About Us
Our Mission
Higher Hopes! serves families with children enrolled in Early Head Start Child Care Partnership Programs in Metro Detroit by providing a bounty of food in nutritious, multiple-meal food kids. Our goal is to inspire independence, relieve food anxiety, and encourage family meals together.
History
The story of Higher Hopes! began in November 2013 with a chance local news cast. The story featured a young woman, who due to car troubles, was unable to make it to a food pantry in time to pick up a turkey for her family’s Thanksgiving meal. Fortunately for the woman in the story, the news surprised her with a full Thanksgiving feast. While the story ended happily for this woman and her family, it actually points to a systemic problem within our community: food insecurity. According to the Detroit Food Policy Council and the Detroit Health Department, 69% of households in Detroit are food insecure. So while millions will happily spend Thanksgiving eating the tradional feast with their loved ones, thousands of families in the community cannot enjoy this holiday in the same, worry-free way.
Fueled by this concern, Higher Hopes! was founded in 2014 and by the end of the year the inaugural program, “1,000 Turkeys, 10,000 Smiles” was launched. Having partnered with Gleaners Community Food Bank, Higher Hopes! distributes food kits to under served families allowing them to celebrate the holidays at home. With the help of donors and volunteers, the first event consisted of four semi-tractor trailers full of over 65,000 pounds of food ready to pass out to Detroit families – with everything included, from the turkey and sides to desert and drinks.
Our Community Action
In the Detroit Metropolitan Area, Higher Hopes! has enjoyed, with great privilege, the honor of getting noticed by the local Detroit area news stations. This has helped Higher Hopes! to further our mission.
Our Partners
We value our partners! Our relationships over the past 10 years have solidified the importance of our shared mission. True communication and shared goals have allowed us all to succeed in providing food to those that need it the most.
Head Start
Head Start is a program of the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families. The program’s services and resources are designed to foster stable family relationships, enhance children’s physical and emotional well-being, and establish an environment to develop strong cognitive skills. The transition from preschool to elementary school imposes diverse developmental challenges that include requiring the children to engage successfully with their peers outside the family network, adjust to the space of a classroom, and meet the expectations the school setting provides.
Higher Hopes! main focus is to provide a food resource throughout the summer months as well as to provide a full Thanksgiving Dinner to select families with children in multiple Head Start Programs throughout the city of Detroit. These families are low income households and the parents or guardians of these students are making a real effort to create a better life for their children by enrolling them in these programs that give the students a head start towards a better education.
Gleaners
Gratefully, Higher Hopes! is a proud partner of Gleaners Community Food Bank. We could not do what we do without the support of Gleaners! What began as a partnership to get families turkeys for Thanksgiving grew into a partnership with Higher Hopes!
serving as one of Gleaners 528 agency partners.
We collaborate with Gleaners to provide complete meal kits each month to 1,000 families with children enrolled in Detroit Head Start programs. Our team coordinates Gleaners School Food Mobile distributions, staffed with volunteers, at these schools for 9 months of the year.
This effort is particularly important in the summer months. Many children rely on the school breakfast and lunch programs during the school year. In the summer, those same children need to be provided for. Through Gleaners’ summer Mobile Pantry program, we distribute complete meals that include healthy foods like lean proteins, whole grains, fruits and vegetables. It is our proudest moment when we are out there in the summer sun passing out these great meals to families who need them.
We also rely on Gleaners to provide Higher Hopes! with much needed warehousing and logistics for the Thanksgiving dinner pass out. What has started as a goal for 1,000 turkeys has turned into 12,000 meal kits annually and many more smiles than we ever dreamed.
Thank you to Gleaners Community Food Bank!
Project Healthy Community
A great deal of Higher Hopes! success was achieved by our partnership with Project Healthy Community. PHC was instrumental by inspiring and managing the volunteer community and their relationships with food banks allowed us to provide 1,000 families with their Thanksgiving meals. PHC is a non-profit focused on social missions for all ages in inner city communities with needs. Their programs include mobile pantries, adult educational classes and after school activities for elementary and high school students. Their programs serve hundreds of families in NW Detroit, including a mobile food pantry that distributes over 20,000 lbs of food to people in need every month. PHC derives its mission from the National Prevention Strategy, which encourages partnerships with philanthropic organizations, business, industry, and governmental bodies to help improve the health of everyday Americans.