All Veterans Center works to feed the community and prevent veteran suicide

POLK COUNTY, Fla. — The All Veterans Center works to make a difference in the community through its free food program, homeless prevention program, and suicide prevention program. 

Centered in Polk County but active in others, they’ve helped feed numerous people and say their efforts have prevented eight veteran suicides. 

Chief Operating Officer Harvey Engle and others in the organization have been helping vets for years.

Eight years ago, they decided to start their own nonprofit in the All Veterans Center. 

“We just started taking care of veterans, doing things that they said, ‘You can’t do that,’” he said. “Yeah, we can, you watch.” 

Harvey served in the Air Force. After he retired, he sought a way to support other veterans. 

Collecting and distributing food is one of the ways his group does that.  

“Today we should be able to feed at least 300,” he said. “We’ll top 360,000 since we started in 2017.” 

When their organization began, they set out to specifically help veterans. 

They’ve since grown.

In 2018, they started including veterans’ family members, and in 2020, they expanded to help everyone.

“We ask how many are in the family,” he said. “We ask if there’s any veterans in the family. Aside from that, we don’t really ask any questions because we don’t care about incomes or where you live. It doesn’t matter. You come here, you want food, we’re going to give it to you.”