January 17, 2012

Holiday Food Drop

Author: Santos Maldonado

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. Read More …

November 18, 2011

Hi-Five Kids Pack Program Update

Author: Maria Diestro

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. * Read More …

October 4, 2010

It feels good to share

Author: Greg Higgerson

One of my most favorite job-related duties involves spreading the word about Second Harvest Food Bank as a guest speaker at functions and meetings throughout Central Florida.   This morning I had the opportunity to do that once again. Like most of my talks, I was given a window of 10-15 minutes, and was told that my audience was interested in hearing about the importance of giving back to the community.

I arrived at the appointed time, and arranged my “props.” I had brought along 26 pieces of plastic toy food items to distribute among those in the room. I began by asking everyone to tell me what it feels like when they are really, really hungry. Some of the answers included “my stomach makes noises,” and “I just feel really tired.” Then I asked what kinds of food everyone likes to eat when they feel that way. I heard about a wide variety of tasty items like tomatoes, celery, French fries, Pineapple, Pizza, and others.   

Then we played a game. I asked everyone to imagine that they were very, very hungry. The audience closed their eyes, and many covered their stomachs with their arms.

I then handed out the toy food items, making sure to give at least two items to each one. Unfortunately, before everyone could get the food—it ran out. There wasn’t enough, and about half a dozen ended up with no food at all. I apologized for that, and then turned to those who had food in their hands. “OK—We’re all SO hungry. Now we’re going to have a party, and eat our food together—won’t that be fun?!” I asked.    But instead of smiles and cheers, I saw only concerned faces as they looked at those who were holding nothing in their hands.  

With no prompting from me, one of the audience members who held two pieces of food in her hands said to one of her friends  “Here, you can have one of mine…”    Immediately, others who held more than one piece began to stand up and share with those who had been left out of the process. They clearly weren’t prepared to celebrate or have any kind of party unless everyone could participate. What a concept. 

We could all learn a lesson, I think, from the five-year old students in Ms. Keri and Ms. Stacey’s Pre-Kindergarten class at Trinity Lutheran School in downtown Orlando. As you may have guessed, they were the audience to whom I was invited to speak this morning. Because my own son Colin was one of those who had been left without food during this exercise, I was particularly gratified that someone chose to share a plastic hot dog with him.   

As we talked about giving, and how the process of food donations works, I realized that I was really preaching to the choir. These youngsters knew instinctively what was the right thing to do. It just makes sense. When we have enough for ourselves, and our friends don’t have enough….it feels good to share.  It really does feel good, doesn’t it? 

Thank you to all in Central Florida who make that decision to share their food, and their money, and their precious time to help keep the food flowing for so many of our friends and neighbors!  

Greg Higgerson
Vice President, Development 

June 9, 2010

2010 Summer Food Service Program Begins when School Ends

Author: Brady Koch

Nearly 250 sites will be offering free breakfast, lunches and afternoon snacks to children in economically disadvantaged areas throughout Orange County this summer. This is our third year participating in the Summer Food Service Program and we’re hoping that it is our most successful year to date.

The major obstacles for kids participating in the program are outreach and transportation. Children home for the summer may not even know that this program is available in their community.  We urge you to help us spread the word. Help us raise awareness and ensure that children have access to proper nutrition this summer.

The Summer Food Sponsors in Orange County are:
-  The Orange County School District
-  Orlando Parks and Recreation
-  Second Harvest Food Bank
-  Township of Eatonville

For information on Orange County sites, click here.

For site information on Central Florida sites, click here.

For the rest of the state provide a zip code at this site:
http://app1.fldoe.org/summerfoodprogram/

For more information contact: Santos Maldonado, Childhood Hunger Programs Manager
(407) 295-1066 ext. 25 or smaldonado@foodbankcentralflorida.org

Brady Koch
Director of Agency Relations & Programs

December 21, 2009

Working Together to Save Winter Break

Author: Brady Koch

This past Saturday we partnered with Orange County Public Schools and the Winter Park Health Foundation to provide food to families this holiday season. The two week break from school can be especially difficult to children who rely on the free and reduced school lunch program. With this in mind, we gathered a team of volunteers, 22,000 lbs of food and marketed the weekend food distribution to children participating in our Hi-Five program at eight of the schools located near our two distribution sites.

 When I arrived at Cheney Elementary on Saturday, there were already some families there over an hour and a half earlier than our scheduled starting time. We had 10 palettes of potatoes, oranges, bread , pastries, and pantry boxes filled with 14 common items like peanut butter and tuna. As the morning went on, we ended up distributing food to 450 families at Cheney and Hungerford Elementary.

A couple of the stories stood out to me that demonstrated how our community comes together in times of need. Two mothers whose families received food that morning returned to our site to volunteer the rest of the day. Another mother, who had no transportation, walked for two hours to get to our site. She was willing to physically carry all of the food back home. Thankfully, another volunteer loaded up her groceries and drove her home.

A father and son rode to our site on bicycles and a pair of volunteers tried their best to safely load the bicycles with any food that they could carry. When another recipient family saw this they offered to take the father and son, bicycles, and food back home.

While we know it isn’t enough food for two entire weeks in meals it was enough to make an immediate difference in these families’ lives. It was a great way to come together as a community and fight hunger in Central Florida.

Brady Koch
Director of Agency Relations & Programs