Eatonville Boys & Girls Club’s Kids Cafe welcomed over 120 youngsters with a hot afterschool meal on its opening day. The club sits in the heart of historic Eatonville; the nation’s oldest established African-American township. It is a stone’s throw from Hungerford Elementary and draws more than 200 students from nearby elementary, middle, and high schools.

Joyce Davis, who prepared  the meals, tell us that before Kids Cafe, children would receive small snacks consisting of bagels or cheese perhaps two or three times weekly, without regularity.

Second Harvest Food Bank, with the support of the Winter Park Health Foundation, has made it possible for these children to rely on a wholesome meal each and every day while school is in session. During the summer, Second Harvest will sponsor the club so that it may participate in the Summer Food Service Program which helps bridge the nutritional gap when children lack access to school cafeterias.

The club can now access a wide variety of food product from our main warehouse. Nutritional education will also be provided starting in early February.  Since children’s diets are generally a function of what happens at home, our hope is that the children will influence their parents by recounting what they learn at the club.  Menu tips, dietary guidelines and support will also be provided to the club’s cook.

We are extremely pleased with the first day’s turnout and expect a significant increase by week’s end.

Thanks to the Winter Park Health Foundation, Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Florida, Deb Watson, Austin Long, Rod Bargaineer, and Joyce Davis for their enthusiasm and support as we worked closely to make this happen!

View a map of our 13 Kids Cafes in 3 counties: Second Harvest Food Bank Kids Cafes >>

Photos from opening day:

Santos Maldonado
Childhood Hunger Manager

Early on the bright and crisp morning of Saturday, December 17^th, three large Second Harvest trucks filled with 52,464 pounds of emergency food boxes and fresh produce got ready to roll toward six Orange County public schools. Second Harvest staff and management gathered in the parking lot to work out last minute details. Dave Krepcho, Second Harvest President and CEO, was first to rumble out of the lot and toward Hungerford Elementary School.

At the schools, families of students were already lined up in anticipation, as enthusiastic volunteers prepared for an orderly distribution. The energetic volunteers, young, old and in between, had been recruited and organized by Orange County Public Schools Food and Nutrition Services. They worked like a finely tuned orchestra, handling every surprise with patience, smiles and lots of laughs.

At East River High School, a seemingly endless line of vehicles stretched off into the distance. Volunteers quickly began filling trunks and backseats with food boxes. A couple pulled up on a motorcycle. They left with saddlebags brimming.

At Cheney Elementary the turnout was even more dramatic. By then, the local media had reported the event and many families on foot were patiently waiting as we pulled in. Youngsters helped carry boxes to parked cars while others filled bags with fresh produce. Smiling faces and expressions of gratitude made an already sunny day that much brighter.

Similar scenes played out at Evans High, Ivey Lane Elementary and Glenridge Middle Schools. Nearly 1,400 families worried less about having food to eat during the two week break from school when children lack access to school cafeterias.

This has been our largest Holiday Food Drop to-date and it was all done within the space of four hours.

Thanks to our partners, the Winter Park Health Foundation and Orange County Public Schools’ Food and Nutrition Services, as well as to the volunteers who helped make the face-to-face link between our work and the community at large.

Photos from the day:

Santos Maldonado
Childhood Hunger Programs Manager

Have you ever walked by someone with a cool shirt on and had the design stuck in your head? I personally can’t help myself from wanting to know more.

Well, IWearYourShirt.com has taken this interest and added a social media/Marketing element to it.

With a team of 5 people, IWearYourShirt.com promotes a different company every day on their website. Through twitter, facebook, youtube, flickr and a live chat each team member highlights the branded shirt in their own creative way.

Are you confused? This might help. I copied this from their website: “Think of IWearYourShirt as a social media advertising company via t-shirts?”

This year, they donated 11 days of shirt wearing to 11 non-profit organizations. Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida was one of the lucky charities picked and November 26 was our day on their online promotions calendar!

Did I forget to mention that IWearYourShirt.com has some very talented team members? Check out what they did to let others know about Second Harvest
Food Bank and hunger in Central Florida.

