What could be better than an event encompassing wine, women, and shoes? Nothing in our eyes! Coming up on April 28, 2012 we will be holding our Second Annual Wine Women & Shoes Fundraising event at Rosen Shingle Creek.

For those of you who weren’t able to attend last year it’s an afternoon filled with fabulous fashion, delectable hors d’oeuvres, and of course sensational wine. The afternoon begins with shopping at designers and boutiques around the room as wine is poured and hors d’ oeuvres are tasted. “Shoe guys” float around the room and showcase shoes and other accessories on shiny silver platters.

After shopping women can peruse the silent auction and even get their make-up touched up! The grand finale of the day is the live auction offering once in a lifetime vacations and the fashion show highlighting this season’s latest trends.

After last year’s successful event our committee was extremely excited for the first meeting this year. With several returning members and some new faces the event is off to a great start!

The biggest news for this year: the fashion show is being sponsored and executed by the fashion mogul….Saks Fifth Avenue! We couldn’t be more excited to have them play such a huge role in Wine Women & Shoes this year.

Interested in attending the event or becoming a sponsor?

Please visit our webpage www.winewomenandshoes.com/orlando2012 for more details.

Jennifer Gibson
Events Specialist

Panera Bread and the Philips Phile radio program on Real Radio 104.1 are combining efforts and asking customers and listeners to dig deep this holiday season for a great cause. Panera announces that it will add the support of its ‘Operation Dough-Nation’ effort to veteran radio host Jim Philips’ annual ‘Make Jim Pay Challenge’ in an effort to help provide more food for struggling families across the community.

A contribution goal of $25,000 has been set by Panera Bread and the Philips Phile team this year. Listeners to the Phile program will be encouraged to visit their local Panera Bread bakery-cafe to give, as well as to visit the Second Harvest Food Bank website to give online at http://www.feedhopenow.org. For its part, Panera Bread will be collecting funds in special ‘Operation Dough-Nation’ boxes at each restaurant location in Central Florida in December and January, and the company plans to match customer donations dollar for dollar.

“To have two leaders in our community partner up in such a meaningful way to help people in need is especially powerful,” said Dave Krepcho, President & CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida. “To be honest, this generosity couldn’t come at a more urgent time, as our community continues to face a historic level of need for food assistance,” added Krepcho.

“After being introduced to the Second Harvest Food Bank and learning more about its mission and the needs of local children and families in our community, I knew Panera could help. We are proud to share “Panera warmth” with members of our local community throughout the year “said Annette Ford, owner of the Central Florida Panera franchise.

“Bread is an important part of our culture – it brings people together – and Panera Bread is dedicated to giving back to the people who have welcomed us into their neighborhoods and invited us to share in their lives.”

Thank you Panera Bread and Philips Phile for joining together this holiday season and helping to fight hunger in our Central Florida community.

Greg Higgerson, CFRE
Vice-President, Development
Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida
 

The generosity of our donors and this community never ceases to amaze.  On October 30^th, all 12 Central Florida Walmart Neighborhood Market stores kicked off a weeklong food drive benefitting Second Harvest Food Bank.  For the duration of the week, customers and staff donated critical need items like canned veggies, soup, rice and baby food, and filled storefront donation bins to the brim.  The weights are all in – more than 10,000 lbs were collected for our neighbors in need.

The food drive culminated with an event at the 600 S Alafaya Trail location on Saturday, November 5^th.  MIX 105.1 and 105.9 SUNNY FM were on hand all day with rockin’ tunes and giveaways, including children’s bike helmets compliments of Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, and Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus provided free opening night circus tickets to those who donated 10 or more items.  Beyond that, 12 lucky families received brand new children’s bicycles, each donated by one of the Walmart Neighborhood Market stores!

“This time of the year especially, it’s important to our company and associates that we reach out and help those less fortunate in our communities. For the second year in a row, our Central Walmart Neighborhood Markets took up this cause and did a phenomenal job providing much needed food to those in need. We appreciate them for all they do and we appreciate our partnership with Second Harvest Food Bank,” said Cheryl Lester, Walmart Regional General Manager.

Since partnering with the food bank in 2009, Walmart Neighborhood Market stores across Central Florida have donated the equivalent of over 672,000 meals through our Grocery Alliance Program. 

A HUGE thank you to all 12 Walmart Neighborhood Market stores for making the Neighbors Helping Neighbors Food Drive a tremendous success!

