Farm Share 3/7/2024
 

On Thursday March 7th, Kin Weaver spearheaded our third Farm Share event across 5 locations in Suwannee County.  This time around we were able to provide nutritious food including chicken, fresh produce, cheese, pasta, canned carrots, bottled water, Kind bars and iced coffee.  Over 100 volunteers participated, with approximately 900 families receiving boxes of food.  We cannot thank our partner locations enough for opening their hearts, their facilities and great volunteers that were essential in getting this nutritious food distributed to Suwannee County families who needed it.

 

 

Farm Share 10/25/23

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On Wednesday, October 25th, 2023, Kin Weaver once again led the effort to bring a Farm Share free food distribution event to Suwannee County after the great success we had with our first Farm Share event in March 2023.  This time around, we were able to double the amount of food brought in for distribution to our citizens, which was distributed across 6 locations throughout the county.

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At dawn’s first light, the Farm Share semi-truck arrived from Tallahassee bringing 24 pallets of various types of food. The food included perishables such as beef, eggs, yogurt, juice, gravy, apples, along with pantry goods such as canned chili, couscous (a Mediterranean rice), potato chips, diced pears, flavored water and coffee. A host of volunteers immediately jumped into action, with District 4 County Commissioner Leo Mobley offloading the pallets from the semi-truck with a forklift generously donated by Howland's Hardware.

 

Once the pallets were offloaded, volunteers separated the cases of food, dividing them into equal amounts to be transported to the 6 distribution locations.  Once the divided foods were loaded up onto flat-bed trailers, they went out to the distribution locations where they were boxed up and handed out to the drive-through recipients. It is estimated that approximately 850-900 recipients were served!

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We would like to heartily thank the many volunteers and local companies who gave generously of their time and equipment for this event, including more than 60 volunteers across all locations.  Of special note, we would like to specifically thank the following people and businesses for their help and support of this much-needed event for our community.

• Farm Bureau Insurance – 407 Dowling Avenue, Live Oak - for the use of their parking lot to offload the semi-truck

• Mr. Bill Howland – WB Howland Co – 610 11th St / Highway 51, Live Oak - for the use of a forklift

• Mr. Oliver Pidgeon – Tint Solutions – 609 Houston Ave NW, Live Oak - for printing and donating the Farm Share signs to help direct recipients to each of the distribution locations

• County Commissioner District 4 Leo Mobley – for driving the forklift and boxing up food for distribution at the McAlpin Community Center

• Kin Weaver – for putting this all together for the citizens of Suwannee County!

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We would also like to thank the six churches and community organizations and their great team of volunteers that donated their time and facilities to provide this much-needed help for the recipients in our great county.

• First Methodist Church of Live Oak (Vivian Starling – event coordinator)

• Suwannee Station Baptist Church (Angie Lee – event coordinator)

• First Baptist Church of Dowling Park (Dr. Shawn Johnson – Lead Pastor and event coordinator)

• Friendship Baptist Church (Sharon Hingson – event coordinator)

• Wellborn Community Association (Annita Leonard and Mayso Martin – event coordinators)

• McAlpin Community Center (Jimmy and Derenda Shepherd – event coordinators)

 

Kin plans to bring Farm Share back to Suwannee County in late winter/early spring 2024, with the potential of even more distribution locations throughout the county.  Please continue to check our website periodically as more detail becomes available.

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See more photos from this and other community events in our Gallery

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About Farm Share:  Established in 1991 as a food bank, Farm Share is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that works daily to make sure that food-insecure Floridians receive the food and support they need. www.farmshare.org. Farm Share does not endorse nor is affiliated with the Harry K. (Kin) Weaver, Jr. for Suwannee County Sheriff campaign.