St. Rose of Lima Pantry Truck will be in the Solivita Freedom Parking Lot on Wednesday, June 24 – 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. (Food Trucks for Lunch Day) and Friday, June 26 – 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Farmer’s Market Day)
Please help us meet a 273% post pandemic increase in client families. On May 7, 800 cars, representing 1241 families and 3131 household members received 47,000 lbs. of food by day’s end. Pantry distribution increased 730% on that special distribution day. The new normal is 350 families a week, up from 170.
The primary employer in this region is tourism/leisure/hospitality, which has experienced 51.3% unemployment. Food insecurity hits first on the unemployed, who fill the St. Rose campus weekly. A brief parking lot survey revealed why they came: a furloughed Disney bus driver; a pregnant woman who worked at the Orlando International Airport but was sent home due to the virus threat; a SeaWorld cast member; and a seafood worker, whose company had supplied the huge restaurant trade in Central Florida.
Pantry clients are working families for whom two incomes in low salary jobs aren’t enough; retired people who can’t make it on their fixed incomes; grandparents raising grandchildren; people with health problems; the newly arrived; people in transition from life crises; and the massive number of economically displaced people due to the pandemic.
If you need help during these troubling economic times, the pantry is there for you every Tuesday 10-1.
For more information: https://www.ncronline.org/news/coronavirus/happiest-place-earth-shut-down-hunger-didnt
How You Can Help
Online donation: www.saintroseoflimacc.org, choose online donation, pantry option
By mail: St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, 3860 Pleasant Hill Road, Kissimmee, Florida 34746, Note: pantry. Volunteer: call 407-932-5004 parish office to apply and complete the required fingerprinting process to serve
Needed Items: 2-3 lb. bags of rice or beans; canned goods of all sorts; cereal; protein: peanut butter, canned fish and meat products. Plastic grocery bags are always needed!
