Flagler Broadcasting’s David Ayres has been organizing Food-A-Thons since 2022 to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for Grace Community Food Pantry in Palm Coast, with each dollar buying $5 worth of food.
It helps fill the boxes Grace Community’s 80 volunteers distribute to about 6,500 families every month as the families line up every Saturday and Sunday on Education Way, off of U.S. 1, and in food drops at Hidden Trails Community Center on the west side of the county.
It’s been especially helpful since the Trump administration in April cancelled 94 million pounds of food aid to food banks across the country–half a billion dollars’ worth. That was before the government shutdown and its more drastic consequences for the food insecure.
“I can’t depend on a big shipment from them, which would take a lot of pressure off, and make our money go a lot farther. Because, you know, we don’t pay for USDA,” Charles Silano, who runs Grace Community, said. “It’s become different, and we’re not sure why. I’m just glad, I get something, but we’re not sure why, and it’s always a rumor. So you don’t really know the truth about that. USDA used to be a lot more than what it is presently.”
With the shutdown, there’s obviously something very different about this year’s Food-A-Thon. There’s a food crisis in the country as the Trump administration, defying a judge’s order, has stopped providing food stamps benefits known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Nearly 3 million Floridians, about 13,000 of them in Flagler County, receive food stamps. Even if the benefits start getting distributed again, the administration has said only partial payments will be made, and possibly no payments will be made in November. It’s not for lack of funds: the federal government has an emergency SNAP fund for circumstances just like this, and Florida is sitting on a $3.6 billion surplus.
The cutoff could potentially create the most serious hunger crisis in the country since the Great Depression as the nation moves toward Thanksgiving and the holiday season, and the federal government shutdown, now in its 37th day–the longest in the nation’s history–appears nowhere near an end. (Grace Community is continuing the tradition, started when Melissa Holland was a county commissioner, of delivering gift cards and Thanksgiving meals at four locations.)
The urgency of the moment is framing this year’s Food-A-Thon but neither Ayres nor Charles Silano, who heads Grace Community Food Pantry, are comfortable talking about the politics behind the crisis.
“It all depends on where you’re polarized to blame other people for it,” Ayres said. “To me, that’s why I don’t get outraged, because I’m focused on doing something about it, rather than pushing blame on the government or the Republicans, Democrats, Washington, whatever the whole thing is. By me doing that is not going to help these people here in this community, and so that’s where I put my focus to.”
Silano put it this way: “I don’t know who’s in charge of anything. I don’t know all of the laws. One side is saying that if they come to the table, we can open the government, and then we can negotiate other things. Other people are saying, No, we’re not going to go there until you do certain this and that. I think that people in power, both sides, need to consider the impact on the American people. I think that they need to put the American people first and then resolve the issues, rather than try to win an argument. Let’s do the next right thing for the American people.”
So Ayres and Silano will keep the focus on the here and now as the Food-A-Thon kicks off Friday at 9 a.m. and runs for the next four hours (down from six in previous years) on four of Flagler Broadcasting’s seven radio stations–WNZF, Beach 92.7, Kool 109.9 and Kix Country 98.7.
Some people who benefit from the food pantry will be on the air, describing their experiences, and donors will be invited to the studio to speak, or to plug their business, or to share experiences of their own.
The Food-A-Thon is billed as a “Million Dollar Food-A-Thon,” the goal in previous years being a $200,000 haul that could be leveraged into a $1 million food buy. The three previous food-a-thons have generated a combined $300,000 to $400,000. The goal this year is $100,000.
If there are over 3 people per family and the pantry is helping 6,500 families a month, “it’s quite a few individuals that rely on getting their food,” Ayres said. “And if they get their food for free, then they free up money to make a car payment, pay the electric bill, let their little girl be in a dance class or whatever else. So I think that that’s, to me is, you know, it sounds like people are starving to death, but they’re doing without, and kids do go to bed hungry and, and, you know, to me, that’s just got to do something about that.” He added: “Charities and people and communities and things are really what keep this country held together, not the government.”
That’s not to say that government food aid is unnecessary. “It’s huge, and I imagine there will probably be a huge swell of more demand on the Grace Community Food Pantry once they can’t go to the grocery store and buy what they were used to having,” Ayres said. “I’m saying holding the community together is when things like the Food-A-Thon and all these other charitable things where people donate, you know, people, just average people, donate their you know, time and money and all that kind of a thing, that’s what really keeps the community glued together.”
Food insecurity affects 13.5 percent of households in the country, according to the USDA. Although the rate had declined significantly from 2022 to 2023, Silano said “mom and pop” food pantries have emerged, creating stiff competition for food available to pantries just as the USDA has decreased its deliveries. “The competition for food is pretty fierce,” Silano said. Supermarkets have also reduced their orders, which means less leftover food for pantries.
“They’re doing the right thing. So I hate to use the word competing,” Silano said of the emergence of food pantries. “Help their neighbors, is what they’re trying to do. So I understand that. It just means that when you go to the food bank to pick up any food that they might have, you’re going to have more food pantries present going through the product and so there’s less for you to get, less for me to get.”
Nevertheless the boxes Grace Community fills for its families still provide the bulk of a family’s needs for that week, he said, especially with frozen protein and produce. “These people here actually it’s not like they don’t have money to go to the store and buy a bag of rice,” Silano said. “Basically, what we do is we supplement what their needs are.”
Silano has little patience for people who criticize those who seek help, those who claim many of them don’t need the help they’re seeking. He sees people lining up at 4 a.m. or 6 a.m. to get their food, even though the distribution doesn’t start until 10 a.m. “For somebody to take that kind of time out of their day is not working the system. They actually need the product,” he said. “That’s most of them.”
The Food-A-Thon is to keep all that going. “It just makes you feel good that you’re making a difference here in the community and in a fun way. It’s really kind of a win-win,” Ayres said. “I like it because it crosses all lines of politics, ethnicities and all that kind of thing. It’s all people who need help, and it’s people helping people. And it just makes me feel good to see a community come together and do something really nice for so many people, and that has a big impact.”
While the main event happens on November 7, when you can drop off checks and cash at the station (2405 East Moody Blvd., Bunnell), you can donate now by visiting the Grace Food Pantry website and clicking here.
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