KISSIMMEE, Fla. — Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, along with Good Samaritan Outreach of Orlando, came together Friday to hand out hundreds of free meals to those in need.
What You Need To Know
- Second Harvest Food Bank and Good Samaritan Outreach are distributing the food
- The $61,000 used to buy the food was raised by The Disney Tourist Blog
- The boxes include fruit, vegetables, eggs, milk, meat, pasta and more for a week
- The unemployment rate in Osceola County is the highest in the state
Erika Spence works for Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida and was helping to head the effort.
“Osceola County has some of the highest need right now,” according to Erika Spence, who is helping to head the effort for Second Harvest Food Bank. “Obviously, they have one of the highest unemployment numbers in the state of Florida.”
According to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, Osceola County had an unemployment rate of 13.3 percent in September— the highest in the state for that month.
Theme park layoffs and tourism operations are playing a big part in that.
“That trickles down through our tourism-based economy. From the people at the parks and hotels to restaurants, entertainment, Uber drivers, the airport — it goes on and on,” Spence said.
They’re expecting about 600 families to come through the line for meals that will last a week.
The boxes include fruit, vegetables, eggs, milk, meat, pasta, rice, peanut butter, and much more.
David Torres, founder of Good Samaritan Outreach of Orlando, has been helping those in need for more than two decades.
“The need is great. People are going through hard times right now,” Good Samaritan Outreach of Orlando founder David Torres said.
Torres, who has been helping those in need for more than two decades, said he has never seen anything like the need during the months of the pandemic.
“The first six months of this year, we gave out more food than we did last year,” he said.
The $61,000 used to buy the food was raised by The Disney Tourist Blog through a virtual food drive.
Some of it came from vacationers who wanted to help those who took good care of them while they were at the parks.
“When we can lift the burden of food and to know that we have something on the table for dinner tonight, that gives us the hope we need to live and move forward another day,” Spence said.
The problem of food insecurity during the pandemic persists, Second Harvest Food Bank leaders said. They expect the need to be even greater with holidays coming up.