KENTWOOD, Mich. — Feeding America West Michigan's new Second Harvest Food Pantry is making a massive impact in Kentwood, serving hundreds of households a week.
Pat Gort lives at the Bailey Grove Retirement Community, right off 52nd Street, along with 40 of her friends and neighbors.
In the past she was the one driving her neighbors in need of food assistance to different locations outside of Kentwood, using a wagon to help transport food.
The neighbors drive has now turned into a walk after the recent opening of the Second Harvest Food Pantry located at 3846 52nd Street SE.
"I purchased this (Wagon) so that the ladies over there would have a way. There's a lot of ladies that don't have vehicles, and this gives them opportunity to pull this over here, load it up, take it back without getting someone to drive them," Gort said.
Gort adds that her community can use all the help they can get, especially when it comes to food.
"We're all low income. That's a HUD supported facility. So we live on Social Security," Gort said. "There's different levels, but for some of those people, this is like, this is where they're going to get the majority of their food, because they're so income diminished that they don't really have the opportunity to go to a grocery store and pay those prices."
Along with non-perishables, the pantry also has fresh produce, frozen foods, and hygiene products for neighbors in need.
Ever since moving its main headquarters to Kentwood in late 2024, Feeding America West Michigan instantly noticed the need in the neighborhood.
"We can't just have the zip code where our main warehouse is being the zip code that is really needing more help with food," said Ken Estelle, CEO of Feeding America West Michigan. "So that's why we looked around and decided one of the ways that we could help by opening a food pantry here in this community."
The impact of that choice is noticeable. In the first quarter of 2026, Feeding America distributed over 140,000 pounds of food in the 49512 zip code, and over 350,000 pounds total.
"We thought maybe we would start out with about 100 families a month and probably growing to up to 300 a month within within a few months, what we found is, from the first week we opened until now, we've actually been serving about 300 households a week," Estelle said.
The pantry features a grocery store-style layout, making the trip much easier for neighbors.
"There's no big sign saying you can only take one of these, one of those, you know, it's just like you come in and take what you need," Gort said.
The pantry is open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
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