Local funeral director’s organization works

Jews in the D cover story

On a ( Food ) Rescue Mission Local funeral director’s organization helps Hazon rescue food around Metro Detroit.

MADELINE HALPERT CONTRIBUTING WRITER PHOTOGRAPHY BY JERRY ZOLYNSKY

In early June, City Covenant rescue initiative. With the help of Church’s food pantry in Metro Food Rescue and Hazon’s Detroit found themselves dedicated volunteers, Hazon has with 20 pounds of excess Italian serviceda network of more than sausage crumbles. So Chad 45 Detroit-area pantries and saved Techner, a funeral director at the more than 115,000 pounds of food Ira Kaufman Chapel, since June 24, when they began picked up the sausage, tracking. paired it with another Techner, who attended Western donation of ground Culinary Institute in Portland, beef and made pasta Ore., says his inspiration for Metro sauce in a 15-gallon Food Rescue and a partnership Chad Techner pot. Together with the with Hazon comes from a longhelp of his 3-year-old term concern about food waste son, Eli, they packaged the pasta and insecurity. His experience and sauce into quart containers, in the culinary industry has also and helped Hazon, a nonprofit given him a unique ability to Jewish organization in Detroit understand food disdedicated to environmental sustribution on a large tainability, deliver it to local panscale and the cooking tries to serve to their clients. skills necessary to get

“There’s all of this excess food creative with food and also all of these people who rescue. need it,” Techner said. “In today’s Wren Hack “He’s made gallons day and age, the demand is more of spaghetti sauce extreme than ever.” from rescued food that we can

The pasta sauce is one of severtake to our pantries and they can al cooking projects that Techner feed people with,” said Wren Hack, has taken on since he founded a the executive director of Hazon. partner organization, Metro Food “His passion and dedication have Rescue, to assist Hazon in its food come through so strongly.”

AN ORIGINAL PLAN ADAPTED TO A TIME OF NEED

Techner said he initially met with Hack in early February to discuss a different idea for a food rescue mission: saving leftover catered food from large events.

“People would call us saying they had tons of extra food from shivah, and we never had a good answer for what to do with it,” Techner said.

In early March, Metro Food Rescue helped Hazon salvage more than 250 pounds of excess catered food from an event at the JCC of Metro Detroit. Then the pandemic hit. Events were canceled, excess food went into storage and more people struggled to put meals on the table.

“There was a lot of waste due to the shutdown from COVID,” Hack said. “And at the same time, the need for food has gone up tremendously.”

Hack said that this greater need has even led several people to start food pantries on their front lawns.

And while food banks are stepping up during this time to provide meals to those who are struggling, Techner and Hack say there tends to be a misallocation of food between pantries.

“There are some gaps in the system,” Techner said. “We found that one pantry will have way too much of this but not enough of that.”

Hack said Hazon helps fill these gaps. Using Hazon’s database of more than 45 pantries, Hack is able to determine which food banks need what. If one pantry has too much of a certain food, Hazon picks up the items and redistributes them to another in need, all while ensuring that the food is culturally sensitive to the faith-based organization receiving it. At a time where larger food banks are overburdened, Hack says that Hazon’s allocation efforts are crucial to ensuring that no extra pantry food goes to waste.

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There’s all of this excess food and also all of these people who need it.

— CHAD TECHNER

TOP: Rabbi Josh Bennett, Rabbi Nate DeGroot of Detroit, Wren Hack of Milford and Chad Techner of West Bloomfield with donated food. FAR LEFT: Wren Hack stacks food in front of the synagogue. LEFT: Chad Techner unloads the truck.

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COMMUNITY SUPPORT

Techner and Hack said the community has been instrumental in assisting Hazon in its redistribution mission.

“Every time we’ve needed help with something, someone in the community has stepped up,” he said.

In July, Hazon received 17,000 pounds of chicken to distribute to pantries, with no place to store it. So Techner called Temple Shir Shalom in West Bloomfield for help. Rabbi Michael Moskowitz of Shir Shalom then referred Hack to one of his temple members, Ken Popper, the owner of Empire Packing, a meat storage company in Detroit. Popper volunteered to store 10 palettes of chicken, and Geoff Kretchmer, the president of Star Trax, an event planning company, volunteered a box truck for transportation of the meat. Now, Techner said, Metro Food Rescue can help Hazon gradually distribute the donated chicken through the winter, and even possibly the spring.

“This project takes a community,” Hack said. “It’s far bigger than a village.”

In the fall, Metro Food Rescue is hoping to continue fostering community involvement through its fruit tree rescue project. Through the program, volunteers will pick up excess fruit from people’s backyard trees, so it doesn’t go to waste on the ground.

“It’s also just a really great family-friendly way to volunteer safely in these times,” Techner said.

LONG-TERM PLANS

Though Metro Food Rescue has shifted course during the time of lockdown, Techner hopes to eventually be able to come back to his original inspiration for the project: rescuing food from catered events. When these celebrations resume, he plans to restart this mission, in addition to all the other food rescue avenues he and Hazon have contributed to along the way.

Hack, whose full-time role includes both food rescue redistribution efforts and many other executive director duties, said she is excited to see Techner take on the food rescue project with increased time. By the end of July 2021, Hack says their partnership will lean more heavily on Techner. Meanwhile, she’s happy to be a part of an organization providing an essential service during a time of extreme need.

“I’m grateful that we are able to do this work,” Hack said. “It’s mission-aligned for us because we know we’re diverting food from the landfills, and we’re getting people fed.”

For Techner, too, the initiative comes back to a thought that keeps him up at night: hungry people and families. His goal is to keep expanding Metro Food Rescue’s reach to help serve even more communities members in need.

“It is just so frustrating to know that nearly 40% of food gets thrown out when there are so many people who don’t know where dinner is coming from,” Techner said. “So, it’s been really rewarding to see all these other avenues that we’ve found through the project and to be making a dent in food insecurity in our local area.”