Page 36 - December_2015_Life_in_Naples_Magazine

Mobile Pantries

in Collier County help fill the hunger gap

T he line of about 200 people snaked down the sidewalk, past the walls of the
school building and a chain-link fence, to the street.

1 On this muggy evening, they waited outside Pinecrest Elementary School
in Immokalee for food to be distributed from a mobile pantry, set up by the Harry

Chapin Food Bank of Southwest Florida. Streets in the surrounding neighborhood

were filled with ramshackle trailers.

Beatrice was one of those in line. She works hard, cooking, cleaning and waiting

tables at a local restaurant. But she doesn’t make enough to feed her family. The

mobile pantry provides what she can’t. So she was happy to stand in the heat with her

two daughters, Valentina, 5, and Clorana, 9, and son Isereol, 2.

“It’s good,” she said of the fresh fruits and vegetables, meat and other food she

received. “It’s helping.”

Beatrice is far from alone in needing to supplement the amount of food her

wages can put on her family’s table. Nationally, in the wake of the Great Recession,

statistics show that one in six Americans struggles with hunger. In Collier County

and elsewhere in Southwest Florida,the need is still great,even at the local economy

2 regains momentum.

Mobile pantries are an efficient and effective way to get food to those areas

where it is most needed, said Al Brislain, president and CEO of the Harry Chapin

Food Bank.

Many of the mobile pantries in Collier County are held at schools, and are

underwritten by the Naples Children and Education Foundation (NCEF),

founders of the Naples Winter Wine Festival. The Pinecrest Elementary School

is an NCEF pantry site.

The partnership between the food bank and NCEF is vital, Brislain said.

“Without the Naples Children and Education Foundation, thousands of

children in need in Collier County would not receive the nutritious foods we

are able to provide.”

The mobile pantry program, established in July 2010, can reach about 250 to

300 households at each site. Households receive $60-plus worth of food.

3 At Pinecrest Elementary, two Harry Chapin Food Bank trucks set up in the
parking lot, loaded with watermelons, onions, bags of apples, some cereal, bread,

rice and beans and frozen meat. Trucks carry an average of 10,000 pounds of

food for each distribution.

The food was gone in 90 minutes. Stragglers who arrived late had to leave

empty-handed.

In addition to providing mobile pantries, the Harry Chapin Food Bank

works with more than 25 Collier partner agencies. Last year, the food bank

provided Collier County children, their families and other residents in need

1, 2, & 3. Mobile Food pantries offer fresh produce, meat and other food items to help fill a
need in Collier County.

4. Valentina, 5, picked up some carrots when she went to the Pinecrest Elementary School
Mobile Food Pantry with her mom.

4