Photos from November 5, 2011:

Lauren Moskowitz
Grocery Alliance Program Manager

On October 16, Orlando Fashion Square will host the 18th annual CANSTRUCTION® – Orlando competition. During the competition,13 teams consisting of top local architects, engineers, contractors, designers, Girl Scout Troops, and high schools will gather to design and build spectacular giant-sized objects, approximately 8’ x 8’ x 8’, made entirely from canned and nonperishable foods.

This year’s theme? Wonders of the World!

The WONDERful structures will stay up at Orlando Fashion Square all week long until Sunday, October 23rd. So if you can’t make it to the build on Sunday…you have the whole week to stop by!

Awards

It is a competition after all! A panel of distinguished judges from the community decides the winning structures in five different categories: Best Meal, Structural Ingenuity, Best Use of Labels, Juror’s Favorite, and two Honorable Mentions. In addition to the primary awards we have a variety of local awards, all of which will be handed out at our evening celebration event on October 20. The Rotary Club of Orlando will be offering prizes for the school competition.

Do you want to help one of the teams win “The People’s Choice” Award? When visiting the structure at Orlando Fashion Square, be sure to vote for your favorite Canstruction by scanning their QR code with your smartphone! How cool is that?

NEW THIS YEAR: The Rotary Club of Orlando Gets Involved!

The Rotary Club of Orlando has added a new category to this year’s competition for students in greater Orlando’s high schools. . The Club has recruited eight high school teams to compete for prizes in a best school spirit category and will help with materials and mentorship. High school students will contribute their time, talents, and energies to collect cans of food to assemble sculptures that successfully represent the spirit of the school. This project is designed to support the principle of Rotary International: Service Above Self through its commitment to youth, alleviating hunger, and community service.

Participating high schools include: Oviedo, Timber Creek, Jones, Dr. Phillips, Apopka, Wekiva, and Edgewater.

High school teams compete only against other high school teams for prizes. Best Sculpture Awards will be given to the schools sponsoring a first place team and two additional finalists totaling $700 ($500 first place and $100 each for the two other finalists).

So what is the purpose?

The purpose of the design competition is to bring the community together to address the issue of hunger. At the close of the exhibit, all of the food products used in the structures is donated to Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida for distribution to pantries, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, senior programs and low-income daycares.

“We collected more than 20,000 food items in 2010, and it went a long way toward helping Central Floridians in need,” said chair of Canstruction and partner at Burke, Hogue Mills, Inc., a Lake Mary-based architecture and interior design firm, Deborah Rusnock.

Why Second Harvest LOVES Canstruction?

• All the food will go straight to helping our neighbors in need.
• Awareness! Mall goers have to stop and check out the beautiful structures and in turn…learn a thing or two about hunger in our community.
• It’s free art exhibit for our community.
• Gets our community involved in a new and exciting way.
• It is so much and fun and so amazing to look at!!

We just want to thank all of the 18 teams involved this year. We know the task isn’t easy but we are all excited to see the finished Canstructions! Also, a huge thank you to the Canstruction Orlando Committee led by Deborah Rusnock. They have worked so hard to put on this fantastic event for Orlando.

So are you excited yet? Because we sure are! Definitely come out to Orlando Fashion Square Sunday, October 16 – Sunday, October 23 so you can be amazed by the “Wonder of the World” all made out of cans. You won’t want to miss it!

Sasha Hausman
Development Manager

Our intern Melissa Kear, wraps up Hunger Action Month in this latest blog post. 

October is just around the corner, and with it (we hope!) comes cooler weather! Using our 30 Ways in 30 Days calendar, you can count down the last days of September and support Hunger Action Month every day of the week.

If you haven’t had a chance to visit our main facility for one of our popular Food for Thought Tours, please plan to join us Wednesday, September 21, 2011  6 pm for a special Food Bank tour of Second Harvest Food Bank. RSVP is required at CFLHungerAction.org. Spend one very interesting  hour with us learning about hunger in Central Florida and what Second Harvest is doing to help.

Celebrate Thursday with pizza! NYPD Pizza’s College Park location will be donating 15% of your bill to the food bank from 4-10pm when you mention “Second Harvest”.  Who knew you could give back while munching on your favorite NYPD Pizza slice, and what a great way to mark off your calendar!

Want to do more to help fight hunger? Take Friday and set up a time to volunteer at Second Harvest!  Find out more about volunteering opportunities at FeedHopeNow.org, and learn what you can do to help support your community. What better way to strike Friday off your calendar than by taking a step to be more involved in helping to fight hunger.

