DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Update:
This event has been postponed following the shooting of a 26-year-old Daytona Beach police officer. A future date has not yet been announced.
Original Story:
This Friday, Second Harvest Food Bank is teaming up with Daytona Beach Police, the Dream Center and other local organizations to distribute food to hundreds in need.
In total, 20,000 pounds of food will go home with Volusia County families. The event is being held at the Daytona Beach Police Department’s headquarters at 129 Valor Boulevard. It’s from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. but the line will start forming at 10 a.m.
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“It equates to about 16,000 meals that we will be able to feed families, kids, seniors,” Erika Spence with Second Harvest said.
Spence said all of the counties they cover in Central Florida face their own challenges, especially in the pandemic, but she said Volusia has been in consistent, high need.
“We’re seeing about one in seven people in the Volusia county area that are in need of food assistance,” she said.
That works out to about one in five children, too.
Second Harvest ramped up food distributions in the height of the pandemic and has given out enough food for nearly 100 million meals since March 2020 in Central Florida.
“Even though people are starting to go back to work, they’re in a really deep financial hole from the last year,” Spence said.
Spence said now, many of these families are putting all their income toward rent and utilities.
Second Harvest is now working with other local organizations and law enforcement in each community to figure out the best location to host distributions for those most in need.
“You’re going to keep the roof over your head and the water on and the lights on and then worry about food,” she said.