ST INS CARES-Harry Chapin Food Bank of SWFL-Mission to End Hunger

Hunger in Southwest Florida isn’t always visible. It’s the server between shifts, the starting officer paying off a car repair, the retired nurse raising a grandchild and splitting blood pressure pills to make the grocery budget work. We invited the Harry Chapin Food Bank to share how a community-powered model rescues millions of pounds of food and gets it where it’s needed most—fast, fresh, and with dignity.

We walk through the organization’s 43-year journey from a small co-op of pantries to a regional leader moving 38.5 million pounds of food a year. You’ll hear why the name Harry Chapin still matters, how mobile pantries and 175 partner agencies keep neighborhoods fed, and what real food insecurity looks like when high rents, healthcare costs, and hurricanes hit at once. We also dig into the new Hunger Action Center in Fort Myers, built for efficiency and respect, complete with a client-facing pantry where guests can get food and connect to rent assistance, job training, and basic health checks.

Collier County takes center stage too. Despite its wealth, one in eight residents will face hunger this year, which is why a Naples-area satellite will link to the Fort Myers mothership to expand cold storage, volunteer opportunities, and rapid response during storms and red tide events. Throughout, we focus on dignity-first service, fresh produce and proteins, and the logistics that turn surplus into nourishment.

Looking to help or need support yourself? Head to harrychapinfoodbank.org to find food, sign up to volunteer, or explore partnerships. And if you don’t have internet access, dial (239) 334-7007 to get connected to nearby distributions. If this conversation moved you, subscribe, share it with a neighbor, and leave a review so more people can find their way to help and hope.

Harry Chapin Food Bank of SWFL
Robert LeBer
Fort Myers Distribution Center
3760 Fowler St.
Fort Myers, FL 33901

Collier County Center
3940 Prospect Ave. #101
Naples, FL 34104
(239) 334-7007
fighthunger@harrychapinfoodbank.org
harrychapinfoodbank.org

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Intro/Close 0:00

Welcome to the Four Fire Speech, Good Neighbor Podcast. No shade, good sunshine, drama-free, positive five double, so we get closer to the neighbors, local legends, and businesses, the support of the local community, and four fires meetings. This place we all love. We're your host, Pablo Dimer.

"Cabo" Jim 0:33

Welcome, good neighbors, to another episode. And uh this week we are speaking with Richard LeBr uh Laber. I'm sorry, I got that right, from the Harry Chapman Food Bank right here in Southwest Florida. Welcome. Hey. Yeah, thank you for joining us. Uh looking forward to learning a little bit more about what you guys do. So I guess without further ado, we'll we'll jump right in here. Uh for our listeners, you know, who may not be familiar with uh you know the mission of the Harry Chapman Food Bank. Could you kind of like let us know what you do to help out here in Southwest Florida?

What The Food Bank Actually Does

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Yeah. So uh our mission at the food bank is to lead the community in the fight to end hunger. And what that means in practical terms is um that we are the largest hunger relief organization in Southwest Florida. We rescue truckloads, millions of pounds of food that would probably mostly otherwise go to waste, and we make it available to feed hungry people throughout Southwest Florida.

"Cabo" Jim 1:31

And and how did that all start? Where did that start from?

Origins And Growth Over 43 Years

SPEAKER_02 1:35

It started 43 years ago. Um originally we were a uh co-op, if you will, of uh local pantries um in Southwest Florida who began to realize that um their ability to take care of hungry people was limited by their ability to source and uh handle food, um, and that maybe they'd be better off if they all leagued together and created an organization that could own a truck, that could own a warehouse, that could uh kind of centralize the uh find the sourcing of food from grocery stores and farms and everywhere else. And so uh that was in 1983, uh, very humble beginnings, and uh actually uh stored food in uh Veronica Shoemaker's uh coolers for her flowers at her florist shop um uh in Fort Myers. Um and last year we've grown to the point where we distributed uh 38 and a half million pounds of food in Southwest Florida last year.

