WCK serving thousands of meals daily in Florida

 

Relief Team mobilizes across western Florida Hurricane Idalia made landfall along northwestern Florida on Wednesday as a powerful Category 3 storm. WCK teams mobilized across the region a day ahead of Idalia’s arrival to be in position to provide meals and water as soon as the storm passed. In the two days since, we have delivered thousands of meals while assessing impacted communities to identify areas of need. Idalia caused flash flooding in western Cuba before moving into the Gulf of Mexico where abnormally warm waters allowed it to intensify as it approached Florida. Evacuation orders were issued for dozens of counties in the state, including ones still recovering from Hurricane Ian, which devastated the region last year.    As soon as the storm passed, our teams in Gainesville and Jacksonville began to assess impacted areas, bringing hundreds of sandwiches, along with water and fruit, to provide immediate support to people in need. At the same time, we conducted an aerial assessment of the region to get a full understanding of the damage and to reach the most isolated communities. Watch as WCK teams work to identify communities in need of food following Hurricane Idalia. Despite slamming into a sparsely populated stretch of Florida’s western coast, Hurricane Idalia caused extensive damage in several small communities. While conducting the aerial assessment, WCK’s Sam landed in Horseshoe Beach—a coastal community 60 miles west of Gainesville—where the town’s mayor said Idalia was the worst storm he could remember ever hitting the area. We delivered hundreds of sandwiches and returned to open a meal distribution site to continue to support impacted families here. Watch as WCK's Sam reports from Horseshoe Beach. It quickly became clear that major population centers were spared the brunt of the storm. However, we identified isolated pockets of need along the Big Bend, the stretch of coast where the Florida Panhandle transitions to the Florida Peninsula. To address the large distances between impacted areas, we partnered with a fleet of local food trucks to bring nourishing meals directly to the communities that needed them most.   Within hours of the storm passing, Eloy & Stephanie—the father-daughter team behind Mobile Culinary Kitchen—drove their food truck to Steinhatchee. Alongside WCK, they’ve been serving lunch and dinner to families in this coastal town. With the help of locals, we're delivering meals door-to-door to reach families unable to leave their homes. Jami is a Steinhatchee resident who learned of neighbors in need of food and water. She drove her golf cart to our distribution site to pick up several meals to take back with her for friends in need. Perry was another of the hardest-hit cities in this region. There, our teams delivered meals to first responders and to residents of Everett's Mobile Home Parks where downed trees destroyed homes and power lines. We have established two distribution sites to meet the meal needs of this community. Our team provided sandwiches, bottles of water, and fruit to Oliver, who moved from Fort Myers to Perry after Hurricane Ian. As of today, we have seven public distribution sites across the impacted region and our teams continue scouting to ensure communities have access to nourishing meals. Alongside our food truck partners, we are serving thousands of daily meals and will continue to adapt to the unique needs of each location.  SUPPORT OUR EFFORTS IN FLORIDA WCK nears 100,000 meals served in Hawaiʻi Over the past week, our team on Maui has been preparing thousands of meals daily from our Field Kitchen located at Camp Olowalu, just a few miles south of the town of Lahaina. Chefs Wendy, Serge and the rest of the culinary team have been partnering with Common Ground Collective to procure local ingredients that become comforting meals like ginger orange venison with eggplant and rice as well as wild mushroom and venison lo mein. At the same time, we continue working alongside both Local Harvest and Common Ground Collective to provide fresh produce via farmers markets and food box deliveries. In total, our team, always aided by the support of Maui residents, has delivered nearly 100,000 meals to people impacted by the devastating wildfires. Learn more about our efforts in Hawaiʻi here. Help us keep preparing meals for families on Maui by donating here. Relief Team works alongside local partners to support families in Chile displaced by flooding Our Relief Team arrived in Chile one week ago as severe floods forced families in the county’s southern-central region to evacuate. Already reeling from weeks of intense weather, communities across the region were hit by another severe weather system in late August that caused devastating flooding. We quickly mobilized and learned communities in the Maule region urgently needed support. Our team has since established a central meal distribution site in Licantén, where flood water reached the roofs of many homes, and are delivering meals door-to-door to families in more isolated towns in the area. We were able to provide meals within hours of arriving in Chile thanks to our partnership with Fundación Gastronomía Social—a nonprofit that develops collaborative approaches to improve food security, social inclusion, and environmental health in the country. Learn more about our efforts in Chile here. Help us keep supporting families in Chile by donating here. SUPPORT OUR EFFORTS