Metro Area Chefs Will Help Feed Those In Need

DETROIT (WWJ) - Starting Wednesday, more than 50 metro area chefs will officially launch a program to help feed the needy.

WWJ's Pat Sweeting reports that the program "Feed The Need" has at least 52 different Detroit area chefs heading out to area shelters over the next 52 weeks to provide lunch to the needy on Wednesday.

Mickey Basks a former Detroiter founded feed the need in Charleston, South Carolina: "We had a shelter that was being cut - the budget was being cut and they were going to have to stop lunch service one day a week. To make the budget gap to fill that gap and we as a community of chefs ... we said, 'This can't be, let's get out there and help these people,'" said Basks.

Cass Community Center in Detroit will be the first to receive an assist from "Feed The Need". Buffalo Wild Wings will provide lunch Oct. 19, and Mary Barns food service coordinator at Cass Center says this year is really crucial:

"With the help from these restaurants we will be able to help keep our food services going," said Barns.

Development Coordinator Monique Turner says that they have seen their funding cut in half:

"We lost the State of Michigan Emergency Food Service, which was about $40,000 and we also have seen cuts from the Federal government, the United Way funding; we lost over half of that funding too."

Cass Community Center feeds about one thousand people a day.

Patrick Coleman's restaurant Beans and Cornbread in Southfield hasn't been matched up with a shelter yet but the issue of hunger is near to his heart.

"I think about growing up and there was a family down the street from my grandmother and whenever we would go over to my grandmothers for barbecue we would invite them over ... so that was instilled in me at a very early age, to help people who are less fortunate," said Coleman.

"Feed The Need" comes at a time when shelters are facing funding cuts on a local, state and federal level.