PEMBROKE PARK, FLA. (WSVN) - A South Florida organization is getting help from the community this holiday season.
Feeding South Florida has a proud record of meeting a need, especially during the holidays, and this year, many major players in the community have teamed up to ensure South Floridians don’t go hungry.
“Even though we are competitors, we are partners for making this community great,” said Rita Case of Rick Case Automotive.
South Florida Kia Dealers, in collaboration with the Miami Heat, Miami Dolphins, and JM Family, presented Feeding South Florida with a $400,000 donation that will translate to over a million meals for families in need.
“We’ve all come together to raise the most amount of money that we ever have for a philanthropic organization, and we chose Feeding South Florida because food is an important part of everyone’s health,” said Case. “We don’t want children to go to school hungry, we don’t want anyone to go to bed hungry.”
The donation will go directly to providing more food for needy families at their pantry in Pembroke Park and their food distribution events across the community.
“So the $400,000 that was donated today has been translated to 1.6 million meals that goes out to the community. We have over 1.2 million individuals who struggle to put food on the table throughout the course of the year, and we’re seeing record numbers of families come to our doors,” said Feeding South Florida CEO Paco Velez.
Velez said the generous donation comes at a critical time, when families will be gathering to celebrate the holidays and will need that support to deliver bountiful meals.
“The holiday’s a great way to get family together, get family and loved ones to fellowship around the dinner table, and pass traditions down from generation to generation,” said Velez. “When you’re missing that food, it’s hard to do that, and this group made it possible.”
“Food insecurity impacts so many around the holidays, and these are our friends, these are our neighbors, these are hard-working, deserving families, our postal workers, our hospital workers, our hospitality workers, hard-working, deserving families that are facing food insecurity,” said Lisa Davis of JM Family Enterprises. “So we realize that sometimes in the automotive industry we’re competitors, but when it comes to philanthropy, we come together to make an even stronger impact.”
South Florida car dealerships and Miami sports teams’ competitiveness has driven the group of organizations to set a record for the most donations to Feeding South Florida.
“You know, it’s a partnership. A healthy community is gonna be a community that can have transportation, that can have the freedom of an automobile, and what better way to do it than with food,” said Case.
The group beat their $380,000 donation last year with a $400,000 donation this year, and their goal for next year is to beat Publix, which is now on top with its $500,000 donation.
Case told 7News that the plan for next year is to donate $500,001 to beat that record.
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