Manna Food Pantries

Thanksgiving is going to look a lot different this year, with travel alerts and calls for fewer people at the dinner table. It also means that people who serve the homeless population in the region must also adapt to life with COVID.

The Mayflower has landed in Pensacola. It is, in fact, a large Mayflower moving van parked at the Cordova Mall parking lot and it’s filling up with food.  “It’s actually the single largest food drive we do … over the course of a two day period, and it is really important for the hungry in our community,” said De De Flounlacker, the executive director of Manna Food Pantries.

“This restocks our shelves (and) gets us ready for the first part of the year when it’s ‘crickets’ in here sometimes sound-wise because there’s nothing going on. Nobody’s donating food generally in January.”

Along with their fellow Americans, Floridians and Pensacola-area residents are feeling the effects of the partial shutdown of the federal government. The Haas Business Center at UWF is studying those effects.

At this point, Haas has modeled up to 25 days of the shutdown, showing more than 7,100 jobs in Florida now idled.

Three and a half years after its long time headquarters were heavily damaged in a flood, Manna Food Pantry has finally moved into its new home and is getting ready to welcome clients.

The new location is the former Pensacola Mill Supply building at 3030 North E Street. The building was gutted, the roof replaced and the outside given a fresh, new look. Inside, there is 23,000 square feet of warehouse space that is starting to fill up with food. Volunteers are already at work sorting through donations from the recent Fill the Mayflower campaign.

Two related articles got me to thinking recently, something that these days can be hazardous to your mental health. But, generally, I think that thinking is a good thing, so I decided to follow my neural pathways and see where it led.

Letter carriers will be picking up as well as dropping off this Saturday during the 25th annual Stamp Out Hunger event. The letter carrier’s food drive has become the largest single-day food drive across the nation, and benefits millions of Americans who struggle to put food on the table.

On the morning of May First, 2014, Executive Director De De Flounlacker sat outside of Manna’s Gonzales Street headquarters with a folding table, some donuts and a pot of coffee. She said "early estimates right now are we've probably lost about 60 to 75 percent of our food." In addition to the loss of food, the buildings were unsafe and unusable. "Unfortunately", she said, "All pantry services are currently suspended."

While many families are planning their holiday meals, for many others what they’re having remains up in the air – and dependent on local food banks.

Escambia County’s poverty rate is around fifteen percent, according to the latest available Census data. In Santa Rosa the figure is close to eleven percent.

  After a busy summer, Manna Food Pantries is looking forward to stocking up for the rest of the year and getting ready to move. It was late April when the food bank announced it had closed on a new home. Now, almost 6 months later, they are still in their old location on Gonzalez Street.

Letter carriers around the region are gearing up for double duty this Saturday as they will be collecting food items during the annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive. This is the 24th year letter carriers will be collecting items for area food banks. De De Flounlacker, the Executive Director of Manna Food Pantries says it’s become a big part of their year. "This is actually a major event for many food pantries in the area because this is the single largest food drive that happens in one day."

De De Flounlacker, the Executive Director of Manna Food Pantries, stood outside the food bank's flooded headquarters with a fold up table, a pot of coffee and a box of donuts on April 30, 2014. Their offices were flooded and unsafe, they had lost over three quarters of their inventory and their operations had been shut down indefinitely. "Here in our main pantry, it wouldn't be unusual to see 100 plus people receiving food every day. And that's all shut down right now.

UPDATE: 

MANNA Food Pantries has concluded their 8th annual Fill the Mayflower food drive. According to a press release from Manna, this year Fill the Mayflower will help provide over 60,000 meals to the hungry. The food will be distributed through MANNA’s four pantries, the Santa Rosa Backpack4Teens Program and Monthly Healthy Senior Food Program in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. 

  It’s been 18 months since floods severely damaged their headquarters, and Manna Food Pantries is still looking for a new home.