Archive for March, 2010

March 24, 2010

Publix Super Markets Central Florida Division and Customers Raised more than $86,000 to support Second Harvest Food Bank

Author: Maria Diestro

This past holiday season Publix Super Markets and their customers raised more than $86,000 through their Food For All program. The Food for All campaign took place in all Central Florida Publix stores from November through December 2009.

Through the fundraiser, customers could make a $1, $3, or $5 contribution while paying for their groceries. The coupon was then added to their total grocery bill.

Dave Krepcho, president and CEO of Second Harvest, said “These donations provide nine times that much in terms of food value to the community. This will go a long way toward feeding families throughout our service area. A truly meaningful donation.”

Thank You Publix for letting us be a part of the Food for All campaign. And thank you Central Florida for being so giving this past holiday season.

March 22, 2010

Agency Spotlight – Calvary Outreach Center

Author: Erin Gray

We couldn’t accomplish our mission of fighting hunger in Central Florida without our partner agencies. The majority of our partners are food pantries of various types and sizes.

Calvary Outreach Center in Winter Park is one of our larger Food Pantries that serve around 2000 people a month.  Recently Calvary Outreach Center moved their location to the church grounds at Calvary Assembly.

The new location gives them a lot more room for their pantry and counseling services. They have also built a class room attached to the building, which they plan on using to teach their clients that use the pantry’s services.

Calvary is hosting the “Money for Food” course that the ADEPT program is offering.  Hosting the classes for his clients is helping them develop the new ways to stretch their food dollar even further.

It is great that Calvary is so willing to partner with us in new ways, beyond distributing food to the clients.

 

Every time we visit Calvary, Pastor Clint Wallace has some new data to share with us. Here’s his latest update:

“From 2005 thru 2009, thanks to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, Calvary’s Outreach Center and Transitions Ministry distributed 12,464 family bags of food, 13,494 homeless bag lunches, 9,177 hot lunches, and 1,982 thanksgiving turkeys .

With the average meal weighing 1.5 pounds, we estimate that in those 5 years, Calvary’s Outreach Center & Transitions Ministry distributed 74,505 pounds of food, translating to over 37 tons. Without Second Harvest we would have only distributed around 9 tons of food.”

Calvary Outreach Center, and all of our Partner Agencies are doing such a wonderful job in the fight against hunger in Central Florida.

Erin Gray
Agency Relations Manager

March 12, 2010

From the Food Bank to the Moon (and back!)

Author: Brady Koch

Last week managers in our operations department met offsite to review our progress for the year. Responsibly distributing food to all of our partner agencies is a sophisticated process and it’s important that we have these check-ups between staff occasionally.

One statistic that surprised me was the amount of product our Power Purchase Center has provided to agencies since 2005.  Power Purchase provides nonprofit feeding programs with access to needed food and other items that are rarely donated by our corporate food donors. 

Second Harvest Food Bank purchases these items in volume, and passes the savings along to our partners. Having these products available as an option helps to save our agencies a little more money, while eliminating their need to leave our facility and go to wholesale clubs or other sources to get the items they need.

15% of the 21 million lbs we distributed last year came from the Power Purchase Center. In addition to food, we carry non-food items that are difficult for our agencies to get donated for their clients.

Since 2005, our purchase program has distributed enough toilet paper, that if you unrolled it, it would go to the moon and back. I’m sure NASA would appreciate our analogy.

Brady Koch
Director of Agency Relations & Programs

March 12, 2010

ADEPT: Helping Our Agencies Clients

Author: Erin Gray

We care about the organizational well-being of our agencies because without them, there would be no way Second Harvest Food Bank could provide food for more than 55,000 people each week right here in Central Florida.

At Second Harvest we offer an ADEPT (Agency Development Education Planning and Training) program that provides training to our partner agencies to help them with different aspects of running a nonprofit organization. While the classes are usually aimed directly at nonprofit agencies, we’ve recently decided to test a few classes with clients themselves. Each semester at Second Harvest we receive wonderful interns from UCF. Jen and Judith have been helping us out this semester and have been working hard on a new serise of classes geared specifically to the individuals that our partners serve.

The “Money for Food” classes are adapted from a successful program developed by the Wisconsin Nutrition Education program.

The goal is to help clients learn how they can become more food secure while only having limited incomes and resources. For example, do you know that there are complete listings of restaurant’s “Kids Eat Free” nights?
 
This series of classes are being taught at the Calvary Outreach Center, where Pastor Clint Wallace graciously donated their classroom space and helped recruit students from his pantry clients. The first of twelve classes was very successful as we had 12 clients in attendance. Great job, Jen and Judith and thank you Calvary Outreach Center!
 
Are you interested in coming to an ADEPT class? Check out the upcoming classes scheduled.

Erin Gray
Agency Relations Manager

March 10, 2010

Are you Ready to Stamp Out Hunger?

Author: Maria Diestro

The National Association of Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive is right around the corner. With your help, Orlando Letter Carriers will help Stamp Out Hunger on Saturday, May 8.

Now in its 18th year, the Stamp Out Hunger! effort is the nation’s largest single-day food drive. Last year, Letter Carriers collected 376,514 pounds of food in Central Florida. Nationally, 73.4 million pounds of food was collected.

What Can You Do To Help?
1. Place bags filled with nonperishable food items next to your mailbox.*
2. Your letter carrier will pick them up and deliver them to Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida.

* Donate items like canned meats and fish, canned soup, juice, pasta, vegetables, cereal and rice. Please do not include items that have expired or those in glass containers.

Sign up here to receive a reminder email!

Below are photos and videos from last year:

 

Maria Diestro
Online Services and Communications Manager