If you have extra time Saturday, help support Hunger Action Month by taking a quick shopping trip to pick up and donate critical need items.  Some of these items included: meals in a can, canned tuna, nonfat dry milk, peanut butter, oatmeal, nutritional drinks, dry beans, evaporated milk, canned vegetables, canned soups, pastas, rice, and baby food.  These items are all important in providing nutritional foods to those in need, and in many cases can be found in your local grocery store’s buy one get one free deals.

Sunday, register your school food drive and get a free toolkit. It’s an easy and efficient way to give back and help your community.  If registering and running a food drive isn’t in your schedule, check out our calendar to find other local food drives and how you can help support them and your community.

The start of a workweek can be a little crazy, so if you are short on time Monday, head over to our website, where you can donate a gift to help hunger.  Every dollar donated can provide up to $9 worth of food, so whether you can spare a little or a lot, your donation will be making a difference!

In case you can’t make our Wednesday’s Food for Thought Tour, join us Tuesday the 27th at 11:30 am to make our last tour of September.  Remember to RSVP at CFLHungerAction.org to join us for an hour tour of the food bank.  We look forward to seeing you!

Your support for Hunger Action Month has been amazing, and we are excited to see Central Florida come together to help fight hunger.  From September 18th – September 24th, Downtown Orlando will be lighting the Fountain at Lake Eola orange in support of Hunger Action Month, so take some time to stroll around the lake, reflect on the events of this month, and send us all of your pictures by the orange lighted fountain on Facebook or share them with us on Twitter, and thank you again for all that you do to support Hunger Action Month and Second Harvest Food Bank.

Melissa Kear
Second Harvest Food Bank intern

I’m super excited to introduce you to Melissa Kear, our fall intern. She has been doing an outstanding job and she has only been here 2 weeks. Look for more Hunger Action Month updates from her.

You know Labor Day Weekend is just around the corner when the grills are coming out, the store ads are streaked with holiday specials, and the television lineup is full of programs about barbecuing and dinner parties.  For some of us, we are just ready for that extra day off or an extended weekend, but while we are at the store stocking up on bags of chips, packs of hot dogs, and that extra large bag of charcoal, did you know that 1 in 4 children in Central Florida will be going to bed hungry tonight?

With an alarming statistic like that, it is hard not to pause and wonder what you can do to change those numbers  With the help of our 30 Ways in 30 Days calendar, we have made it easy for you to help fight hunger during your Labor Day holiday.

Start off your Sunday with a “Like” on our Facebook page! Help us hit 3,000 Likes for September, plus keep up with your community food bank and the many ways you can help throughout the year, or ways that you yourself can find help in tough times.

On Labor Day, head on over to Five Guys Burgers & Fries to load up on double-stacked burgers and hand cut fries from 5-9pm.  They will be donating 10% of sales to the Second Harvest Food Bank, so make sure to mention us when you go in!

If burgers aren’t your thing, Tuesday is the day for crabs, from Joe’s Crab Shack that is!  Bring in our calendar flyer from 11 am to 11 pm, and Joe’s Crab Shack will donate 10% of your bill to Second Harvest Food Bank.  

As the week progresses, get over Hump Day by visiting the Cheesecake Factory.  For every Hershey’s Chocolate Bar Cheesecake you purchase, $0.25 goes to Feeding America.

By the time Thursday comes around, the weekend is in sight!  Make dinner time easier by ordering at NYPD Pizza in College Park. From 4 pm to 10 pm, they will be donating 15% of your bill to Second Harvest. All you need to do is mention Second Harvest plus this is good for dine-in or delivery.

Don’t worry, we’ve made Friday even easier! Follow us on Twitter at @2HarvestCFL and use the hash tag #hungeraction to join in on the hunger conversation or share it with friends.

Finally, wind down on Saturday by visiting choosemyplate.org. Learn how easy it can be to include all 5 food groups into your meals and learn to start eating healthier!  You will find lots of resources, recipes, tips to get you and your family healthy and eating right.

Remember, September is Hunger Action Month, which means everyday is a chance to do something to benefit your community and fight the hunger epidemic that is plaguing our neighbors and friends.  

Never think that 10% or 15% of your bill can’t make a difference.  For every $1 Second Harvest receives, it puts out $9 in food value.  That means if 10% of your bill is only $3, that is $27 worth of food that has just been given to somebody in need.

From everybody at Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, have a great Labor Day Weekend, and thank you for all that you do!

