Looking at the Face of Hunger

Oct 23, 2018 | In the News

Recently our Director of Development, Brandon Dowdy, visited one of our mobile pantries and saw something that he said “will stick with me forever.”

Dowdy saw a young boy who just finished going through a Meals of Hope mobile pantry line with his mother and seemed full of excitement as he claimed food items. Dowdy spoke with the boy and learned that he and his mother have become regular pantry visitors.

Dowdy learned that the boy’s family has relied on the pantry since Hurricane Irma devastated Southwest Florida last year. The storm severely damaged the family’s home and caused the boy’s father to lose his job. Without that head-of-household income and a lack of savings to repair their roof, the family landed in the Meals of Hope pantry line.

Later that afternoon, Dowdy passed the local bus stop and saw the boy and his mother waiting for their ride home. He waved at the two, and the boy gave an energetic thumbs up and said, “We love Meals of Hope!”

Meals of Hope is proud to serve more than 1,000 families each week through our 11 pantry sites. We have calculated that each family who receives food from our pantries can save around $3,000 annually to help with the high cost of housing in Southwest Florida, among other necessities.

It with that notion that we ask the community and our amazing sponsors to dig deep once again to help us serve families who have not fully recovered from hard times. Please visit our home page to learn more. #HolidaysWithoutHunger

The Start of Something Special

Sep 20, 2018 | In the News

Meals of Hope President/CEO Stephen Popper started the organization after his mother heard of school children in Haiti having difficulty learning because they did not have enough food. She knew of a food packing program in the Midwest and wanted to know if her son would ship the food if she found a way to collect it.

Popper realized there wasn’t a food packing program in Southwest Florida to help local needy families, so he started doing research and working with food supply manufacturers. He contacted the Rotary Club of Naples, which offered to be part of the food packing process as a community service project.

Popper visited the Naples High School cafeteria as a site and began inviting people around the community for his first meal packing event (Naples High School’s Student Government Association just packed the organization’s 50 millionth meal). Popper sent 8,000 of the packed meals to Haiti and worked with the Harry Chapin Food Bank to distribute the remaining meals.

“The feeling was so empowering,” Popper said. “Just watching all of these people getting together for fellowship and packing meals. I made a commitment to pack one million meals that year. We just packed our 50th million meal. We are very blessed to be able to help the hunger epidemic to this degree.”

After that first packing event, Popper began to research what types of food would provide the most nutrition. He created a Beans and Rice packed meal with added soy protein. He then created a Macaroni and Cheese Meal, fortified with 21 vitamins and minerals, that beat a more recognizable brand in blind taste tests.

“It was like hitting a home run,” Popper said. “The meals were so well received. Over the years we have developed four different meals – the Beans and Rice Casserole; Fortified Macaroni and Cheese; Fortified Pasta with Tomato Sauce; and a Fortified Cinnamon Sugar, Diced Apple Oatmeal. We actually had someone tell us he can’t find a macaroni and cheese in stores that is as good as ours.”

Revisiting Hurricane Irma

Sep 18, 2018 | In the News

Nearly a year after Hurricane Irma hit Southwest Florida on September 10, 2017, Meals of Hope still provides services to families whose homes were damaged and individuals who lost jobs and need additional support services.

In the eight months prior to Irma, Meals of Hope distributed 700,000 pounds of food through its pantries. In the six weeks after the storm, 850,000 pounds were distributed, and the organization ended the year having distributed 2.2 million pounds of food locally. Prior to Irma, food was distributed at three locations, and for six weeks afterward, 45 different distribution locations were used (and many still receive services today).

In addition to distributing food, water and hot meals after Irma (including 4,000 lunches a week to Everglades City), Meals of Hope also provided basic necessities such as diapers, feminine hygiene and adult incontinence products, and cleaning supplies.

“There was a real collaborative effort to help our community,” said Stephen Popper, president/CEO of Meals of Hope. “We staged water throughout North Collier County Fire District before the storm hit, and within 24 hours of the storm passing, we were distributing food and water. We held a food pantry in front of our office the day after the hurricane hit.”

Meals of Hope also was impacted by the storm. The organization lost power for 17 days and had $120,000 worth of building damage. Some employees could not get to work because of road conditions, electrical outages and gas shortages, but others on the team worked additional hours to ensure community needs were met.

To view interviews regarding the storm’s aftermath, please visit:

https://www.fox4now.com/news/local-news/meals-of-hope-fighting-for-hunger-one-year-after-hurricane-irma

https://www.helloswfl.com/news-stories/meals-of-hope-still-providing-food-for-hurricane-irma-victims