February 1, 2012

Eatonville Boys & Girls Club’s Kids Café

Author: Santos Maldonado

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. Read More …

September 20, 2011

Winding down September and Giving Back

Author: Maria Diestro

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. Read More …

September 13, 2011

AARP Day of Service at Second Harvest Food Bank

Author: Maria Diestro

Let’s hear it for AARP! This year, they have made a major commitment to hunger among older Americans. Our CEO, Dave Krepcho, wrote about it in his “Hunger and the Daytona 500?” blog post in February.

Well this year, AARP designated Friday, September 9 as it’s Day of Service where the main focus was also hunger. On this day staff and volunteers nationwide went out to serve in their local communities.

How is this related to Second Harvest? Well, on Friday, September 9 we had 60 Winter Park AARP volunteers at our sorting facility putting together senior packs. Basically, they took over the food bank on that day and put together 5,452 senior food packs. Pretty amazing, right? Read More …

April 6, 2011

Fashion Show In The Making: Wine, Women & Shoes and Local Businesses Unite

Author: Maria Diestro

Aycha Williams is Fashion Chair of Second Harvest’s Wine Women & Shoes Orlando event. We asked her to get with her committee and to write about the experience they have had putting together the fashion show for this exciting event. Wine Women & Shoes will take place on Saturday, April 23, 2011 at the Royal Plaza Hotel.

As volunteers for Second Harvest Food Bank’s Wine, Women & Shoes event, the fashion show committee has been working non-stop for a fabulous Fashion Show! We have been received so well by the community’s local businesses and by Orlando’s fashion industry.  Everyone we talked to was more than willing and excited to contribute and support the cause.

First step for the fashion show was to decide on our fashion partners. We partnered mostly with Orlando’s local businesses for the looks for the fashion show. This way; while helping Second Harvest’s cause of putting an end to hunger in Central Florida we were also able to support the local businesses.

Tammy Giaimo, owner of Jacobson’s at Park Avenue and Aimee Collins-Hitchner owner of Ginger Boutique at Winter Park Village agreed to partner with us for the fashion show. We were also approached by Melanie Sweetland with White House & Black Market Store at Altamonte Mall and were very excited to include them as a part of the event. The fashion show will have this summer’s must have looks as well as a peek into the fall closet of brands such as Escada. So get ready to enjoy an amazing fashion show while tasting some delicious wine from Florida and California’s select wineries.

Next; we started looking for models and once again we were very pleasantly surprised by the interest and support to help.

We walked in to the Maile Image, Modeling and Acting School of Winter Park and received a very warm welcome from Debby Tapia, the Vice President. She put in a request for our criteria and we received some great resumes and headshots to review. The Maile Modeling and Acting School has been working with students and training talent since 1982. The school offers classes in Image & Confidence Development, On Camera Acting, Professional Modeling for children, teens and adults. Some successful graduate Maile School models and actors are Mandy Moore, Vincent Martell on Everybody Hates Chris and as the voice of Phineaus on the popular Disney show Phineaus and Ferb,  and Paul Amadi in hot movie The Blind Side and 2 Miss Americas.

In addition; our own friends, beautiful women with style; business professionals, stay at home mothers all offered to help support our cause. Follow our blog to learn more about our models; we will have more posts about them and their passion to help in the coming days.

A great fashion show comes with great music! Our music will be mixed by DJ Clinton. If you like to dance and have been to Park Avenue club venues for late night dancing then you must know Clinton. He will be the DJ for the complete event and the fashion show.

We also could not have done without: LMG Inc. of Orlando; they have graciously donated the free rental of projectors and lighting, Quest Drapery has provided discounts on the purchase of drapery for the show and finally Video Equipment Rentals-VER, Inc. has donated the free rental of the complete sound system.

Like we said at the beginning; we are more than ready for a fabulous fashion show at Second Harvest’s Wine, Women & Shoes event! Latest fashion trends, beautiful models to be accompanied by great music of today and the 80s… If you have not purchased your tickets yet; you can do so by visiting www.winewomenandshoes.com/second harvest

Check back for more news on the fashion show, our models and about their passion to help end hunger.

Aycha Williams
Fashion Chair
Wine, Women & Shoes

December 22, 2010

Whatever It Takes

Author: Brady Koch

On a chilly, rainy Saturday morning, Second Harvest Food Bank and Winter Park Health Foundation staff teamed up to unload a truckload of food in the parking lots of Glenridge Middle School, Hungerford and Cheney Elementary schools. 

 Thanks to a generous grant from the Foundation, Second Harvest was set up to distribute emergency food boxes to families who are struggling.  Word of the distribution had been circulated through local emergency food pantries, and there was no shortage of people who needed the help.  

Even before the truck arrived, cars had been lining up since before daybreak. Many of the vehicles contained more than one family, and had arrived early to avoid missing out on the getting one or two of the boxes.   

This distribution was a little different than others have been in the past, mostly because of the steady drizzle of rain. People mostly stayed inside their vehicles this time, except to hop out and quickly secure their food in the trunk.  

Still, smiling, relieved faces of all ages and ethnicities could be plainly seen through the dripping windows, and a heartfelt ‘thank you!’ was the most-often heard phrase that day. In all, 470 boxes of wholesome, staple food items found their way back to homes.  

Additional shout out to OCPS Nutrition Services for providing all of the volunteers for the sites.

Brady Koch
Director of Agency Relations & Programs