COURTESY OF TIFFANIE SHELTON
When Tiffanie Shelton realized children in her own community were going hungry, she founded Food For Thought. Now in its fifth year, the Santa Rosa Beach-based non-profit service organization packs food in backpacks weekly for more than 800 children in 15 schools within Okaloosa and Walton counties; Food For Thought accepts donations at its Santa Rosa Beach pantry at 132 Market St. on Tuesdays between 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.
According to Feeding America’s “Hunger in America” report for 2012, 138,040 people in Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton and Bay counties are “food insecure,” which means that they may not know where their next meal is coming from. To put it into perspective, that’s the equivalent of roughly half the people in Escambia County. Destin bills itself as the world’s luckiest fishing village, and the Emerald Coast is home to scores of restaurants, many staffed with top-notch chefs, ready to satisfy nearly any craving from Cajun to Cantonese. It seems as though food is everywhere we look and a part of nearly everything we do. But throughout the Florida Panhandle, thousands of people like JoAnn aren’t sure where they’ll get their next meal. “There are many things that make this an attractive place to live and go on vacation, but that doesn’t mean we are excluded from the realities of life,” said Tiffanie Shelton, the founder and executive director of Food For Thought, a nonprofit organization based in Santa Rosa Beach that provides food to children in Okaloosa and Walton counties. “People imagine hunger and they think of the Third World, they think of children with distended bellies and flies on
their faces. But when you’re living paycheck to paycheck and something happens, the first thing that goes is the money for food.” According to Feeding America’s “Hunger in America” report for 2012, 138,040 people in Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton and Bay counties are “food insecure,” which means that they may not know where their next meal is coming from. To put it into perspective, that’s the equivalent of roughly half the people in Escambia County. Shelton’s cheerful expression quickly turns serious when she talks about the importance of the work she and her volunteers, as well as other organizations around the region, are doing. She stumbled into this work five years ago. Then a single mom, Shelton first heard the phrase “food insecure” when she went to register her son for kindergarten at Butler Elementary School on 30A. One of the forms asked about her family’s access to food.
“My eyes were completely opened to what was going on in our community,” Shelton said. She asked the principal if there was something she could do to help. “I just went to the store and bought food for six kids. Word got out quickly. Six turned to 16 and then to 36. Kids began asking for help.” Shelton told a few friends what she was doing and they, too, were eager to help. They began meeting at her home on Thursday nights to assemble bags of food for the kids to take on Fridays so they would have something to eat over the weekend. The children all received free or reduced-price breakfast and lunch at school but often had little to eat on Saturdays and Sundays and during holiday breaks. After two years, Shelton and her friends were helping 125 kids every week. They had branched out to other elementary schools, and people in the community had begun to donate money and food items to their efforts. They registered as a nonprofit and, with financial support from the community, Shelton left her job and began working full time for Food For Thought. Now in its fifth year, Food For Thought provides food for more than 800 children in 15 schools and two counties every week, including holidays and summer vacation, distributing more than 50,000 food items every month.
EMERALDCOASTMAGAZINE.COM August–September 2015
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