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ZEPHYRHILLS, Fla. — The signs of urban sprawl are apparent across Pasco County.
The growing pains of development in some areas are leading to loud stomach pains for low-income families.
That is one reason why an assembly line of volunteers spent four weeks packing fresh food to help 15 elementary schools, along with two Boys & Girls Clubs and some senior living facilities.
The organizers of the food drive say the Zephyrhills community faces a big problem: food insecurity.
“We’re rural America and we’re a small but very close community,” said Leortha Lloyd, social worker at West Zephyrhills Elementary School.
Lloyd says the bags of fresh food packed up will help feed students at the Title I school she works at, where she says 70% are low income.
She shared one story of a family receiving a bag of fresh food.
“A dad looked and he actually saw that it was fresh produce, he turned away from me and there was a tear in his eye,” said Lloyd. “Because he said he was trying to remember the last time they added fresh produce to their groceries.”
The food drive is spearheaded by the nonprofit Access to Fresh.
A few area schools called them asking for help when SNAP benefits were paused during the government shutdown.
“Especially Dade City, Lacoochee, Zephyrhills, those are all very rural areas. Even though Pasco County is developing kind of more of that center of the county, these outskirts are still in dire need of support and help,” said Nichole Dube, the Executive Director of Access to Fresh.
When she got the call, she made two more calls of her own. The first was to area hospital systems, like AdventHealth, to fund this massive food distribution mission.
“Advent Health — they said yes, I called Orlando Health, and they said yes, and then I called Johns Hopkins and they said yes,” said Dube.
BayCare also gave money too in support.
Dube’s next call was to enlist local farmers to provide the fresh produce needed.
“This is going to affect so many people. But then to also be able to pull in farmers that are local as it’s a big deal,” said Alicen Morency, a local farmer.
She and her husband Jesse Morency are co-owners of Shady Oaks, a hydroponic lettuce farm in nearby Dade City.
They provided 3,500 heads of lettuce. To these local farmers, this food drive hit close to home.
“Being able to get back is something huge for us,” said Morency with tears in her eyes.
The tears are memories from her childhood. She and Jesse both grew up in rural Illinois and also did not have access to fresh produce often as a kid.
“We grew up, both of us kind of on boxed dinners and a bag of potatoes, and that’s the best that our moms could do. I was raised by a single mother,” said Alicen.
“It was hard growing up underserved when it comes to food,” said Jesse. “I was at food pantries. I don’t ever remember getting anything fresh.”
It is this pipeline of local volunteers, local farmers, funded by local hospitals that is starting to chip away at the very large issue of food insecurity in this area.
In total over four weeks, they helped roughly 3,700 families.
The kids these bags of fresh produce were given to had big reactions.
“I’ve had students say, Mr. Lloyd, these are so fresh, these carrots and cucumbers are so big,” said Lloyd.
“So the kids are used to seeing us, so they trust us. They tell us what they like, they tell us what they dislike. So then we know what to put in the bags. But we’re creating relationships and our mission is to build community through food,” said Dube.
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Erin Murray
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