Photos and Youtube videos:

Thank you Jason Sadler, Deandre Upshaw, Angela Seales, Neal Brooks and Amber Plaster for the creative content! And thank you IWearYourShirt.com for choosing us as the last non-profit highlighted on your site in 2011!

Maria Diestro
Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida

With the holidays rapidly approaching, most of us are preparing for a time of celebration and gift-giving. Yet for many children attending Central Florida Public Schools, this season will prove to be a particularly difficult one.

As many as 222,000* Central Florida students are receiving free or reduced cost lunches through the federally subsidized School Lunch Program because their families are struggling.

As a way of addressing this need Second Harvest is providing 18 Orange County elementary schools with Hi-Five Kids Packs – Kid friendly, shelf-stable packets of food product meant for weekend consumption. Each pack provides enough caloric content for a day to youngsters 6 to 8 years old.

In Orange County, which has 125 elementary schools, almost one fourth have free-lunch eligibility rates exceeding 95%. Osceola County reports a disturbing figure indicating that 70% of their students are now on the  eligible list for free lunch, up from 63% four years ago. *

Childhood Hunger and food insecurity are on the rise, not just locally but nationwide. Participation in the program has increased dramatically as we weather the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Free school lunches do not address what occurs when children lack access to school cafeterias over the weekend. The Hi-Five program helps narrow that nutritional gap. Additionally, studies clearly show a correlation between proper nutrition and academic performance.

Our Hi-Five program has grown from 5 schools in 2006 to a projected 20 schools this year. To-date, Second Harvest has gotten more than 134,000 packs into the hands and tummies of needy children.

Our latest addition is Tildenville Elementary which received its first delivery this week. By December, Cape View Elementary in Brevard County will join the others.  Our hope is that the Hi-Five program will not only feed children, but help ease the economic burden experienced by struggling families.

As one parent told a faculty member not long ago: “I rely on the food I get from the school to calculate my monthly budget.”

*Sources:

Laura Kozar, Food and Nutrition Services OCPS
Free-school-lunch program soars as more area families struggle – Orlando Sentinel, Dave Weber

Santos Maldonado
Childhood Hunger Programs Manager

It was a morning of great celebration at Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida.  In a very special ceremony outside our loading dock, one of our longest-serving and best corporate partners came by for a look back at our history together, and also brought the Food Bank one step closer to realizing its future vision for the community – by announcing a $500,000 gift and pledging to give us 20,000 pounds of fresh produce during the next year.

For twenty years, Walt Disney World has reached out to help Central Floridians in need through support of the Food Bank’s mission.  The company is one of very few that literally  helps the Food Bank in every manner possible—through incredible food donations, through financial support, and through volunteerism. Disney’s deep and enduring support of hunger relief has directly touched hundreds of thousands of lives in our community over the past two decades. 

Children, seniors, working poor families, homeless, and others have received the vital food assistance they needed because of this generosity.  To help keep that nutritious help going, this morning we learned of a new commitment from Disney to provide an additional 20,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables over and above the normal prepared and perishable food donations received daily through their Disney Harvest program. These products are the very food items that low income families cannot afford on their own, and represent added health and vitality for all who will receive them.

But neither the Food Bank or our great partners have the luxury of resting on our laurels when it comes to alleviating hunger in our community. Far too many people still go to bed hungry, and have no idea when or where they’ll next sit down for a nutritious meal. At the same time, and despite record-setting years of food distribution, Second Harvest Food Bank has become very challenged by infrastructure.  

Simply put? We’ve run out of space, but the need continues to grow.  Through the “Building Solutions to Hunger” capital campaign project, the Food Bank will position itself to continue growing into our community’s need for decades to come. It is estimated that more than $1.4 Billion worth of food will move through the planned 100,000 square foot facility on Mercy Drive over the next twenty years.   

