GT Pie & Partners Donate 81,000 Meals to Local Children
What a fruitful summer! We recently completed our fourth year of Michigan Partners Helping Michigan Youth initiative. If you visited a GT Pie shop this summer, you may have noticed that we were once again very busy baking up apple pies for a cause. From June 19th through September 10th, each apple pie sale benefited one of 10 food pantries located in each of our shop communities.
Our family of Pie Shops helped to stomp out hunger throughout Michigan and Indiana for youth who participate in the school lunch programs during the school year. More than half of Michigan and Indiana children rely on free and reduced-fee meals during the school year. When school is out, families struggle to make up these meals and many children go without the nourishment they need to enjoy a happy and healthy summer.
This year we, along with our wonderful guests and business partners, generated just under $27,000. Every dollar donated provides three meals adding up to about 81,000 meals for our youth!
Matching funds came from GT Pie partners and Gleaners’ corporate sponsors as well. The GT Pie partner donors for 2017 include Alfie Logo Gear, Americraft Carton, Christine Schneider, Copy Central, Dart Container Corporation, Lipari Foods, King Milling Company, Michigan Apple Committee, Michigan Sugar Company, and Sherman’s Dairy. More information about the history of Michigan Partners Helping Michigan Youth can be found on our website.
“Our goal is to be a respected Michigan company,” states Mike Busley, co-founder of GT Pie, “and we know this is only achieved when we dish it out ourselves. We believe by showing respect to our employees, partners, and guests, our opportunities together are endless. Respect leads to loyalty, loyalty promotes growth and growth allows us to give back to people and giving back gains respect, it’s a delicious cycle. Our children are our future and have every right to be fed nutritiously each day. We are pleased to help strengthen the lives of children; a great example of the Power of Pie and our core values.”
Many thanks to all those that helped Michigan and Indiana children this summer.
With your help, our 15 Pie Shops were able to help each of our partner pantries to include:
- Boys and Girls Club of Lansing (Lansing, East Lansing, and Okemos Shops) – $2,412.40
- Shelterhouse of Midland (Midland Shop) – $595.40
- Gleaner’s Community Food Bank (Ann Arbor, Brighton, Plymouth, and Troy Shops) – $3,630.25
- Brother Dan’s Food Pantry (Petoskey Shop) – $451.50
- Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes (Portage Shop) – $1,092.60
- Father Fred Foundation (Traverse City Shops) – $3,522.90
- Evangelistic Center (Grand Rapids Shop) – $890.90
- Love, Inc (Norton Shores Shop) – $858.20
- Rochester Area Neighborhood House (Rochester Hills Shop) – $664.70
- Vigo County Schools Backpack Program (Terre Haute, Indiana Shop) – $889.80
Gleaners Community Food Banks corporate partner matches – $3630.25
GT Pie partner donations – $7,900.00
Grand Total – $26,538.90