ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Central Florida is stepping up to meet the heightened needs of hungry families.
This month, Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida reported a 300 percent increase in people using their food finder tool.
The organization said ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday that demand has remained sky high.
Channel 9 showed you the wrap around lines at food giveaways earlier this month.
It was just one consequence of a 43-day government shutdown during which about 3 million Floridians temporarily lost SNAP benefits that paid for their groceries.
“Just because the government started back up and SNAP is flowing again, doesn’t mean that everybody is right back to where they were beforehand,” said Greg Higgerson, the Chief Development Officer at Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida.
Higgerson said Central Florida was already experiencing its highest level of food insecurity in over a decade, but the need was amplified during the shutdown as federal workers went without pay and SNAP was suspended.
“During that time, a lot of people, I am sure, put things on credit cards or made decisions about where their money had to go when they weren’t getting paid, and so on. And that has a lag effect,” said Higgerson.
Higgerson said the organization is still seeing people struggling to recover from the disruption to SNAP. It is still providing enough food for approximately 330,000 meals a day.
On November 18th, Orange County government approved an extra $1 million in funding to help to the food bank meet that heightened demand and local businesses are stepping up too.
Multiple businesses within Harmon Collective, a conglomerate of companies located in the former Lombardi’s Seafood building in Winter Park, are now participating in a food drive that runs through December 15th.
That includes All Inclusive CrossFit, a local gym that is leading the food drive. “Our hope is that we can show each individual that their small acts can come together to make a big difference,” said Clarissa Detzel, owner of All Inclusive Cross Fit.
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