Richard LeBer. PHOTO BY BILL ADLER ba@billadler.com

Throughout Southwest Florida, it’s estimated that one in 12 seniors experience food insecurity, meaning they don’t always know where their next meal is coming from.

Many seniors rely on Social Security, pensions and their hard-earned savings to meet their expenses. However, these sources are often not enough to cover the rising cost of housing, health care, transportation, utilities and food.

No senior — or anyone else, for that matter — should miss a meal because of limited financial resources, a lack of reliable transportation or health challenges.

Harry Chapin Food Bank identified a troubling trend in which a growing number of lower-income seniors were struggling with food insecurity. Additionally, Feeding America released a report reinforcing that having enough food, and the right kinds of food, leads to better health and increased longevity for seniors.

Since 2017, Harry Chapin Food Bank’s Care and Share Senior Feeding Program has helped countless low-income seniors in Charlotte, Collier and Lee counties with nutritionally balanced food (seniors in Hendry and Glades counties are eligible for food through the Federal Commodity Supplemental Food Program). Each month, local seniors receive pre-packaged food kits that contain easy-to-prepare meals and shelf-stable fruits, vegetables, proteins, cheeses and grains. When possible, the Food Bank supplements food kits with fresh produce and other perishable foods.

For a senior, a meal kit is more than just food. It’s a personal message of care and support to seniors who often live alone or have limited contact with others. One of our appreciative Care and Share recipients, Josephine, recently shared this feedback: “They try to help you. It’s such a blessing — everything is fresh, and it means so much to us.”

Currently, about 2,600 Southwest Florida seniors participate in Care and Share. Through its Feeding Network, the Food Bank expects to distribute an estimated 31,200 food kits totaling 500,000 pounds of food — 250 tons — through Care and Share during the 2024-25 fiscal year. As the region’s population continues to age, additional seniors will need our support. Harry Chapin Food Bank is proud to lead this initiative in partnership with dozens of additional nonprofits and charitable organizations in the region.

In 2025, individuals, foundations, faith-based congregations, corporations and residential communities have a unique opportunity to double the impact of their generosity. The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation, an organization that focuses its philanthropy on health, medicine, education and human services, has offered an incredibly generous $350,000 grant to match, dollar for dollar, whatever you donate to the Care and Share Senior Feeding Program.

Your gift shows seniors in our community that they are not forgotten and that people care about their health and well-being. Seniors should not have to choose between filling a prescription, paying rent or buying groceries… no one should.

Seniors in our community are counting on us. Let’s show them how much we truly care.

Visit HarryChapinFoodBank.org/start-the-new-year-by-changing-lives and consider making a donation. A $100 donation becomes $200 with The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation match, an amount that provides 400 meals to our senior neighbors living right here in Southwest Florida.

Richard LeBer is president and CEO of Harry Chapin Food Bank, Southwest Florida’s largest hunger-relief nonprofit and the region’s only Feeding America partner food bank.