SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK OF

Retail rescue: a food rescue program where our team picks up nutritious perishable and non-perishable food products in refrigerated vehicles monday-friday from over 490 different retail store locations throughout central florida. The food is then brought back to our facilities and inspected for quality and safety. Once the products are approved by on-site training professionals at the food bank, it is distributed either at no-cost, or at a very minimal cost to more than 600 second harvest food bank member agencies who in-turn distribute to clients. The grocery alliance program distributed 32,942,922 pounds of food that provided approximately 27,452,435 meals.

Benefits connection is a snap outreach program, designed to educate and assist potentially eligible low-income households enroll in the program. Our specialists provide service at partner agencies, community centers, libraries and community events to assist potential applicants. These neighbors might lack access to a computer, need support navigating an online application, have transportation/mobility challenges, be misinformed on eligibility factors, and those with literacy or language barriers. Last fiscal year, the team processed 4,155 applications in (orange, brevard, osceola, seminole,volusia, and lake) counties resulting in an estimated $11.7 million in annualized snap benefits for the community, which is over 3 million snap meals.kids cafe: a healthy meal service program that provides food exclusively to needy children during after school hours monday through friday. 27 kids cafes sites in 5 counties served 185,429 meals in addition to providing a safe and accessible site for children with nutrition education and activities. Fresh and nutritious meals from our community kitchen are prepared and delivered daily during the county academic year. Donated food also helps support kids cafes at 2 locations that prepare their own meals.direct home delivery: bring hope home (bhh) is a community health initiative dedicated to delivering nutritious grocery boxes to neighbors and patients in need on a biweekly basis. This program specifically targets individuals facing health-related challenges or transportation barriers that limit their access to food. Bhh operates through two main arms: community and healthcare. Under the community arm, the initiative serves seniors aged 60 and above, people with disabilities, or have veteran status who are identified as food insecure and lack reliable transportation. In the healthcare arm, bhh focuses on maternal and diabetic health. During the fiscal year, this program distributed 577,810 meals. Medically tailored meals (mtm) is a community health initiative that provides meals that are specifically designed and prepared to meet the medical and nutritional needs of individuals with chronic illnesses or medical conditions. This program launched in 2023, dedicated to providing weekly meals from our mercy kitchen production kitchen, for food-insecure patients diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. This pilot program, which began in orange county, has successfully served 158 patients and delivered a over 8,000 meals. Remarkably, 96% of participants reported no hospitalizations since joining the program, demonstrating its positive impact on health outcomes, and promoting better health in our community. Additionally, the medically tailored meal program also supported a health and hunger pilot by providing and delivering 2,597 meals to patients with hypertension.bites camera action: this specialty program delivers food boxes and fresh produce to 98+ vulnerable community sites reaching low-income families, veterans, seniors and adults. Collectively, 277,761 pounds of food were distributed which provided 231,468 meals.school partnerships program: promotes a student-centered, stigma-reducing approach to increasing food access among students experiencing hunger. In collaboration with community organizations and school leadership, our model emphasizes student engagement in school-based market operations. Since its inception in 2017, the second harvest school partnerships program has served over 3.5 million meals to students and their families across 76 partner sites in seven counties throughout central florida through two program models (school markets, and fresh markets).summer food service program: provides healthy breakfasts and lunches to children in low-income areas during summer recess when school cafterias are closed. Last year 117,529 meals were distributed through this program at 85 sites in 5 counties. Culinary training program: second harvest operates a culinary training program and produces meals for community partners serving children and seniors. Our culinary training program provides economic opportunity pathways to our neighbors in the form of quality jobs. The program is a 16-week program which focuses on food service-based technical, life, and employability skills training for adults. In an effort to provide opportunities for students, the culinary team assist students with job placement that pay a standard living wage or above living wage, have healthcare benefits, and upward mobility. In hopes of closing workforce equity gaps by focusing on job quality, we provide students with the resources and knowledge needed to thrive in a changing economy. The program graduates approximately 31 central florida adults annually. Graduates secure employment with an average with an average pay rate of $19.08 per hour plus benefits. Snap-ed:second harvest has contracted to provide snap education services to snap eligible participants. The snap-ed services are for the nutrition education and obesity prevention grant program using a combination of approaches. These approaches include educational strategies and environment supports, designed to facilitate voluntary adoption of food and physical activity choices and other nutrition-related behaviors conducive to the health and well being of snap participants, low income individuals eligible to participate in snap, and individuals residing in communities with a significant low-income population. In fy24-25, we had 8 nutrition educators working in all 7 of our service area counties providing education in community organizations, educational settings, and healthcare locations. Over 860 nutrition workshops and over 368 cooking demonstrations were held. Additionally, we're implementing policy, systems, and environmental changes via 4 health promotion coordinators that reached more than 184,000 neighbors in central florida, and have educated 4 cohorts of healthcare provides on social determinants of health and have 16 pantries certified as part of our healthy pantry network. Within the foodbank, roughly sixty percent of the food within the warehouse has been evaluated for nutritional value and ranked per the her nutrition guidelines, helping partner agencies select the most nutritious foods for the pantry sites. Health & hunger: second harvest is taking a collaborative approach with other community partners to influence the health of the communities we serve. We are utilizing multiple pathways to help food insecure people prevent and manage diet-related chronic disease utilizing our network of pantries and home delivered grocery boxes. To complete this work, second harvest convenes the health & hunger task force, a coalition of more than 40 local nonprofit healthcare providers, nutrition and health-focused organizations to learn how the food bank can come alongside community healthcare organizations to measurably improve the health of vulnerable populations by using food as medicine. One of the primary goals of the health and hunger task force is to increase the screen and intervene capacity of all health care settings. We support the development of food pantries in hospitals and other healthcare facilities, as well as distribution of healthy food boxes for patients referred from hospitals and clinics that participate in "food is medicine" pilot programs with shfb. Through capacity-building efforts, partner pantries can take an active role in the health of their clients by providing healthier foods and nutrition education. Our food is medicine pilots utilize both hospital/clinic pantries as healthy food access points as well as home delivery through shfb's bring hope home program. Nutrition education is also a key component of our health and hunger work and has taken many forms that include but are not limited to cooking demos, direct education lessons, meal preparation videos, community outreach, paper resources, recipe books, utilizing virtual platforms to reach the community as allowed the food bank to reach more pantries and clients than ever before.