"Cabo" Jim 2:36

Wow, that is incredible. I appreciate you guys' efforts. So I'm familiar, my dad was in radio. Uh I'm familiar with Harry Chapman as a musician, Cats in the Cradle. How did he get involved in all this?

SPEAKER_02 2:49

So we're named in his honor. Um, Harry was really passionate about hunger. Uh, not everybody knows this, but if you uh remember him, you'll know he was a huge uh uh music star. He was one of the biggest singer-songwriters in the world at the peak of his career. Um, and he gave uh the proceeds of every second concert to hunger charities. He started several on his own. He got the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor for his work. But unfortunately, Harry died really young. He was uh 39, died in a traffic wreck in uh Long Island Expressway. We weren't founded until 1983, but the folks who started up the food bank here and really grew it, um all many of them knew Harry. They were several of them were from Long Island, some of them knew him personally, and they credited Harry with inspiring them to do that and asked the family if they could name their new food bank in his honor. So that's why we carry his name.

"Cabo" Jim 3:42

I love that. I love that story. So hunger often looks different, you know, than people kind of expect. What does food insecurity really look like in our region right now?

Why The Name Harry Chapin Matters

What Food Insecurity Looks Like Here

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Well, food insecurity is a long term, isn't it? It's uh it's sort of the the professional term or the government term for hunger. But what it means is um you are food insecure if at some point during the year uh your pantry is bare, your bank account is empty, and you don't know where your next meal is coming from. That could be all the time, you know. Maybe you are uh dealing with uh mental health issues and have a hard time holding down a job, or maybe you're homeless, um, in which case, you know, very frequently it's difficult to, you know, get enough food to have something to eat all the time. It very many cases it's episodic. People uh go through periods of hunger when something financially goes wrong with their budget, usually is what's going on. So maybe you lost your job and you're in the middle of looking for a new one, but in the meantime you don't have any income coming in, or or maybe you've been sick and haven't been able to work. Um, and so uh actually the largest number of folks that we see who are hungry in Southwest Florida um are working families because this is a really expensive part of the world to live in. And if you're teaching school, or maybe you're a starting police officer, you're waiting tables in a restaurant, or you're, you know, uh valet parking cars, cleaning rooms at a resort, this is a really difficult place to make ends meet sometimes. And then if anything goes wrong, you know, you get sick, you get divorced, you lose your job, the landlord raises the rent, you have a really expensive car repair could be enough to trigger it. You get to the end of the month and you realize I don't have any money left and I don't know what I'm eating next week. That's food insecurity these days.

"Cabo" Jim 5:30

And it's and it's one of the first things like you had mentioned that people cut because yeah, hey, I got to keep a roof over my head, I got to keep moving forward, and food's the easy one. Not so easy, but it's you know, it's it's the one people think about sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Yeah, you got to pay the rent, you got to make the car payment if you want to have a car to get to your job, you know. So so there's a lot of things in most people's budget that are aren't very easy to cut, at least not in the short term. You could look for a new place to live at a lower rent, but that might take you months, you might be, you know, under a lease. Um, so food is one of the few things you can try to cut back on, and that's one of the places people often go. Absolutely.

"Cabo" Jim 6:07

So, one of the most exciting developments is the new Hunger Action Center. It's I think it's under construction here in Fort Myers. What inspired this project and why is it such a critical investment for the community?

Budgets, Tradeoffs, And Tough Choices

SPEAKER_02 6:19

It's really important. You know, I mentioned earlier that it was all we distributed almost 40 million pounds of food last year, and you the growth has been phenomenal. And between uh the pandemic and hurricanes and and lately affordability of food and fuel and insurance and health care and everything else, there's a growing number of people who need our help. So uh we've been in a building now that we moved into originally 15 years ago. When we moved in there, we distributed four million pounds last that year, and it's almost 10 times that much now. So we we have been planning for a while that we needed to build uh a new set of facilities that would be capable not only of handling our current volumes, but uh, you know, handle anticipated growth in the community. We we're expecting that we're gonna be distributing um 50 million pounds of food a year by 2030 and 100 million pounds of food a year by 2050. And that's if we don't have any hurricanes. Um, so you know, we we we desperately need expanded facilities with greater capacity to take care of the community, and that's what we're in the process of building.

