Hundreds of thousands of South Florida households will struggle to put food on the table this Thanksgiving.
Paco Velez is the CEO of the hunger-relief nonprofit Feeding South Florida, which hosts several meal distributions every year and is the leading hunger-relief organization serving Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties. He said that holidays like Thanksgiving are toughest because they include traditional meals that people cannot afford to make.
The organization had 15,000 turkeys on hand this year — which still wasn’t enough to meet demand.
" What we saw this year was not only an increase in individuals requesting assistance for the holiday," Velez said. "but also families who did not have those ingredients and families who are not gonna be able to bring their extended family and friends and loved ones together to celebrate and to pass that tradition on down."
Velez said the surge isn’t tied to just one issue.
“ This is a direct response to the government shutdown to increase costs to South Florida's increased cost of living and the financial disparity here,” he said.
At the beginning of the year, the group was supporting, on average, 40 families a day. Velez said that the average now is closer to 200 families a day.
“ This year we've made a special point to purchase 50% more turkeys. We bought more than 15,000 turkeys for our community, not recognizing that so much was gonna happen right before the Thanksgiving holiday,” he said.
The organization not only distributed turkeys, but also canned goods, dry items and fresh produce. Being located in South Florida near many local farms helps them to collect the produce, especially during harvest season, he said.
Although Feeding South Florida has been negatively impacted by budget cuts of around $17 million, Velez said these Thanksgiving distributions were not affected by the government cuts. These come from community support and donations from individuals and foundations.
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