Prolonged power outages cause increased need for food in Polk County
POLK COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – "It's just been a mess," said Delmarie Reid, of Poinciana.
Reid was without power for several days.
While she acknowledges that others in the Tampa Bay area have it worse, she is still waiting for a response from FEMA and has no food left after the outage.
"There's nothing in the fridge, nothing in the deep freeze. I've been through a lot of hurricanes, but I never had it where you had nothing at all," she said.
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Lisa Brault, of Bradley Junction, said she, her husband and her son lost power for seven days.
"We're counting down, OK, we got this much food, we got this much food and then all of a sudden, we got no food. So it's people like these who really are a blessing," she said.
Brault and Reid received food Friday from a Feeding Tampa Bay site in Mulberry at Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church, in partnership with Mulberry Community Service Center.
According to a Feeding Tampa Bay post on social media , the organization has provided more than 1.3 million meals since Hurricanes Helene and Milton hit and are adding sites daily .
Local organizations are seeing a sharp increase in need.
"The amount of requests and referrals and emergency food and services like that has gone up drastically in the last week," said Jennifer, executive director of Mulberry Community Service Center, who did not wish to share her last name.
The Freedom Tour , a Polk County-based disaster relief ministry, sent resources to North Carolina and Georgia after Hurricane Helene.
"Now that Milton is in our hometown, Polk County, we've put almost 99% of our focus here, because it's our people, we need to take care of them," said founder Pastor Bobby Williams.
Williams said he and his team of volunteers have been working 18-hour days distributing more than 100 semi-truck loads of food to Polk County communities.
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"This trailer park needs it, this ministry needs it, this church wants it. Then we load our box trucks up and send them out," he said.
On Friday, volunteers from the United Way of Central Florida were on-site, packing up boxes of food, which will reach people who, maybe need a little glimmer of hope.
"People are sitting in their homes and think, what am I going to do? Got no food, no electricity and now somebody's showing up with tarps, hot meals, cold meals, refrigerated meals and self-sustainable stuff," said Williams.
People in need of food should visit .
