They have had a busy season as they helped provide relief for families affected not just in Central Florida by Hurricane Irma, but also in Houston after Hurricane Harvey, and Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. So kids don’t show up to school on Monday with headaches and stomachaches due to hunger, teachers discreetly put meals in children’s backpacks on Friday so they have food to eat until they return back to school on Monday.ĭisaster relief is another area of focus for Second Harvest. “We have disaster boxes at all times in their facility,” Kelly said. Sasha told me she loves the High-Five program that facilitates a meal program to kids who have food insecurity on the weekends. In addition to helping adults get a second chance, Second Harvest works with government contracts to package meals for kids every day for programs like Healthy Start. At the end of the program, Second Harvest helps with resume writing and job placement too! “It’s our first ever glimpse of not just feeding the line, but shorting the line,” Sasha said. Individuals work in the kitchen, learning skills needed in other commercial kitchens. The kitchen also serves as a training kitchen for adults who need practical job skills so they can enter the workforce. On-site and off-site catering is also available because of a 2000-foot commercial kitchen. They have a beautiful conference room that is available to rent for community events. Additional income streams help provide revenue so they can feed more hungry families.įor example, you can party for a cause through Second Harvest. While the main focus at the food bank is to supply hungry families with food across Central Florida, Sasha told me they have been really innovative with how they provide additional programs and income streams to Second Harvest. “It just takes more people to love and care about this issue.”Ģ) Second Harvest innovates how they can help the community. Through her position, she educates donors and encourages them to get involved to help solve Central Florida’s hunger problem. “Of all the issues we have in this world, hunger is one of the things we can totally solve,” Sasha told me. At Second Harvest, she can now see the impact of her job on a daily basis.Īs the Director of Philanthropy, Sasha is able to work with donors who help fund Second Harvest. As a former lobbyist who worked in Tallahassee, Kelly grew restless of how long it took to see tangible change through government policy. Kelly’s job as Director of Advocacy and Government Relations is to connect and educate elected officials and community leaders about how Second Harvest helps feed Central Floridians. “People can’t help if they don’t know there is an issue and that there is a solution,” Kelly told me.
Without the efforts of Second Harvest, or their network of suppliers and distributors, so many Central Floridian families would go hungry every single day. Dented boxes, special run products, and produce that is too small for sale all finds its way to Second Harvest’s 100,000-square-foot warehouse. “I would like to think of us not just as a hunger relief organization, but an environmental one as well,” Sasha told me. Much of the food Second Harvest receives is food that would have been thrown away, but is still perfectly good. Through these distribution partners, 48,000 people get fed each day.
In one year, Second Harvest is able to collect and distribute about 54 million meals in collaboration with 550 other nonprofits like Coalition for the Homeless, Boys and Girls Club, and Salvation Army, just to name a few. One in six families in Central Florida suffer from food insecurity.
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Listen on iTunes | Android | Subscribe by Emailġ) Second Harvest is the largest safety net for food assistance here in Central Florida. Plus, there are so many other programs they facilitate too. In our episode, we discuss what food insecurity is and how you can help Second Harvest feed the hungry population in Central Florida. Together, they work as advocates for Second Harvest’s many programs. Sasha Hausman is the Director of Philanthropy and Kelly Quintero is the Director of Advocacy and Government Relations. Today on the Episode, I’m talking with two wonderful women from Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida.
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