On June 3rd, Brevard County received its first official Second Harvest mobile drop!
Hands For Healing International, a partner agency located in Palm Bay, didn’t hesitate about being the ‘guinea pig,’ having just observed a mobile drop in Osceola a couple of weeks prior.
Hands for Healing has been providing relief services since 2004, and is primarily focused on domestic and international disaster relief. Seeing the need for food in Palm Bay, they opened their food pantry in January 2015 distributing food once a week. It is run by Annie Weaver and Jimmy Chapman. Annie manages the day to day operations while Jimmy, with a career working with FEMA, handles their procurement and logistics. Their pantry typically serves about 550 people a week but they’ve noticed that their numbers are steadily rising.
They advertised that the mobile drop distribution was to begin at noon, but by 10am there was already line forming of about 100 people. By 11am, the semi of food had been dropped off and the line continued to grow. As soon as the 40 plus volunteers were ready, they began handing out the food and didn’t stop until midafternoon. Residents got to choose which items they wanted and filled their boxes with as much as they could take. By the end of the event, they served 575 households or 1,460 individuals.
Annie’s thoughts on the impact of the day: “Only about half of the people where clients. I think we opened the eyes of the community and helped a lot of people who didn’t know we were there, showing that there is a real need in our area for help.”