The Leon County Commission recently unanimously passed an item that allows the county government to partner with the City of Tallahassee and America’s Second Harvest of the Big Bend. The collaborators will conduct community meetings to ascertain what barriers exacerbate food insecurity in specific neighborhoods.
In January 2021, during the commissioner’s annual retreat, elected officials approved a series of new strategic initiatives, including working with community partners to develop possible options for those struggling with food insecurity by utilizing the results of Feeding America’s recent study.
Feeding America is an organization that works to deliver food to those in need. The organization collaborates with manufacturers, distributors, retailers, food service companies, and farmers to gather food before it goes to waste.
More than 42 million Americans may experience food insecurity, including a potential 13 million children, says Feeding America. In addition, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, more than 38 million people in the United States experienced hunger in 2020.
According to Feeding America, one in three children in Leon County struggles to find their next meal. Additionally, about 68,000 people in Leon County are food insecure, including 16,000 children.
Feeding America conducted a study, Map the Meal Gap, to identify and prioritize resources in neighborhoods with the highest levels of food insecurity. The Map the Meal Gap considers socioeconomic data such as median household income and physical, mental, and neurological disabilities to pinpoint food insecurity at the local level.
Second Harvest intends to use the free data from Feeding America to enhance cooperation with community partners in the neighborhoods identified in the Map the Meal Gap report. The food insecurity rate for the neighborhoods identified in the report is significantly higher than the overall county food insecurity rate of 14%. Also, the household incomes in these areas are well below the county’s median household income, of $53,106, for a household of four.
A few examples of the areas listed in the report are neighborhoods in the FAMU area, Bond, and Outer Griffin Heights. The neighborhood groups listed in the report are entirely or partially within the city limits. They currently receive significant city resources through annual federal and state funding, such as the Community Development Block Grant and State Housing Initiative Partnership.
The county has committed funding in support of Second Harvest to address food insecurity in the community, including:
-Annual funding of $290,000 to Second Harvest through the Community Human Services Partnership (CHSP).
-Over $4 million in Leon CARES funding to distribute 3 million meals to low-income households impacted by COVID-19. In 2020 Second Harvest delivered about 12.6 million meals for no charge.
-And, approximately $767,280 in funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) that will help distribute an additional 722,000 meals over the next two years.
Leon County Commission Tackles Food Insecurity added by Lynsey Kirk on
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Thank you Tom for your comment. Agencies such as Second Harvest create dependency on a system rather than independence. Everyone needs to be growing and raising their own food sources as to not depend on out sources.
Nothing about self reliant home gardens or rasing chickens or ducks.
How about Tallahassee plant fruit and nut trees around the city.
Second harvest is noble, but much they distribute is full of Suger and empty calleries.
America has the fatest poor people in the world.
Thanks you FDA!!
Passed a s amendment to meet and talk…
The County Commission will be starting the Food Services Council (FSC)
at the expense of taxpayers and hire a PR person who has experience doing PR Communications for a governor or gubernatorial candidate. I hear disgraced Governor Cuomo’s communications director may be available… disgraced gubernatorial candidate Gillum’s communications director has just been snapped up by the CSC.
Pay the PR director $125,000 a year to promote that they are humanitarians and doing great works in feeding the hungry… in reality they are funneling money to their friends and campaign managers. Not one meal will never be served except the ones from the Edison or DoubleTree… to themselves.
@ Mr. Hawkins…
Although not a new concept, your premise and goal are admirable and right on track. We use to have those stores that were specifically design to maximize and stretch the food stamp (now EBT) dollar value, in an effort to “temporarily” help those who’ve fallen on hard times get through those hard times (loss of employment and/or economic hardship) and back to self sufficiency. Grocery stores that catered specifically to those folks on temporary assistance. The shelves were lined with considerably less expensive generic products in plain white and yellow boxes and wrappers simply marked with the name of the contents… corn flakes, mac-n-cheese, potato chips, hamburger helper, green beans, corn, et al… I mean who could forget the 5-lb tubes of ground beef…lol
Unfortunately, the left-wing PC progressive lunatics thought shopping there made people “feel” bad, and the big and little store chains wanted in on the tax dollar cashflow. Now we have millions if not billions wasted at gas station quick marts on $4 bags of chips, $2 liters of coke, and $3 cans of spaghetti-o,s. Toss in a couple of pacs of smokes (the clerk won’t care) and we have the foundation of the GES (generational entitlement slavery) mentality.
