With Tallahassee residents losing tons of perishable food because of extended power outages, Second Harvest of the Big Bend held a special food distribution in the Governor's Square parking lot adjacent to the former Sears store.
By Thursday, the City of Tallahassee said nearly all of those who lost power during last Friday's tornadoes had been restored. But that came too late to save untold tons of frozen and refrigerated food that spoiled during the outage. So Second Harvest of the Big Bend Executive Director Monique Elsworth, her staff and volunteers, held a massive fresh and non-perishable food distribution in the Governors Square parking lot. Elsworth said the turnout was historic, although not everyone was there to pick up food.
"Our community rises to the occasion with us and it's incredible how many people have called, volunteered their time, made donations, cars coming up here dropping off food for us to hand out to people in line. As much horror as we have seen in the last week and a half, there's been glimmers of absolute beauty with love, care, support and compassion."
Elsworth said just minutes after Second Harvest sent out a social media notice of the food distribution, hundreds of people had responded. By the time the event began Thursday afternoon, long lines of vehicles filled the mall parking lot. The total number was estimated to be somewhere around 500.
