Can you believe that we are halfway through Hunger Action Month? What actions have you taken so far from our 30 Ways in 30 Days calendar? I would love any feedback or ideas you may have on our calendar.

I have been super busy promoting our calendar via our social media channels. I am happy to report that people have been sharing my links daily. If you would like to receive updates from us … like us on facebook or follow us on twitter. We would love to interact with you via these channels.

Since there are 15 more days left of Hunger Action Month, I wanted to give you a quick rundown of some fun and quick actions you can take this week.

Today you can participate in Kraft’s Text to Give campaign. Text the word “MEALS” and your zip code to 71717 and Kraft will donate a meal to Second Harvest Food Bank. This is part of the Huddle to Fight Hunger Campaign. Everytime someone joins the huddle in Central Florida a meal gets donated to Second Harvest Food Bank. And guess what … Florida is in second place! 

On Friday, September 17 fight hunger with just one click. Download Pampered Chef’s Cookbook for a Cause for free and a meal with be donated to Feeding America. Pampered Chef’s goal is to donate 10 million pounds of food this year. You can help them reach this goal by downloading this exclusive celebrity cookbook.

You can actually do this action every day till September 23. Vote for the hunger image that moves you the most! Online voting for our Portraits of Hunger Photography contest has started. We have received over 900 votes already. Remember, you can vote as many times as you want.

We need your help in choosing the top 3 photos. After that, our 3 judges will choose the winner. The winner of Portraits will be announced along with a display of all photo entries at our showcase party. The winner will have their photo showcased at The Enzian Theater for a month!

Here are the details:
Portraits of Hunger Showcase Party
Date: Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Enzian’s Eden Bar – 1300 South Orlando Avenue, Maitland, FL 32751
Bring a food donation (non-perishable) and receive a free Peroni. 1 free Peroni per person.

Until next week! 

Maria Diestro
Online Service and Communications Manager

Our Portraits of Hunger Showcase took place on Wednesday, September 30 at Enzian’s Eden Bar.

It can be a bit unnerving not knowing who will actually show up to an event. Fortunately for us, the night was a huge success! Every seat at Eden Bar was taken. I got a chance to meet several of the photographers that submitted photos to our contest. I also got a chance to talk to some of the people that brought food donations. We are very thankful for the community support that we received that night.   

Note: We could not have pulled this event off without the help of Enzians’ staff. It seems so long ago when we actually talked about the event. They were truly a pleasure to work with.

Drumroll …

The 2009 Portraits of Hunger winner is G.K. Sharman for her photograph titled: Courage.

Top 3 photos were: Courage by G.K. Sharman, Loneliness by Bernard Juskie and Snack Time Smiles submitted by Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida, photographer Sharon Smith.

I’d like to thank our three judges for taking the time to vote for the winning photo and for participating this year. Our Contest Judges were Sara Van Arsdel, Executive Director of Orange County History Center; Josh Garrick, Media Rep & Curator for Millenia Fine Art and Dave Krepcho, President of Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida.

If you didn’t get a chance to attend Portraits of Hunger, below is a slideshow of all the photos that were submitted to the contest. 

If you did attend, the slideshow below has photos taken from that night. Enjoy!

Thank you again for participating in Portraits of Hunger.  We look forward to bringing this event back next year.

If you have any suggestions on ways we can make this contest better or ways that we can improve on the showcase please leave us a comment below.

Maria Diestro
Online Services and Communications Manager