‘It’s a blessing’: Need for food remains high as Osceola County continues to grow

From Sheldon Dutes of WESH 2 News

Last year, Fonseca and his volunteers helped WESH 2 feed more than 800 families in one day during the Share Your Christmas food giveaway in Osceola County.

Cars started arriving seven hours before the event began last year.

This year the need hasn’t subsided.

“At the beginning of the year it wasn’t like this,” Fonseca said. “There was like 300, 250. But since August and September, numbers are going up.”

So much so that some cars started lining up five hours beforehand to make sure they’d get groceries.

“We got here around 6 in the morning,” Jose Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez is retired and has fed his family with groceries from events like these over the past year.

“That little extra help does help the person like me and every other family. Not everybody gets assistance from the government and not everyone has a full-time job,” Gonzalez said.

This is Pattie Politakis’ third visit.

“It’s just crazy. Gas is crazy. Food is crazy. When you’re on a budget like I am, this is what helps,” Politakis said.

The help means Politakis doesn’t have to choose which necessities she buys.

“I’ve got a lot of medication. So I have to buy my medications instead of my food — doctor’s appointments,” Politakis said.

“We’ve been seeing faces for more than a year and a half already,” Fonseca said. “Since this summer, we have a lot of new people that we’ve never seen before in our events.”

Fonseca thinks the expanded need comes from people working fewer hours.

“Osceola County growing up 100%. We used to be a 250,000 population, now we are 500,000 people,” Fonseca said. “Everything is somehow working together to growing up numbers, people in need and families in need.”

Second Harvest Food Bank, and tireless volunteers like Jamina Saud, packaged and bagged 30,000 pounds of food to feed close to 500 families at this distribution.

“I have gastric cancer. My esophagus was totally clogged. They dilated my esophagus and now I’m able to drink liquids,” Saud said. “To me, that was a miracle. Because I wasn’t able to do anything.”

“Need to give back what God gave me,” Saud said.

Whether it’s time or money, the gratitude runs deep.

“What they’re doing, it’s a blessing. Really it’s a good blessing,” recipient Sandra Rivera said.

Click here to watch the full video on the WESH 2 News website.