Times were already tight this past year when a persistent eye infection kept Eureka Wiley from being able to go to work.
A cashier at Dollar General, the 36-year-old Arcadia resident had few other employment options close by and was desperate about losing her job.
“I felt helpless. I couldn’t go to work with my eyes like this so swollen,” Eureka said.
Then, enduring lost pay and lacking money to see a specialist – many of whom were based out of the county – Eureka watched her grocery bills explode as prices began to soar.
This summer for the first time, Eureka turned to the DeSoto County Food and Resource Center in Arcadia, run by All Faiths Food Bank, for help with food.
But she continued to fall behind on rent, which had just gone up. And now she feared eviction.
“I was so scared,” she said. “I was going through it. I didn’t know what I was going to do.”
In the fall, back at the All Faiths center, however, Eureka got assistance in applying to Season of Sharing, which covered September’s rent and allowed her to catch up in time to see an eye specialist, who waived her fee and prescribed treatment.
Eureka continues working and within the past few weeks found new insurance to cover her eye care needs. But she is not alone in her plight in DeSoto County, case managers say.
Limited resources
To be sure, DeSoto County residents face similar hardships as those confronting thousands of families and seniors in the Sarasota area grappling with the affordability crisis, local advocates say.
Yet unique challenges persist in DeSoto, which is a fast-growing rural region .
And these challenges are leading to more people seeking help both for food and Season of Sharing.
All Faiths’ center is a major place where this plays out on a weekly basis.
In addition to being the only food bank in DeSoto County, the All Faiths center also offers wrap-around case management that includes financial literacy coaching as well as hands-on assistance with applications for everything from SNAP and disability to TANF, Medicaid and Season of Sharing.
The holistic approach is part of All Faiths’ philosophy that food is a bedrock of health care and well-being, as well as being intricately tied to every other part of a household’s economic, emotional and vocational success.
At no time has that seemed more the case than this past year.
Soaring grocery prices have compounded other rising costs and emergencies.
But unlike in Sarasota and Manatee counties, residents in DeSoto have fewer employment options and social services and greater transportation hurdles.
“This county is limited in resources,” said Maria Guerrero, the case worker at All Faiths’ Arcadia center who processes Season of Sharing applications.
Over the past year many DeSoto residents have also experienced cuts in Medicaid and SNAP benefits, Guerrero noted.
At the same time, she added, rents have been going up the last three years as more people move to DeSoto from Sarasota County.
Indeed, according to researchers at United Way Suncoast, DeSoto has seen the biggest population growth in its five-county area: 7.3% between 2022 and 2024 – compared to 6.8% in Manatee but only 3.1% for Sarasota and 0.4% for Pinellas.
Based on past demographic trends, United Way’s data experts stated that residents are likely being pushed out of more expensive areas and heading to more affordable places in neighboring counties.
For those already living in DeSoto, though, rent hikes add to the burden posed by increased health care and food expenses as well as ongoing hurricane recovery, said Heather Ferjuste, senior director of community engagement for All Faiths.
“They are just capped,” she said about swamped working families. “And how can we alleviate that?”
Oftentimes a win at the center comes in the form of information, networking and connecting parents to child care providers and other resources, Ferjuste said. Other times, it’s working with them on ways to stretch their budget amid the current affordability crisis.
And importantly, there’s the lifeline of Season of Sharing.
“We have definitely seen an increase,” Ferjuste said about DeSoto applicants.
Greater need
In calendar year 2025, the center helped process 200 Season of Sharing applications in DeSoto County –compared with 50 in Sarasota County.
The need more than doubled in the third quarter of the year amid rising food costs and federal suspension of SNAP benefits during the government shut down – rising from 47 applications in the second quarter to 109 in the third, she said.
The Season of Sharing numbers mirror All Faiths’ food numbers for DeSoto.
As of this past fall, at its 800 monthly distribution opportunities across Sarasota and DeSoto counties, All Faiths was serving between 85,000 and 90,000 people a year – up from about 65,000 a year ago. That represented an increase of 20% in Sarasota County and about 50% in DeSoto County.
At the All Faiths center in Arcadia, there has been a 116% growth in visits for all services from January 2024 to September 2025, said Karissa Roosa, senior director of food and resource initiatives at the Arcadia site.
Roosa said the lack of health care options and long commutes can easily derail a household budget.
Many residents have to leave the county to see a specialist, forcing them to lose time at work.
Others resort to letting conditions go untreated and end up missing work for health emergencies.
Both scenarios push them back on bills.
“It’s this harsh cycle of life that is really difficult to escape,” Roosa said. ““It snowballs and it’s really easy to fall behind.”
How did life get this hard?
Arcadia resident Nathan Lowe, 60, knows that all too well.
Nathan’s household was struggling this past year as his son and daughter-in-law, both 40, were getting new jobs or businesses off the ground.
Meanwhile, Nathan – a longtime construction worker – has been trying for three years to get on disability due to chronic fatigue stemming from pesticide exposure.
He needs to see a specialist to help with his treatments and disability case, but he can’t afford it.
“I’m about at my wits’ end with it,” Nathan said.
Frustrated he started looking for a job, including at a juice assembly plant, but he worried about his stamina and ability to keep up.
Things started to get really tight this summer due to grocery costs for Nathan, his son and daughter-in-law and their two children, ages 9 and 19 months.
“The meats are just unbelievable,” he said. “If it weren’t for those food banks, I don’t know what I’d do.”
He turned to what he called “poor man” recipes – cooking pastas, beans and lentils for his family to stretch meals.
On top of everything else the electric bill during the summer soared due to a faulty air conditioning unit.
Eventually, the household got help at All Faiths’ Arcadia center to apply to Season of Sharing, which covered two months’ rent, or $2,000.
Budgets are still tight, Nathan said.
And as he approaches retirement age, Nathan thinks about how life ended up being this hard.
Both of his parents did well in retirement – his mom after years as a secretary with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and his dad as a heavy equipment operator.
He wonders how much longer the affordability crisis will drag on.
“I just hope sometime we can come together,” Nathan said, “and get some order out of this chaos.”
How to help
Season of Sharing, a program administered by the Community Foundation of Sarasota County, assists individuals and families in an emergency with rent, mortgage, transportation, utility and child care expenses in Sarasota, Manatee, DeSoto and Charlotte counties.
You can donate to Season of Sharing by going to cfsarasota.org or calling 941-556-2399.
You can also mail a check to Season of Sharing, Community Foundation of Sarasota County, 2635 Fruitville Road, Sarasota, FL 34237.
This story comes from a partnership between the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. Saundra Amrhein covers the Season of Sharing campaign, along with issues surrounding housing, utilities, child care and transportation in the area. She can be reached at samrhein@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Season of Sharing helps with food crisis, unique challenges in DeSoto
Reporting by Saundra Amrhein, Sarasota Herald-Tribune / Sarasota Herald-Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Saundra Amrhein, Sarasota Herald-Tribune | USA TODAY Network
