About No Kid Hungry: Florida

The Florida Partnership to End Childhood Hunger is an initiative of Share Our Strength and a local non-profit, Florida Impact, with additional support from the Food Research and Action Center and MGT of America. The initiative also includes a broad spectrum of business, nonprofit, religious, community and political leaders. Grace Nelson, wife of U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, has been named Honorary Chair.

Through the Florida Partnership’s Ten-Point Plan, Share Our Strength hopes to build a stronger, healthier, better educated, and more productive Florida by ensuring that all children in the state are surrounded by nutritious food—wherever they may live, learn, play, or pray.

Currently, nearly one in five Florida children is at risk of hunger due to limited access to nutritious food. Meanwhile, more than $1 billion from just three of the federal food and nutrition programs never reach those children for whom they were intended. Share Our Strength, collaborating with other Florida Organizations, wants to ensure that Florida’s children have access to the food they need. The Florida Plan—produced with funding from Share Our Strength and The United Parcel Service Foundation— represents one of the nation’s first efforts at the state level to produce a comprehensive plan. As a testament to the effectiveness of our model, Florida’s plan built off of the Plan to End Childhood Hunger in the Nation’s Capital.

The Florida Partnership to End Childhood Hunger serves as an anchor around which more than 50 organizations are committed to working collaboratively to make Florida the first state in the nation to end childhood hunger. The partnership proposes to do this by leveraging more of the federal nutrition dollars and the Earned Income Tax Credits intended for but reaching Florida’s low-income families.

The Partnership has delivered important results. In 2004, only 38 counties in the state had summer meals sites. Now kids in all 67 counties can find summer meals sites near their schools.

Local Beneficiaries In Florida

Share Our Strength invests funds raised through Taste of the Nation, The Great American Bake Sale, A Tasteful Persuit Dinners and other Share Our Strength NO KID HUNGRY platform events with the most effective anti-hunger organizations to ensure the greatest impact in the fight to end childhood hunger in America. Local beneficiaries throughout the state of Florida include:

The Coalition of Homeless Central Florida’s mission is to address the needs of the homeless in our community and to serve as a catalyst for community collaboration to end homelessness. To do this, we strive to return homeless individuals to lives of independence through case management, education & job training. www.centralfloridahomeless.org

Feeding South Florida (formerly Daily Bread Food Bank), a not-for-profit organization, empowers other South Florida Not-for-profit organizations to feed needy people and improve their lives. We are the South Florida affiliate of Feeding America, a member of the Florida Association of Food Banks and the largest food bank in the State of Florida. www.FeedingSouthFlorida.org

FLIPANY’s mission is to provide affordable physical activity and nutrition programs to low-income youth and their families in South Florida. Through collaborative partnerships with community centers, parks, and other social service agencies, FLIPANY provides at little or no cost, innovative programs which place an emphasis on teaching proper health skills and how to make healthy lifestyle choices through a variety of hands-on classes, games, sports, and physical activities. www.FLIPANY.org


Florida Impact is the lead agency in Share Our Strength’s Florida Partnership to End Childhood Hunger. Since 1979, they have worked to secure justice for those whose economic rights have not been realized and work to increase access to food programs through aggressive outreach strategies and public policy advocacy. www.FLImpact.org

Florence Fuller Child Development Centers, Inc. provides affordable childcare, quality preschool (including the only Head Start and Early Head Start programs in Boca Raton), enriched afterschool and summer camp for low-income families. www.ffcdc.org

Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida is a private, nonprofit organization that collects and distributes donated food to more than 500 nonprofit partner agencies in six Central Florida counties: Brevard, Lake, Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia. http://www.foodbankcentralflorida.org

Formerly the Million Meals Committee, the South Florida Hunger Coalition has a strategic plan to fill and maintain the food pantries throughout Broward County. During the first year, and with the support of the Children’s Service Council of Broward County, the Coalition exceeded its goal by collecting enough food to provide Broward’s needy residents with a total of 1,021,493 meals! For more information, please visit, www.MillionMeals.org

Read more… Download the 2011 No Kid Hungry Fact Sheet