta, canned meat and fish, oatmeal, peanut butter and jelly.
MICHAEL WESTHOFF WSHTENAW VOICE
“That sounds like a fantastic event that they put together,” said Mary Schlitt, director of development at Food Gatherers, adding that many groups do fundraising events for Food Gatherers throughout the year, and especially around the holiday season. “We get several calls a day from groups that are organizing food drives or raffles or events to benefit Food Gatherers, but this is the most active event that I’ve heard of.”
Cranksgiving has been going on in Ann Arbor for the past couple years, but this is the first year that Thomas Kula and Tom Lennon, both from Ypsilanti, have organized the event. Instead of doing a race like in years past, they’ve changed it to a two-hour window of opportunity to bring in as much food as possible from local grocers.
“I don’t care how many places you go to. I don’t care how quickly you go. I don’t care how many trips you make,” Kula said. “It’s basically geared to just try to maximize the amount of food we get for Food Gatherers.”
That’s good news for Food Gatherers. From Sep. 2008 to Sep. 2009, the organization has seen need grow at its partner programs by 35 percent. And that increase reflects nation-wide statistics for the rising number of families and adults who are dependent on emergency food services, Schlitt said. A month ago, the United States Department of Agriculture released a report that the number of Americans who did not have dependable access to food reached 49 million people.
And some of the riders at Cranksgiving feel that the current economic downturn has caused more people to be aware of hunger in their local communities than in the past.
MICHAEL WESTHOFF WSHTENAW VOICE
“People are on harder times,” said Mike Staggs, a first-time rider at Cranksgiving and a student at the University of Michigan. “So I’m sure they know people in their lives that are having issues.”
“Even from this time a year ago there are a lot more people who are laid off or are unable to make their mortgage payment,” Kula said. “I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone at this point who doesn’t know someone that’s been affected directly by this. I think there’s a little bit higher awareness there. It’s not some abstract problem on the news or that you read about.”
Others at the event, like Roof, said it’s hard to tell if people are getting more cognizant of local families dealing with food insecurity. Roof and his friends in particular have been aware of the problem for some time.
And aside from the draw of biking with his friends, maybe that awareness is part of what keeps him coming back.
“I can always just go buy some groceries and drop them off, but I like having this event,” Roof said. “Seeing that big pile of food over there and knowing that I helped contribute to it and feeling good about that – I like that.”
Recent Comments