Some 500 local households are now better prepared for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, following a food distribution event in Apopka Thursday.
But for millions in Florida and beyond, food insecurity is a chronic problem, one extending well past the holiday season. Close to 650,000 people are food insecure within the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida’s seven-county service area, representing about 18% of all food-insecure people in Florida.
“Food insecurity” is a formal term from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, defined as “the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.”
The hunger-relief organization Feeding America puts it more simply, defining food insecurity as “when people don't have enough to eat and don't know where their next meal will come from.”
An ongoing, ‘rising’ need
Patmos Chapel, where this week’s event was held, has generally had “a long history” of providing food and other resources to those in need, according to Interim Lead Pastor Shea Crockett. But it was during the pandemic when the church first started running food distribution events at this scale.
“As the need grew, it really became a pretty large operation,” Crockett said.
Since the pandemic, the area’s food needs just keep “rising,” said Executive Pastor Greg Fontus.
“Week in and week out, we see hundreds of cars that come by for food, whether it's for this particular distribution or to our food pantry on the offsetting weeks,” Fontus said. “We've had people come from Tampa.”
Thursday’s distribution was scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. But more than an hour beforehand, the church’s parking lot was already packed full. People typically start arriving in the early-morning hours, and sometimes even the night before, said Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida Philanthropy Officer Chelsea Rice.
“The first gentleman in line was here from 10 p.m. the night prior, and slept in his car in order to ensure that he got food for his family,” Rice said.
Assistance challenges — and a new data gap
Velma Clark, age 78, was the thirteenth car in line for food at Thursday’s event. To get that spot, she said, she had to arrive at Patmos Chapel around 3 a.m.
“I'm short, so I make a pallet in the back seat, and pillows — so I get a chance to go back to sleep,” Clark laughed.
Like many seniors living on fixed incomes, Clark grapples with a range of affordability challenges. Her $880 monthly rent — an increase in itself — will soon jump to $1,200, starting next year, she said.
Although she receives some governmental benefits, like social security, “it’s still not a lot of money,” Clark said. But at the same time, it’s too much money for Clark to qualify for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, she said.
Clark isn’t alone. Nationwide, nearly half all food-insecure people earn too high of an income to qualify for SNAP, according to Feeding America. In Orange County, 40% of food-insecure people fall into that category.
SNAP is “the first line of defense for people who need help with food in this country,” according to Second Harvest’s chief development officer, Greg Higgerton.
Due to recent eligibility changes with the federal program, Higgerton said, some 17,000 children in Central Florida whose families received SNAP benefits at this time last year are no longer eligible.
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Food insecurity data is now harder to adequately track, following the USDA’s decision last year to halt the annual household survey it had previously been publishing since 1998. Last year, the agency called the survey “redundant,” saying it does “nothing more than fear monger.”
Feeding America previously relied on the USDA survey data for “Map the Meal Gap,” a comprehensive, annual food insecurity report. The most recent version, published in July, relies on data from 2024. The organization is still working to develop a new methodology for tracking hunger nationally and at local levels, representatives said.