"Cabo" Jim 7:27

And and I learned that you know, beyond food distribution, uh Hungry Action Center is gonna include some features for focusing on a dignity and education. Why is that an important part of the design in a space that goes beyond just warehouse and day-to-day operations?

The Hunger Action Center Vision

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Well, you know, we have people show up at our current place of business on a regular basis. They, you know, figure we're a food bank and then they need food, they're gonna come to our door. Uh, we're not really set up to do that. Mostly we're our food we distribute is going out by the truckload to organizations like Community Cooperative or Fish of Sanibel or, you know, other organizations. Um but you know, we want to be able to take care of those folks and and we want to be able to do it, you know, humanely with with uh respect and and dignity. Um so we're gonna set up a pantry area in the new building. We anticipate the new location, which is right on Martin Luther King Boulevard, is gonna have a lot of people driving by. We're expecting we'll have more people drop by looking for food. And we want to when people come and do that, it's a great opportunity to have a conversation with them uh about lots of things, right? What's going on? How what else do you need? How can we help? Can we connect you up with somebody who can help you with rent assistance or somebody who can you know give you job training? Or um, you know, can we can we take even can we take your blood pressure and make sure that you know you're doing okay? Uh lots of things that can be done while people are there, and I think it's a great opportunity while they're coming and looking for food to try to help them in other ways.

"Cabo" Jim 8:59

Yes, it goes beyond that food uh distribution. I look, you know, and then that's a great because those are important things in the community as well, is taking care of the people here. So you're also planning a future location in Naples. What need are you seeing in Collier County right now that I don't know, it kind of warrants taking a step in that direction?

Designing For Dignity And Services

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Well, you know, people uh people think Collier County must not have any hunger. Uh, you know, there's a lot of prosperity in Collier County. There's a lot of prosperity everywhere in Southwest Florida. But again, it's the working folks in Collier County who are the ones that, you know, mostly we're seeing. Uh, we do see also some seniors, particularly if they've got like a chronic medical condition. Um, but uh, you know, Collier is not any different than everywhere else. About about one in eight residents of Collier County will go hungry at some point this year. Um, and so we're same as everywhere else. We're seeing increased demand for our services. We have a nice facility in Collier County we've been in since around Hurricane Irma, but we don't own it, we rent it, and it's a little small to our purposes as we've grown. So we are taking the opportunity to build a new facility uh to be sure that we can meet the needs of Collier County um as well.

"Cabo" Jim 10:12

That's great, covering all of Southwest Florida. So, how do Fort Myers and Naples, the centers there, work together to help strengthen hunger, you know, across of all of Southwest Florida?

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Yeah. Well, you know, uh Fort Myers is our mother ship. That is that is the central distribution, that's the big place. The new building is going to be over a hundred thousand square feet. Um you know, and that makes sense partly because you know Collier County is a little too far south for our kind of main center. We serve Charlotte County and points north as well as as Collier. And frankly, the cost of land and building in Collier County is much more expensive than it is in Lee as well. So um, you know, we're gonna we're gonna uh set up a center in Collier. There'll be a satellite, receive food from uh Lee, we'll do volunteer work there uh and be part of the network.

"Cabo" Jim 11:02

Very nice. So Fort Myers Beach and the surrounding coastal communities, you know, we've seen a lot of challenges, I might say, over the last couple of years. Uh has the Harry Chapman Food Bank supported the neighbors in those areas during these struggling times?