To help Second Harvest Food Bank realize this vital future vision, Walt Disney World has committed $500,000 toward the completion of the new facility, which we hope to occupy before the end of 2012. This gift will recognize the contribution of volunteers to our mission, and will dedicate the volunteer work area and volunteer break room areas of the new facility.    The generous support is another step toward the $10 million philanthropic goal of the campaign, and will help set the bar for other caring contributors going forward.

 So … On behalf of a grateful community and the board of directors, volunteers and staff of Second Harvest Food Bank, thank you to Minnie, Mickey, and all our friends at Walt Disney World. It definitely takes some magic now and then to accomplish big steps forward in hunger relief, and we definitely had some of that this morning!  

For more information on the Building Solutions to Hunger capital campaign, please visit www.showmercynow.org   

Video and photos of this morning’s announcement:

Greg Higgerson
Vice-President, Development

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

When we began working on our Paper Plate Campaign I wasn’t sure what response to expect or how willing people would be to share their personal stories. Over the past month though; we have collected over 700 plates from sixteen of our partner agencies here in Central Florida. 

We have asked our neighbors who are receiving food assistance to share exactly what this food means to them and their families. Many people have shared the importance of food stamps for their families and how the emergency food they receive at pantries helps get them through the end of the month. Some families have even shared pieces of their stories which have led them to rely on help from others.

Each plate has been unique and filled with such emotion and sincerity. The voices displayed on the plates represent children as young as eight years old to senior citizens well into their seventies.

I was personally able to visit one of our partner agencies, Loaves and Fishes, and ask those waiting in line for food assistance if they would like to fill out a plate. It was amazing to see the gratitude on someone’s face from simply letting them know that we would like their individual voice to be heard.

One of the recurring themes on many plates is how long periods of unemployment have pushed families into food pantries. One plate sums up what so many have said: “Food is a necessity not a luxury. When facing long periods of time unemployed, food stamps are an assistance that provides a way to be able to purchase food. A bad situation is hard to deal with without food”.

At the end of October our CEO, Dave Krepcho, will be delivering all of the plates we have received to our Senators offices here in Orlando.

Slideshow of  our Paper Plate Campaign:

Jen Gibson
Events Specialists

It feels like just yesterday I was just finalizing our 30 Ways in 30 Days Hunger Action Month calendar.  I am devoting this blog post to all those who got involved with this year’s HAM and thanking everyone that helped make it happen. This year we did some new and exciting things to help raise awareness about hunger in our community.

The goal of our calendar was to show that even small actions can make a deep impact on the problem of hunger. We were super excited to receive a lot of positive feedback and can’t wait to make next year even bigger and better!

Hunger Action Month would not be possible without the support of our community partners.  They held partial proceeds nights at their restaurants, donated food, organized events for us and even let us join in their monthly community events. All our partners were very supportive and helped get the word out about Hunger Action Month.

 Thank you!

This year we also pushed the color of hunger relief, Orange.  Huge thanks to everyone that wore Orange in September in support of Hunger Action Month. 

Below is a slideshow of orange shirts that were worn during HAM:

A special thanks to the City of Orlando! The City got involved and lit the Lake Eola Fountain Orange!

“The City of Orlando is lighting the iconic fountain in Downtown’s Lake Eola Park the color orange this September in support of the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida’s Hunger Action Month campaign,” says Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer.  “The City is committed to draw attention to help address the problem of hunger and poverty in Central Florida. We hope that the orange glow of the fountain will prompt local citizens to take the pledge to fight hunger and do what  they can to help feed those in need in our community.”

This year we also launched http://www.CFLHungerAction.org! We will continue to use the site to highlight future events and to post community food drives. So make sure to check back soon because the fall is always filled with so many amazing events that the Central Florida community puts together for us.  

Thank you for helping to Fight Hunger and Feed Hope this September!

We hope you continue to follow us this fall. Below are some links that will help keep you updated:

• Like us on Facebook
• Follow us on Twitter
• Receive our E-news
• Sign up for a Food for Thought Tour

Did you like our 30 Ways in 30 Days Calendar? What other types of events would you like to see more of next year during Hunger Action Month?

Maria Diestro
Online Services and Communications Manager