We all thought that times were tough, but the reality is that times are tougher for families that are balancing household budgets to purchase food, in addition to paying rent/mortgage and other bills. COVID-19 has caused food instability to play out privately in the neighborhoods of West Lakes. It plays out quietly in the homes of seniors, as they sacrifice medicine for meals. It plays out quietly in the homes of parents struggling to help their children keep up with their lessons. It plays out in hushed conversations between parents, as they try to stretch reduced income to pay rent, the light bill, or fixing a broken car to get to work and all too frequently last, food.
West Lakes Partnership's aggressive, resident driven, door-to-door outreach has served nearly 850 families in our community since the onset of COVID-19 via major food drops and weekly mini-food drops. As of June 26th, the Partnership has handed out and/or delivered 100,000 pounds of food in West Lakes. The food kits have included everything from ready-to-eat canned meats, fruits, vegetables, protein bars, dry cereal, dried fruit, canned juices, poultry, produce and bread.
CDC guidelines have been followed as resident leaders, volunteers and community partners helped to distribute the food.
We have had the pleasure to collaborate with so many great partners to help meet the needs of our community. Thank you to Florida Citrus Sports, Second Harvest Food Bank, Arnold and Winnie Palmer Foundation, Lift Orlando, Clean the World, Jet Blue and our EFAP Partner, Good Samaritan Outreach, we appreciate your partnership! Thank you to our resident leaders and volunteers who have helped throughout this journey begun by West Lakes Partnership since April 25th.
West Lakes Partnership is working on a more permanent program to address food needs within the community. This month, food will be distributed from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm on Friday, July 10 and July 24. Residents from the community will receive boxes of assorted non-perishable items and fresh produce.
This distribution will be FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED. Pre-registration is suggested simply to assist us with projections. If you are interested in learning about how you can get involved, please contact us at tayers@westlakespartnership.org. You can register for this and other sponsored events at https://www.westlakespartnership.org/