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

November 20, 2009

The Monday After Scouting For Food, Our Busiest Day of the Year

Author: Erin Gray

Scouting for Food was this past Saturday November 14th and with the help of Boy Scouts, volunteers, and Second Harvest staff, we were able to collect over 180,000 pounds of food at our Brengle Warehouse in Orlando. Second Harvest Food Bank receives a portion of what Scouting for Food collects in Central Florida. We are grateful to be part of this wonderful event.

The Boy Scouts would bring truck loads of bags they had gathered from the houses in different neighborhoods to our collection sites. Then the sites boxed up the donations for distribution the following Monday.

Photos taken from one of our collection sites:

Photos taken by: Occasional Photo

After the food was collected and boxed up it was sent to our warehouse on Brengle Avenue in Orlando so that our Partner Agencies that have Emergency Food Pantries in the Orange and Seminole Counties could receive the food and distribute to their clients. The following Monday always looks like a caravan all lined up at our docks ready to go fight hunger in their neighborhood.

On Monday, November 16th the food was ready for pick by the agencies.  On a typical day we service about 25 agencies. This past Monday, our warehouse went into overdrive to serve over 164 agencies. We had as many as five agencies every 15 minutes.  Each agency vehicle’s shock absorbers got a workout as vans, trucks, and a couple compact cars were loaded up.

We were also very lucky that we had received a very large shipment of Sweet Potatoes so quite a few of the partner agencies received about a pallet or so to distribute along with the food drive. 

The Thanksgiving holiday is approaching and with food received from the Scouting for Food our Partner agencies will be able to distribute and help more families this season.

Erin Gray
Agency Relations Manager
egray@foodbankcentralflorida.org

October 5, 2009

Canstruction is Here!

Author: Sasha Hausman

Wow, I can’t believe that it is already October! And I couldn’t be happier! The weather is getting cooler, the holiday season is right around the corner, and of course Canstruction is here!

For those of you who are familiar with this amazing event, you know why I am excited. If this is your first time hearing about it, listen up … because it is a site to see!!

Canstruction is a community event where local architects, engineers, planners, contractors, schools,  and churches come together and build 8×8x8 structures out of at least 1,000 canned foods!

This year’s theme is “A City of Cans!” Each team is going to build a structure you will see in a city, for example; a house, school, zoo etc. 

Check out this amazing video made from last year’s build …

So when and where can you see these larger than life structures? I thought you’d never ask!!

Come out to the Fashion Square Mall at the West Course by Sears. The build will take place on Sunday, October 18th and they will stay up until Sunday, October 25th. Also, you are cordially invited to our celebration at the Fashion Square mall on the 22nd at 5:30 pm for our celebration! RSVP Canstruction® Orlando Awards Celebration.

Come out and vote for your favorite structure October 18-25, bring in a food donation (non-perishable!) and you will get put in a drawing for a $200 shopping spree at the Fashion Square Mall!!

There is one last thing we need help with. Forest Lake Academy is building a School for Canstruction. But they need our help with gathering the food to make their structure. Please check out what they need.  If you want to help out Forest Lake, please drop off your food donations to our Food Rescue Center (1918 Princeton St Orlando FL 32804) and ask for Sasha!

I am so excited to watch the city come to life, and I hope you are too! I know that this city of cans will be unlike anything you have ever seen before…so don’t miss out! If you have any questions, let me know.

Don’t forget to visit the Canstruction Web site for full details: http://www.canstruction-orlando.org/

See ya soon!

Sasha Hausman
Events Specialist
Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida
2008 Brengle Avenue
Orlando, Fl 32808
407-843-5009. ext. 25
shausman@foodbankcentralflorida.org