The Town of Palm Beach United Way has kicked off its end-of-the-season Empty Your Pantry Food Drive.
Running through April 19, the 13th annual drive will accept non-perishable food items, monetary donations and pet food to help people who are struggling to put food on the table.
The United Way’s partners include Field of Greens, Palm Beach Daily News and Palm Beach Fire Rescue.
“It’s a shocking reality that over 193,000 (area) residents struggle with hunger in our community, and that more than half are children and seniors, “ said Town of Palm Beach United Way Board Chair Richard Rothschild in a statement about the project. “The food drive is an excellent opportunity to help our nonprofit partner agencies stock their pantries, especially during the summer months.”
This is the second year the organization has partnered with Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League to provide dog and cat food to impoverished pet owners. Donors can give wet and dry food, as well as treats for pets.
Every year, Town of Palm Beach United Way picks two of its nonprofit partner agencies to benefit from the drive. Items collected this year will go to Adapt-A-Family and El Sol.
Adopt-A-Family will send its donated food to its Program REACH, the county’s primary emergency shelter for families with kids. Adopt-a-Family always has at least 19 families housed, with constant openings as clients find permanent places to live, according to the organization. Most families supported by the program previously lived in cars, parks or abandoned buildings and often suffered from hunger, since they didn’t have the money to purchase food or the space to store or prepare it, the nonprofit group said.
That’s why one of the shelter’s most-used resources is its on-site food pantry, according to Adopt-A-Family.
“The donation of food is literally life-giving for families and children who have no place to call home,” Adopt-A-Family CEO Matt Constantine said in a statement. “We furnish the apartment-style shelter units with cookware, dishes and flatware. After stocking their shelves with donated food, parents are able to prepare hot, home-cooked meals for their children — in many cases, for the first time in weeks.”
Jupiter-based El Sol will stock its pantry and kitchen with the food collected during the drive. The organization’s pantry will provides food for day laborers, their families and other North Palm Beach County residents in need. El Sol also provides breakfast, lunch and hot meals for its clients through its kitchen operation.
The food drive began as the brainchild of Helen Barberian, a seasonal Palm Beach resident who found herself reluctant to toss canned goods left from her end-of-season pantry clean-out, and posed the idea of a food drive. She called the Palm Beach Daily News, which sponsored the inaugural drive in 2013 in partnership with the Town of Palm Beach United Way and the Fire Rescue department.
Donations of food and pet food can be dropped off at Fire Station 1, 355 S. County Road; Fire Station 2, 300 N. County Rd; Fire Station 3, 2185 S. Ocean Blvd.; the United Way office, 44 Cocoanut Row; or Field of Greens locations including at 253 Royal Poinciana Way, Palm Beach; 412 Clematis St., West Palm Beach; 4802 S. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach; and 777 S. Flagler Drive, Suite 108, West Palm Beach.
Town of Palm Beach United Way will also accept monetary donations, which can be made online by visiting by visiting PalmBeachUnitedWay.org/food-drive. Donations can also be made via check. Checks should be made payable to the Town of Palm Beach United Way with “Food Drive” written in the memo portion and mailed to the United Way office at 44 Cocoanut Row, Suite M201, Palm Beach, FL 33480.
Diego Diaz Lasa is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at dlasa@pbdailynews.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Annual Empty Your Pantry Food Drive begins as Palm Beach season ends.
Reporting by Diego Diaz Lasa, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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