Kalamazoo will go without its annual free Thanksgiving dinner this year after God's Kitchen of Michigan canceled the meal, citing a lack of donations. The organization says it simply didn't receive enough funding to pull off the community dinner it has hosted in the area since 2017.
Rev. William Stein, chairman and co-founder of God's Kitchen of Michigan, said the organization was disappointed to cancel the Kalamazoo meal, according to WKZO. The outlet reports that insufficient donations were the reason behind the decision, a blow for a dinner that has aimed to serve warm food to people without stable access to it.
Despite the cancellation in Kalamazoo, the organization says it will still host a Thanksgiving meal in Battle Creek on November 18, held at First United Methodist Church and Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church. Stein expressed gratitude to the dedicated church and union sponsors in Battle Creek who have kept that dinner on track even as Kalamazoo's fell through.
A Pattern of Funding Shortfalls
This isn't the first time money troubles have threatened the Kalamazoo dinner. In 2019, God's Kitchen announced it wouldn't serve a free Thanksgiving dinner at its Kalamazoo location due to a lack of funding, only for organizers to reverse course the very next day after donations came in, according to mlive.com. That report also notes the Kalamazoo location opened in 2017.
The following year brought a similar story. God's Kitchen canceled its free community Thanksgiving dinner scheduled for November 25, 2020, again citing a lack of funds, per go955.com. More recently, the group appeared to have steadied itself: last year it said it would hold three free Thanksgiving dinners, including one in Kalamazoo at Kanley Chapel on Western Michigan University's campus from 5 to 6 p.m. on November 20, as reported by WKZO in a separate article.
Why Demand Keeps Climbing
The cancellation lands amid a broader strain on food assistance in the county. One in six people in Kalamazoo County experiences food insecurity, according to a report from Public Media Network. That squeeze has been building for years: in the second half of 2022, Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes and Twelve Baskets each saw the number of people they helped feed weekly double, the outlet notes.
During that same stretch, Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes was serving about 600 people per day and registering 200 new families per month over the prior six months, according to the same mlive.com report. Against that backdrop, the loss of even one free holiday meal site can ripple through a community already leaning on food pantries to make ends meet.
For now, families who depended on the Kalamazoo dinner will need to look elsewhere this Thanksgiving, while those in Battle Creek can still count on the meal going forward on November 18 at the two host churches.