Melissa Kear
Second Harvest Food Bank intern

Hunger Action Month starts today!  While we always need your involvement with Second Harvest Food Bank all year round, we do try to make it extra easy and fun in September!

Second Harvest, in conjunction with Feeding America and 205 other food banks nationwide are participating in the Third Annual Hunger Action Month. The goal of this month is to mobilize people to get involved with fighting hunger in America.

With the help of amazing local corporate partners, we have come up with a “30 Ways in 30 Days” Calendar. We’ll be counting down our 30 day calendar in weekly blog posts, so make sure to sign up to receive them in your mailbox (on the top left of this page).

You might say “Wait a minute!  You just told me there are 3 easy ways to get involved not 30! Below you can find three easy ways to start spreading the word about hunger right here in Central Florida.

 3 easy ways to get involved:

 1) Attend at least one event on our 30 Ways in 30 Days Calendar

For Hunger Month we have partnered with Cheese Cake Factory, Joe’s Crab Shack, Firestone Live!, Five Guys Burgers & Fries, NYPD Pizza, Mochi Downtown, Third Thursday Gallery Walk, Eden Bar, City of Orlando and Enzian Theater!  Check out our calendar to see how these amazing local businesses are getting involved with Hunger Action Month!

 2) Visit: http://www.CFLHungerAction.org

Our Hunger Action Month website is an online calendar of all the events happening in September. From there you can also sign the hunger pledge and learn about more ways to get involved with Second Harvest.  

 3) Share with your friends, family and co-workers

We hope you love social media as much as we do! Just look for the social media share buttons on all our pages and events. Just click the button and it will automatically share the information you are looking at with your facebook friends or twitter followers. Also, if you pick up a calendar or a postcard at an event, make sure to grab two. One for you and one for a friend.

Did you know that One in Five Central Floridians struggles with Hunger? This story made the front page of the Orlando Sentinel this morning: Nearly a third of Central Florida children may lack adequate nutrition. Join us in changing these statistics by getting involved.

In the great words of Henry Ford: “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”

 Anyone want to try to complete all 30 ways in September? How do you plan on getting involved this September? 

Maria Diestro
Online Services and Communications Manager

In case you haven’t heard yet, Taste of the Nation Orlando raised $167,500 to help fight hunger in Central Florida. The local beneficiaries for this foodie event are Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida and Florida Impact.

Close to 2,000 people at the World Center Marriott enjoyed delicious food prepared by 36 top Central Florida restaurants. The event was emceed by DJ’s Scott McKenzie of Mix 105.1 and Paco of 1059 Sunny FM. This year, the event even held a cooking “throw-down” sponsored by Creekstone Farms. Thanks to our sponsors, all the chefs and our hard working committee, we had an unforgetable Taste of the Nation.

This year, I reached out to Central Florida Foodie and Lifestyle bloggers to see if they would like to help get the word out about Taste. I met some pretty amazing individuals and want to share their reviews of Taste of the Nation Orlando with you.

Tasty Chomps – The Orlando Food Blog

• Taste of the Nation Recap  
• Interview with The Ravenous Pig at Taste of the Nation Orlando 2011

Crave Local: Blog of Deliciousness

• Taste of the Nation 2011 – Orlando’s #1 Food Event

Katy Widrick: Healthy Living in a Hectic World

• We are One Tasty Nation

Insatiable Food Blog

• 22nd Annual Taste of the Nation Orlando

 A Night with the Hops

• Doing Something Very Good

 Laptops and Stovetops

• Taste of the Nation Orlando 2011

Analog Artist Digital World: The Orlando Florida Sketchbook of Thomas Thorspecken

• 22nd Annual Taste of the Nation  

Mega Yummo: Blogging About Restaurants and more ..

• City Fire American Oven and Bar at Taste of the Nation Orlando
• Taste of the Nation Orlando, JW Marriott Creme Brulee Demo

We event got 3 more reviews from bloggers who attended Taste of the Nation because of other bloggers:

Peanut Butter Fingers: Living a life fueled by healthy food and fitness

• Taste of the Nation Orlando

 Peas in a blog: best friends sharing vegetarian food & fitness

• Taste of the Nation Orlando 2011  

Sushi and situps

• Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation

Two things I learned from this project. One, I can’t believe how many foodie and fit bloggers there are in Orlando. We hope to involved them in future Second Harvest events or projects. Two, people genuinely want to help out if you just ask them. 

I hope you enjoy reading these reviews as much as I have. Did you attend Taste of the Nation? What was your favorite part of the event?

Maria Diestro
Online Services and Communications Manager