Expanding To Naples And Collier Needs

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Absolutely. We uh we have partner agencies that get food from us in the Fort Myers Beach area. We were uh we've been very active numerous times. We were you know very active after Irma, and then especially, of course, after Ian. Um you if you recall, even before Ian, there was a red tide, a really bad red tide one year, and people in Fort Myers Beach were really suffering. We set up special food distributions because there were a lot of folks who you know were employed on the beach, but no one was coming. Um, and so they were you know, a lot of people really struggling. So we did food this we've done food distributions uh after emergencies in Fort Myers Beach for years, and we continue to do it on a routine basis. If people need help, there are agencies nearby that can help them.

"Cabo" Jim 12:03

That is great. It was much needed, you know. Like I said, we had uh we went through the gauntlet there for a couple of years where it seemed like it was a regular thing occurring, but uh we appreciate you guys being there and help support the community or locally. Can you share an example of how partnerships or mobile distribution centers have helped the families and seniors in the area other than just IN during disaster times?

How Fort Myers And Naples Work Together

SPEAKER_02 12:28

Sure. Yeah, we uh we do uh, as I mentioned, we have a network of agencies, 175 of them, that are operational every day, every week, somewhere in Southwest Florida. And we do about 50 mobile pantries, where that's our trucks going out to a church or a community center and directly feeding members of the public. And I remember being at a mobile pantry um out uh near Golden Gate in Collier County and talking to a retired nurse who was uh raising her granddaughter at home. And she was telling me how she had been uh forced to cut her blood pressure prep medication pills in half because they had gotten so expensive uh that she was trying to economize and save money in order to be able to buy food for herself and her granddaughter. And thanks to the mobile pantry that she was able to come to, we helped her, you know, bridge that gap and and take care of her family.

"Cabo" Jim 13:20

And those are the stories that the community needs to know. And an important part of the work that you guys are doing to help support the community, you know, is you got to be very proud of where the organization has gotten to today. What's the future look like for you guys?

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Well, I think, you know, more and better. Uh, you know, we're we're gonna uh build our new facilities, we're gonna expand our capacity to take care of people. We are always looking for ways that we can um improve the quality of the food we have, the quantity of the food we have, um, and make it uh more easily available to people wherever they might find themselves any time that they you know are experiencing hunger. Uh, because we want we don't want anybody in Southwest Florida to have to go hungry.

"Cabo" Jim 14:07

Absolutely. So, for our listeners, how would they go about contacting or reaching out to you if they wanted to help support or maybe they know somebody who's in need?

Disaster Response On The Coast

SPEAKER_02 14:16

The easiest way is to go to our uh website, HCFB, for Harry Chapin Food Bank, HCFB.org. Um, and there's a link there that you can click to find food that'll show you where all our food distributions are coming up nearby to you. Uh there's a link there to sign up to volunteer. We use volunteers five, six days a week, um, doing a variety of things. Um, there are links to all of our partner agencies. Um, and and and if you don't have access to the internet, I suggest call 211, which is uh the United Way's uh uh services uh link uh number, and they can point you to they know where all our food distributions are, they can point you to where you can get help.

"Cabo" Jim 15:00

Very good, very good. Any last words for our listeners today?

SPEAKER_02 15:04

We're so well, first of all, thank you for having me on today. We're so grateful to this community. This is a wonderfully generous and giving community. We couldn't do our the work that we do without the thousands of volunteers who support us every year and the many thousands of volunteers who donate food or money to support our work. So we are just so grateful to everybody for how they come together to help their neighbors who are experiencing hunger.

"Cabo" Jim 15:28

Richard, it's been a pleasure getting to know you. Thank you to the Harry Chapman Food Bank of Southwest Florida for being such a good neighbor and supporting our community. And we hope to see you out there soon. Thanks.

Sponsor Message And Final Sign-off

Mobile Pantries And Real Lives

Intro/Close 15:40

Thank you for joining us on State Insurance USA Cares. We hope today's story uplifted and inspired you. If you'd like to support or learn more about the incredible work happening in your community, visit StateInsuranceUSA.com or call 239 567 9992. You can also visit CaboWaboGym.com. Until next time, be sure to let your sun shine and keep sharing good and positive vibes wherever the waves take you.