We need that system back. Welfare, EBT, public assistance must return to their intended purpose and function… as a hand-up; not hand-out… as a lifeline; not a lifestyle…as a way to “get through”; not a way to live life. And as Obamacare had “Navigators” to help people sign up for a government-dependent lifestyle… we need “Life Navigators” to help people on government assistance utilize our gracious gift of tax dollars wisely, stretch that gift to its maximum limit, and focus on becoming, or returning to, self-sustainable and self-supporting productive members of a civilized and inclusive society.
You want to be included?… include yourself.
I have been in contact with Publix. I shop there every week and most of what I buy are “Publix Branded” items because they are so much cheaper than the other brands. I asked Publix to look into building small “Publix Brands Grocery Store’s” in the Leon County Food Desert areas. All they would sell is Publix Brand items and fresh Produce. I even mentioned that the Stores could be made into Franchises. They liked the idea and will look into it. I will be sending follow up letters to them soon. I am always thinking outside the box as you can tell by my Campaign Platform at http://www.Hawkins2022.com
” 68,000 people in Leon County are food insecure” WHY is that?
Is it because they are just to sorry and lazy to get a Job?
Are they Elderly?
Are they Elderly and having to raise their Grand Kids because their Parents are just to sorry to do it?
Are they Elderly and having to raise their Grand Kids because their Parents are in Prison?
WHY?
This really needs to be looked into.
I see an awful lot of so-called “victims” of “Food Insecurity” everyday who – based on their size – do not seem to be having any trouble securing food… or expensive wigs, hair extensions, jewelry, fingernails, weed, sneakers, or Iphones and Ipads.
How much money and how many more programs do we need to make sure children of lazy, absentee, and irresponsible parents get their Cheetos? We have EBT, the Public Indoctrination System, numerous “community based” non-profits, and now even the CSC all focused on the latest leftist entitlement term, “Food Insecurity”.
As the term LGBTQPwhatever is to Gender Dysphoria… the term Food Insecurity is specifically designed to hide the ugly truth. As already noted, the best way to battle food insecurity is to get a job, buy smart… and get your lazy assets up, feed and pack a lunch for your kid(s).
Oh, and stop shoplifting from locals store so they’ll remain open and operating in your neighborhood. Ask any proprietor to define the root cause of the news PC term “Food Insecurity”… and they’ll respond with the reality known as “Loss Prevention”.
We shall never overcome any challenge until we first face the reality of it.
“Food Insecurity” is a relativly new leftist term meaning:
1). Create a new entitlement catagory and
2). Attempt to use the new entitlement to buy votes.
The term “Food Insecurity” in the leftist world does not mean that leftists give a crap wether you eat or not…its totally about the new entitlement/vote buying as explained above. Oh and the giving a few high paying jobs to their friends and business associates as explained by Snidely below.
There now everyone can at last come together and agree on exactly what “Food Insecurity” means.
You are welcome!
Guaranteed way to eliminate “food insecurity”……. get a job and buy the food you need. This works all the time.
“Food insecurity” – a nice vague term. Does that include?:
People who are hungry?
People who are worried that they will be hungry?
People who are at risk of being hungry?
A catch-all for anyone they want to give financial assistance to?
We should feed hungry people. I’m suspicious of the term “food insecurity”.
I gave 100 bucks to Second Harvest last Christmas, I got a letter in the mail informing me that their data was breached and my personal intel was part of it. I spent the better part of a month and 200 bucks trying to straighten it all out.
So it figures the miscreants on the commission would want to partner with them.
People should be able to get food for sure. Legitimate charitable organizations should be in charge getting food to the needy.
We must not trust our corrupt elected nannies to have anything to do with it. Our nannies interests involve putting favorites in charge of totally unneeded government programs, with exorbitant salaries, to do little to no work, as political favors. Also our nannies will be looking for kickbacks in the form of political contributions for the favors they give out in the method of putting political favorites and or their spouses in charge of government handout programs when existing honest charitable organizations can and will get the job done. We must break the continuous election cycle of Democrat liberals and putting them in charge of our government and our money.
The most feared words ever:
Hi there, I’m from the liberal Leon/Tally government, and I’m here to help.