Outreach East, Historical Society Awarded Grants

Grants to preserve Davison area history and increase access to food were recently awarded by the Davison Community Fund.

The Davison Area Historical Society is the collector of many artifacts from early families and businesses that helped to grow the Davison area. Artifacts range from photographs to Victorian toys, and many have been stored because of inadequate display space. With a $900 grant from the Davison Community Fund, materials were purchased to build two new display cabinets for installation at the museum facility at Robert Williams Nature & Historical Learning Center in Davison Township.

A $2,000 grant will help Outreach East expand its food rescue program, a cooperative arrangement with Davison Schools. For the past three years, the groups have partnered to rescue leftover lunch room food at both Davison High School and Hahn Middle School. The food is picked up from the schools, brought to Outreach East where it is repackaged, frozen, and redistributed to families in need.

"We measure our success by how many families we are able to feed with this additional food," said Janis Lebert, Director of Outreach East. "We have received great feedback from our clients. Our seniors really look forward to this day off from cooking."

During the 2017/18 school year, the organization collected 5,039 pounds of food that would have been thrown in the garbage otherwise,serving 2,100 families.