Harry Chapin Food Bank sees spike in food distributions

Recent data released by Southwest Florida’s largest food bank showed a substantial increase in distributions in 2024 compared to the previous year.

Harry Chapin Food Bank’s 2024 Impact Report detailed a 10.6% increase in pounds of food distributed from 2023 to 2024, totaling 39.5 million last year. That equates to an additional 3 million means served to neighbors across the region.

HCFB, in conjunction with its 175 agency partners, distributes meals throughout Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry, and Lee counties.

From ’23 to ’24, Lee County saw a 16% increase in pounds of food distribution — from 15.9 million to 18.4 million. Hendry County saw the largest increase at 25%, with Glades and Collier at 5%, and Charlotte at 2%.

“(The report) says to me that hunger is still a significant issue in Southwest Florida, despite all of our affluence,” said Richard LeBer, president and CEO of Harry Chapin Food Bank. “This is an expensive place for a lot of people to live, and many working families struggle with finding a way to make ends meet. In particular in the last year or two, I think the issues have been related to inflation; inflation in rents, inflation in healthcare costs, inflation in insurance, inflation in transportation expenses. There’s lots of bread and butter issues that are hitting people in the pocketbook.”

LeBer said HCFB sees large pockets of need in Lee County, which saw the second-highest increase in food distribution across the five counties HCFB serves.

“I think there are plenty of working communities, bedroom communities where folks are working probably in the service industry,” he said. “That would certainly include Cape Coral, Lehigh, and some other areas. We see a concentration of need in those areas, and we’re working hard to make sure we are distributing enough food in Lee County in the communities where people are experiencing the most hunger.”

Two food distribution programs focused on children saw large year-over-year spikes. Harry’s Helpings, which provides supplemental food kits for families through education providers, agency partners, community events and community centers, distributed 261,000 pounds of food in 2024, a 31.2% increase over the prior year. The In-School Pantry Program, which supplies shelf-stable foods to families through school pantries, distributed 741,000 pounds of food last year, a 28.2% year-over-year increase.

“Both of those programs are areas of focus for us,” LeBer said. “There’s a lot of folks that we serve that are young families with growing children. It’s particularly distressing to hear about children not having enough food. That has not only an immediate effect on their ability to learn in school and have a good quality of life and grow up the way they’re meant to, but also can have a permanent impact on their physical and mental development. We’re really making an investment in those kinds of programs to make sure that families with children that are experiencing hunger, that there’s plenty of opportunities for them to find food to take care of themselves and their kids.”

The 2024 Community Impact Report also includes the following highlights:

• 5,900 volunteers provided 79,000 hours of time, the equivalent of $2.5 million through in-kind service.

• Harry Chapin Food Bank provided 511 health and nutrition educational courses.

• 96% of support funded programs and services; just 4% of revenue was directed toward administrative costs.

• Fresh produce accounted for 10.5 million of the 39.5 million pounds of food distributed in 2024.

With a mission to halt hunger in Southwest Florida, LeBer said each year is an ongoing battle, and that HCFB does its best to assist all around Southwest Florida who needs it.

“I don’t think we’ll ever end hunger in a sense that no one will ever wake up on a Wednesday and realize they don’t have any money and they don’t have any food in the pantry,” he said. “I do think we can end hunger in the sense of always making sure that food is available for people who need it. That’s really what we’re working on. I think we are doing a decent job of reaching most folks, but there continues to be opportunities to make sure we have enough food in the right place and the right time to make sure it’s accessible to people who need it.”

While there are many contributing factors as to why there was a sharp increase in food insecurity throughout the region, such as hurricanes, LeBer feels the increased costs of basic living expenses and the economy play the most significant role.

“The inflation that we’re seeing is a hard thing for a lot of people to cope with,” LeBer said. “I don’t think we’ve seen the end of it. As long as that continues to be an issue where people’s rent is being raised enormously, or the cost of healthcare is going up, or the cost of insurance, then people are going to continue to struggle with meeting their budgets and keeping food on the table.”

HCFB works collaboratively with more than 175 partners across all five counties that receive food from the food bank free of cost, to distribute to their local community. Having these partnerships is critically important to be able to get food to as many people that need it.

“There’s no way that the food bank on its own could have several hundred locations around our five counties where people can get access to food in their local neighborhood if it wasn’t for the support of all of our partner organizations in the network that help us do that,” LeBer said. “The significant majority of our food goes out to the community in that way — indirectly through other organizations that are boots-on-the-ground in Cape Coral or wherever that might be.”

HCFB sources the majority of its food from local retailers, with trucks picking up at every major grocery store in Southwest Florida on a daily basis. HCFB also receives donations of fresh produce from farms.

In terms of what 2025 holds, LeBer said no matter what the trend may be, HCFB will be there to serve the community.

“It all depends on how the economy does,” he said. “In particular, it all depends on how the economy does for working families. How the economy does in terms of providing economical access to housing, and food, and healthcare, and insurance. And if the policies of the new administration have a positive impact on those things, then hopefully we’ll see hunger decline. In the meantime, the food bank is going to do everything we can to make sure that we are geared up to take care of all the folks in Southwest Florida that need our help.

“None of this would be possible without the generosity of the community of Southwest Florida, and we are endlessly grateful for that.”

Harry Chapin Food Bank, a Feeding America partner food bank, is the largest hunger-relief organization in Southwest Florida and serves 250,000 neighbors monthly through its Feeding Network. The Food Bank is privately funded and receives support from individuals, businesses, foundations, grocery stores and food distributors. Harry Chapin Food Bank is an Agency Partner of United Way and a Blueprint Partner of the Naples Children & Education Foundation, rated as a Four-Star Charity by Charity Navigator and Platinum-rated by Candid’s GuideStar. For more information, visit HarryChapinFoodBank.org.