Boca Helping Hands relied primarily on community support to source food for our feeding programs in the early years, mostly redistributing non-perishables collected from local food drives. But when we started partnering with area food bank Feeding South Florida (FSF), the significant amount of food we began receiving – not only through the USDA’s Emergency Food Assistance Program but also via FSF’s network of partner grocery stores and its own sourced donations - helped drive the explosive growth of our pantry bag program.
As a new FSF partner, BHH received weekly FSF deliveries of recovered food from several major grocery store chains, in addition to deliveries of USDA commodities. As BHH built capacity, acquiring its own refrigerated trucks and drivers, we began picking up the grocery-store-sourced food directly from FSF’s warehouse. When we had the capacity to do so, FSF requested that we make pick-ups at nearby grocery stores on their behalf, helping to get fresh produce and other perishable food to our clients more quickly. By 2011, BHH’s food recovery efforts had ramped up significantly, growing from 323,973 pounds the year before to over 840,000 pounds, largely due to this partnership.
“When we joined forces with Feeding South Florida, we were able to broaden our reach and provide for a larger number of families,” said BHH Senior Director of Operations Bill Harper. “In 2012, BHH surpassed one million pounds for the first time, recovering over 1.4 million pounds of food. Our explosive growth has continued as the partnership with FSF has flourished.”
In 2017, BHH was named FSF’s Palm Beach County Partner Agency of the Year, in recognition for our work with schools and students across Palm Beach County during the FSF “Summer Hunger Ends Here” campaign.
While BHH has also built relationships with the Palm Beach County Food Bank and our current USDA commodities provider, FarmShare, FSF has continued to be a significant source of food – contributing over 40% of the four million pounds of food we have distributed to our clients so far this year.
“Feeding South Florida has been a vital partner for BHH for many years, and they continue to be a key source of food for our hunger relief programs,” said BHH Executive Director Greg Hazle.
