Michigan Partners Helping Michigan Youth - Grand Traverse Pie Company

The Grand Traverse Pie Company has always been proud to be a Michigan born company, our roots are here and the ingredients we use in our recipes and shops are grown in or come from our Michigan partners. It is with this great spirit of allegiance to Michigan that we started the Michigan Partners Helping Michigan Youth promotion. We started the program in 2014 and the basics are that all of our shops rally together for the summer to sell Apple Pie.

Here’s where the delicious cycle comes in…. each Apple Pie purchased and enjoyed by our guests in all of our shops creates proceeds to give, our Michigan partners donate to the proceeds and GT Pie Corporate matches the funds that are raised!

With the love for our state, comes a strong passion to help create strong children (families) around the state. The Michigan Partners Helping Michigan Youth initiative has focused on providing the following:

2014 – We established an endowment fund for youth who have experienced foster care, have aged out of the system and aspire into higher education having gap needs. The endowment has matured and has started to allocate 5% of the funds for student needs in 2016. Two families, who learned of the GTP endowment, have added several thousand dollars to the endowment, as have we. In the summer of 2016, from our first allocation, 7 foster youth were able to take summer classes and have their housing needs met. We have been enriched to meet several of these students over the last year and know the positive impact this has made in their lives.

2015 – Through the Hunger Free Summer initiative, we were able to help provide over 48,000 meals statewide to food pantries who helping get meals to children in the summer, who depend on the subsidized lunch program during the school year. When the school year ends, these children often go without the food they need to grow healthy and strong.

2016 – Through the Help Us Feed Michigan Youth Initiative, we were able to increase our donation to provide over 63,000 meals statewide to food pantries helping get meals to children in the summer, who depend on the subsidized lunch program during the school year. When the school year ends, these children often go without the food they need to grow healthy and strong.

2017 – We had a fruitful summer for our Help Us Feed Michigan Youth Initiative! We increased our donations to provide over 81,000 meals to 10 food pantries helping get meals to children in the summer, who depend on subsidized lunch programs during the school year. When the school year ends, these children often go without the food they need to grow healthy and strong.

2018 – For the fourth year of our Help Us Feed Michigan Youth Initiative, we were able to increase donations with your help to provide over 130,000 meals to 9 food pantries. These funds will help get meals to children in the summer who often go without the food they need to grow healthy and strong when the school year ends.

2019 – In our fifth year of our Help Us Feed Michigan Youth Initiative, we were able to gather enough donations to provide over 100,000 meals to children who depend on the subsidized lunch program during the school year.

2020 – We are looking forward to being able to bring back this program in 2021.

2021 – In our sixth year of our Help Us Feed Michigan Youth Initiative, we were able to gather enough donations to provide over 105,000 meals to children who depend on the subsidized lunch program during the school year.

2022 – In partnership with Help Us Feed Michigan Youth Initiative and our statewide list of partners, we were able to gather enough donations to provide over 55,020 meals to children who depend on the subsidized lunch program during the school year.

Our partners (companies and individuals who love us) that have helped with matches since 2014 include:

Each year we look forward to continuing the Apple Pie promotion in support of strengthening Michigan youth/family initiatives that make a difference for all concerned.