Almost two thousand emergency meals supplied from the state of Florida are being delivered to Southwest Florida food pantries today.
Harry Chapin Food Bank workers loaded up pallets on trucks to deliver the food to pantries in Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Glades and Hendry counties.
They are the first pallets to be delivered of 13 pallets that arrived Thursday in Fort Myers. The pallets contained more than 1,000 cases of non-perishable items.
“We are in an emergency situation,” Irma Lancaster of the Harry Chapin Food Bank said.
Lancaster said the food bank typically feeds 250,000 to 300,000 people each month in Lee, Collier, Hendry, Glades and Charlotte counties. But she expects numbers to rise sharply since November 1 when SNAP benefits were suspended due to the government shutdown.
"We are seeing a surge in the lines and the people in need at our distributions. We are hearing from our partner agencies as well, that the lines are really growing,” Lancaster said.
She added that the food bank is grateful that the state of Florida approved the release of food from emergency supplies in partnership with Feeding Florida to help with growing crisis.
The 13 pallets of emergency food— adds up to almost 12,000 meals.
“We found that included 14,291 pounds of food. which translates into about 11,909 meals according to Feeding Florida and the USDA standards, “ Lancaster said.
Food pantries receiving donations from Harry Chapin say the supplies cannot come soon enough.
“My supplies have been dwindling for three weeks. Last week, at the end of the day I did not have no food to give people," said Chuck Billups, who oversees food distribution for St. Vincent de Paul’s outreach program in Fort Myers.
He said the need is tremendous.
“It’s growing every week. I see the cars lined up there right now. You got 250 cars out there right now, probably,“ he said on Friday.
Billups said they passed out all 500 bags of food, in fewer than 90 minutes Friday morning.
Harry Chapin partners with 175 local agencies. They expect the 13 pallets of food to be distributed within two weeks.
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