Tonight, one in six children in Palm Beach County will go to bed hungry. One in eight of your neighbors are actively struggling to put food on the table. Palm Beach is consistently ranked as Florida’s wealthiest suburb, but don’t be deceived by the coastal glamour. Food insecurity is a crippling issue for many Palm Beach residents, and the need only grows as the cost of living steadily climbs. Now more than ever, organizations and initiatives like the Palm Beach County Food Bank are imperative to fighting hunger in our community.
Summer break is an especially hard time for families facing food insecurity. Without the assistance of school-year programs like school lunches and breakfasts, making sure children get three square meals a day becomes even more of a challenge for families that are already struggling. This is where Palm Beach County Food Bank steps in. Over summer break, their state-of-the-art kitchen produces five thousand meals per day that are then distributed to children in the community. They partner with the program Summer BreakSpot to deliver meals to places like libraries, schools, and summer camps to be collected by families in need.
This assistance extends to the school year, as well. Weekends can be another difficult time for children relying on eating meals at school, which is why the Weekend Meal Program was created. During the school year, the food bank assembles 5,700 backpacks full of snacks and easy-to-prepare meals for students to take home over the weekend. The schools are responsible for identifying which students are in need of extra food over the weekend, and then the team at Palm Beach County Food Bank provides them with a bag packed with two breakfasts, two lunches, a family meal, and snacks to hold them over until the next week begins. The School Pantry Program is another initiative aimed at combating childhood hunger. This program supports students and staff to lead their own food pantries within schools that have a high number of students signed up for free and reduced lunch. By working directly with schools, the food bank is able to reach as many students struggling with food insecurity as possible to provide a consistent and nutritious food supply.
Children aren’t the only beneficiaries of the organization’s work. Senior citizens and retirees make up the unexpected majority of the population facing hunger in Palm Beach. In our current economy, people who have worked their whole lives are spending their retirement worrying about the grocery bill rather than enjoying their golden years. On top of biweekly supplemental groceries delivered to low-income seniors, the food bank offers cooking lessons for senior citizens in their recently remodeled kitchen. These lessons focus on easy, balanced meals and send participants home with recipe cards and everything they’ll need to recreate the meal on their own. This program eases the stress of food insecurity among seniors while also giving them the tools and autonomy to cook for themselves and learn new skills.
The Palm Beach County Food Bank is a massive operation. We had the privilege of touring their offices and two food storage warehouses and got to see the full scope of their facility. They have forty full-time employees and receive volunteer help every day, whether that be in the form of local hotel and restaurant kitchen staff coming in to help cook, group volunteers like schools or companies coming in for the day to organize and pack food, or individuals picking up a shift. As long as the Palm Beach community has a need for the food bank, the bank will have a need for volunteers, so take a look at their website, pbcfoodbank.org, if you’re interested in lending a hand in your community. They also accept donations and every dollar donated provides five meals to someone facing food insecurity in our county. They have a couple of big events on the horizon, like the Pack to Give Back events at the Kravis Center on September 15th and at Florida Atlantic University on January 31st, where bulk foods are packed into meals to be distributed throughout the county. They also have the Empty Bowls Delray Beach event returning after a three-year hiatus on January 23rd. This event raises funds for the Palm Beach community, and every cent earned goes straight to the Palm Beach County Food Bank. The work that they are doing is crucial to the community, and any way Palm Beach residents can pitch in to help their efforts is always welcome.
Hunger often hides in plain sight. Your friends, neighbors, co-workers, and classmates may very well be one emergency bill or missed check away from not being able to put food on the table. In many cases, the food and assistance provided by organizations such as this one are the only things differentiating between a hungry family and a healthy one. In Palm Beach County, more than 192,000 residents are struggling with hunger, 50,000 of those residents being children. Food insecurity is an unpredictable and unfair problem, but it is an unending one. Palm Beach County has one of the largest wealth disparities in the United States, and it is imperative that this community use the resources at its disposal to aid its residents. Thanks to organizations like Palm Beach County Food Bank, it’s easier than ever to give back. Keep an eye out for them and the amazing work they do around town and stay tuned for their events and fundraisers in the coming months.
