Recently our Director of Development, Brandon Dowdy, visited one of our mobile pantries and saw something that he said “will stick with me forever.”
Dowdy saw a young boy who just finished going through a Meals of Hope mobile pantry line with his mother and seemed full of excitement as he claimed food items. Dowdy spoke with the boy and learned that he and his mother have become regular pantry visitors.
Dowdy learned that the boy’s family has relied on the pantry since Hurricane Irma devastated Southwest Florida last year. The storm severely damaged the family’s home and caused the boy’s father to lose his job. Without that head-of-household income and a lack of savings to repair their roof, the family landed in the Meals of Hope pantry line.
Later that afternoon, Dowdy passed the local bus stop and saw the boy and his mother waiting for their ride home. He waved at the two, and the boy gave an energetic thumbs up and said, “We love Meals of Hope!”
Meals of Hope is proud to serve more than 1,000 families each week through our 11 pantry sites. We have calculated that each family who receives food from our pantries can save around $3,000 annually to help with the high cost of housing in Southwest Florida, among other necessities.
It with that notion that we ask the community and our amazing sponsors to dig deep once again to help us serve families who have not fully recovered from hard times. Please visit our home page to learn more. #HolidaysWithoutHunger