Lighthouse of Pontiac is sending Thanksgiving-themed boxes of food to those in need

PONTIAC, Mich. (FOX 2) - Thanksgiving is around the corner. But there’s one organization making sure Oakland County families in need have what they need for the holidays.

"The holidays can be lonely for people, they can be a really hard time," said Angela Gill.

Gill is the food programs manager at Lighthouse, which is bringing a little holiday cheer early this season to families in throughout Oakland County.

"We are packing produce for our delivery clients who will be receiving a non-perishable box full of Thanksgiving-themed type sides as well as fresh produce and bread," she said.

And they have all the fixings too, from tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, grapes and bread, says Gill.

"Today we have about 250 deliveries going out," she said. "Overall, through the program, we’ll be serving about 2,000 households."

That total of 2,000 by Thanksgiving she says, delivering quality foods through volunteers and their Amazon partnership.

"It’s quality, it is high standards. It’s something that you and I would eat, and our motto for training our volunteers is if you wouldn’t eat it, throw it out," Gill said.

All of the food they get is through partnerships, corporations and people in the community that just want to help.

They work to make sure each bag is filled and make sure they get to the households, because they say the need is great.

"It is real. It is not just people who are low-income," she said. "Everybody is seeing a rise in the cost of food. and so the choices that may have been readily available to people in the past, are no longer available."

According to Feeding America, an organization that tracks food insecurity and hunger, one in six children face hunger.

In Oakland County specifically, 12 percent of residents were food insecure in 2021, which means 150,000 residents including 29,000 children under 18 had no clue where their next meal came from.

Lighthouse says that shouldn't be the case, and they are glad to help out where they can.

"We hope that through our produce and our non-perishable items, we can at least supplement a little bit and help people stretch their budget," she said. 

To learn more about Lighthouse, GO HERE.