The 28 flatbed trucks filled with produce and other fresh produce were scheduled to arrive at the 2nd Harvest Food Bank in Central Florida last week, but the Trump administration has cancelled delivery.
The news put the local food bank in “crisis mode” as it shakes from the loss of food worth $1.6 million, said Greg Hickerson, the agency’s chief development officer.
“This means that many families have access to that much food,” Hickerson said.
Second Harvest serves as a regional supplier for the Food Bank in Central Florida, and now he said it will be less likely to provide thousands of residents who need help for everyone.
The current cancelled shipping of fruit, vegetables, chicken, pork and milk was part of the US Department of Agriculture program that purchased food from American farmers and distributed it to food banks around the country.
The second harvest began receiving food from that program during the Covid-19 pandemic, providing about 10% of the agency’s overall food supply, including the majority of fresh items.
Hickerson learned of the shipment that was cancelled on Tuesday, said it is still unclear whether the decision is temporary or whether the cuts will be permanent. If the program does not recover, Hickerson said 5.8 million meals will be lost annually.
Food banks across the country report similar horrors.
The Agriculture Department said in a media statement that the programme that sent food from the farm to the food bank was intended to be short-term.
The Biden administration has poured “billions” in “no longevity plans,” the department said in a statement released earlier this month to Minnesota TV station KSTP.
“The Covid era is over, and USDA’s approach to nutrition programs reflects that reality is moving forward,” the statement said.
The expected delivery in Orlando last week provided roughly 900,000 meals, Second Harvest said.
As agencies rely on community partners to distribute food, cancelled delivery affects the Salvation Army, the homelessness in Central Florida, church-run pantry and hundreds of other charities that help people get food to residents struggling with grocery bills.
Hickerson and others said that while the pandemic is over, the financial difficulties that began in 2020 remained and demand for aid is still high.
“As prices rise, it’s not a function of the pandemic than what people have to pay for things like groceries, rents and daycare, especially those with low incomes, are suffering right now,” Hickerson said.
Stephanie Bowman is the founder of One Heart for Women and Children, a community food pantry in College Park.
Before the pandemic, Bowman said her pantry distributed food to 3,000 people each month. When the pandemic hit, those numbers jumped to 27,000 people a month. Today, she serves 15,000 people each month.
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“Unfortunately, the numbers probably never go backward,” Bowman said.
Bowman began one mind after she and her children went through a homeless match.
“We were eating out from the trash cans, but we were dependent on what other people gave us. It wasn’t fresh, healthy food,” Bowman said.
When Bowman founded One Mind, her goal was to distribute fresh food to those who visited her charity. But without the federal program, Bowman worries that her pantry will be filled primarily with canned goods and packaged foods.
She hopes that community support, including residents with chickens donating eggs, will help fill some gaps.
“We’re here to support the best our community can and we’re becoming very creative. Just like the start of the community’s pandemic, we had to be super-created, and that’s what we’re doing now,” she added.
