'Serving Love And Dignity:' Leland-based 5Loaves2Fish Shows Strong Growth

Michelle White gets choked up when she talks about her volunteers.

There’s about 60 on the roster, with 40 that are very active and 20 that are the best of the best. They work tirelessly to cook meals from scratch and get them to people who truly need them, filling stomachs and hearts in the process.

“It makes me a little teary-eyed, for real,” she tells The Ticker. “We could never function without them. They are the backbone. Their dedication is incredible, frankly. It just blows me away.”

These volunteers have made and served more than 14,000 meals so far this year alone for 5Loaves2Fish, the Leland-based nonprofit Michelle and her husband Bill White founded in 2020.

Community support has surged for this organization, which serves meals at nine locations in Leelanau, Grand Traverse and Benzie counties throughout the week. The need is strong, the Whites say, even in what’s perceived to be a very wealthy county like Leelanau.

“Right here in Leelanau County, 43 percent of the population is in the ALICE category,” Michelle says, referring to a class of people statistically referred to as Asset Limited, Income Constrained and Employed. “You’re sitting looking at all of this wealth, but it’s concentrated.”

Many of the people who receive 5Loaves2Fish meals are experiencing homelessness, but plenty are not.

"Food insecurity does not have a dollar amount attached to it," Michelle said. 

5Loaves2fish took shape during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Michelle’s friend Melissa, who was connected to the homeless community, called her in a panic as the pandemic began to disrupt critical services.

“She called and said ‘You’ve got to do something. They’re shutting down the meal sites. People are starving,’” Michelle says.

Michelle already had a ton of food bought for a dinner she planned to hold at a Leland church to raise awareness about the homelessness issue. Since the pandemic cancelled that dinner anyway, she put the food to good use.

“My friend and I just cooked up a bunch of that food and we were putting it in empty spaghetti jars and anything else we could find and taking it to Melissa, and she was delivering it to the people she knew needed it where they were,” Michelle says.

A few hundred meals per year became a few thousand, and will now likely hit 20,000 this year as the organization has expanded.

“We've pretty much exploded, not only with the meals served, but with the generosity from individuals and organizations that have donated equipment and money,” Bill said.

Much of the food for these meals is donated by Goodwill Northern Michigan’s Food Rescue program, which repacks and distributes more than 2 million pounds of food each year that would otherwise go to waste.  But 5Loaves2Fish also has to buy food and cover other costs.

“We're finding that we're needing to purchase more protein items because that is something that doesn't come on a steady basis through Food Rescue,” Bill says.

The food is cooked from scratch, Michelle says, with a focus on the best available ingredients. 

"We try to make the best food possible. If it's not good enough for us, it's not good enough for our guests," Michelle said. "That's just kind of the vehicle. What we're really serving is love and dignity. 

The organization is always trying to get the word out and raise funds to do more, including adding another meal location near Maple City. To this end, they recently had a jam-packed annual dinner and fundraiser at Dune Bird Winery. They’re also constantly working to raise awareness of the magnitude of the food insecurity problem.

“I think it’s really easy to not realize our friends and neighbors (are experiencing this),” Michelle says. “Do they buy food or diapers? Food or medicine? Food or pay rent? It’s becoming really difficult to do all of the things.”

Aside from feeding people, the meals have served to build community.

“One of the things that being able to get our meals and serve them has done is it's recreated community and community support for each other," Bill says. "Younger people are coming in and if an older person isn't there, they're asking why. People are asking if others need help.  It’s things like that. So it's really benefited that whole idea of community.”

Pictured: Michelle and Bill White