Every day at our food bank we have lines of people coming to us for assistance with food, personal
items and baby products. We cannot keep up with the number of new hungry people that come to our food bank to pick up
food. Then there are the new homeless families that are sleeping in the woods and trying to raise their children.
The Volunteer Way Food Bank tries to meet all the unmet needs of our community and has been for the past fifteen years,
but right now we have 5,800 families that we are helping in Pasco County. This does not include the other food pantries
and soup kitchens that we assist in Pasco and throughout Florida. All our food and personal items are given free
to the needy families and other hunger relief charities.
As of October 1, 2007, we no longer have a contract for U.S.D.A. Commodities. We
originally won the contract for Pasco County’s Commodities but was challenged by Suncoast Second Harvest Food Bank (which
had already won three other counties in Florida) and The Department of Agriculture decided to also give Suncoast Harvest
(Second Harvest) the commodity contract for Pasco. We have had a contract for U.S.D.A. Commodities for over ten years
and faithfully served hungry people. There are a lot of smaller hunger relief organizations that had contracts to distribute
U.S.D.A. Commodities for years and now one Second Harvest association has 91% of all the Counties in Florida and more then
likely 100% the next time the bids come up for renewal.
I am still an optimist and believe that right will prevail and something that I have learned
by experience is, it will not happen in my timing but God’s timing. We will bring attention to these issues
and other concerns to the legislation, government officials and the newspapers over the next few years. We must work
together to change things for the better, not for our gratification but for the hungry people that we serve throughout Florida.
Well, enough of the bad stuff, we need to look forward and find new sources of food to
expand our efforts. More people are going hungry and need help at a time when food is getting scarce. We need
to share our resources and start to prepare for the hard times ahead. We are starting our own food drives, contacting
reclamation organizations and writing grants to help other hunger relief organizations. We can do so much more
in the struggle against hunger by working together rather then pulling in different directions. Our only agenda is to
help families that are in need.
