Brady Broderick, the corporate and community giving specialist at Greater Lansing Food Bank, said this food drive comes at a crucial time for the community.

“This year, food inflation across the U.S. has risen to the highest level in more than 40 years. It's forcing low-income households to spend more than 30 percent of their monthly budgets on food.” Broderick said. “It's our goal by the end of the year to deliver more than 15 million pounds of food, and we feel pretty good that we're going to reach that.”

Food drives are very easy to set up, Broderick said, and don’t need to be associated with the Greater Lansing Food Bank to make a difference. He encouraged community members to run their own food drive and to give the donations to food bank.

Broderick added that recent upgrades at GLFB has allowed for more donations to be stored and subsequently given out to those in need.

“Our warehouse is over 60,000 square-feet. It's a massive building," Broderick said. "This increased capacity has really allowed us to store more food and to store the quantity of food needed to really alleviate hunger across our service area."

The holiday food drive is currently being held at Hannah Community Center, and will accept donations until Tuesday, Nov. 15. There are large bins in the lobby of the center where donations can be placed.

Kathleen Miller, a coordinator with the East Lansing Department of Parks, Recreation and Arts, said they are specifically looking for nonperishable goods. However, there are some restrictions regarding packaging.

“We are asking for nonperishable goods. But we're also asking that those nonperishables are not vegan glass containers because when those go into the bins (they) can break,” Miller said. 

Miller said they have been very successful thus far, and are thankful to the East Lansing community.

“I know we live in a very, kind of, very generous community,” Miller said.