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Winter Park Launches Community-Wide Effort to Feed the Need


Winter Park is taking a new approach to the annual Feed the Need food drive to benefit Second Harvest food bank. This year it's a community-wide virtual fund drive. The innovative approach may be just what's needed in the wake of food stamp cutbacks.

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[Second Harvest Food Bank CEO Dave Krepcho speaks at the Feed the Need Kick-off]

This year, instead of collecting canned goods, Feed the Need is collecting money online.  People or businesses can register through the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce or the Second Harvest food bank websites to run their own food drive campaign. Participants commit to raising a minimum of $500 in funds. Second Harvest will then use the money to buy food for the needy.  Second Harvest Food Bank C-E-O Dave Krepcho says cutbacks to the federal food stamp program make it a good time for a creative idea.

“We constantly have to be looking at news ways to be approaching this problem of solving hunger in our community. You know, a lot of fine work has been done over the years, and continues to happen, but I don’t know if we can work any harder, we kind of have to work smarter,” he says.

The Winter Park Chamber proposed the idea of a virtual food drive because Second Harvest’s food buying power is actually quite strong, so raising money could potentially have a bigger impact than collecting food items. Feed the Need kicked off November 1st, the same day cutbacks to the federal food stamp program were scheduled to kick in.  

 

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