Khyona does everything she can to keep her family afloat, but the perpetual stress of being one unexpected expense away from facing homelessness and food insecurity weighs on her.
The Mascotte mother of two earns as much as she can from driving for a meal-delivery service. She recalled driving through an area with many people experiencing homelessness near the roadside, when she stopped to tell another young mom with three children where to go to find help.
“I look at it like that, at any given moment it could be me,” she said through tears.
With an unstable housing situation and barriers to full-time employment for Khyona and her husband, every little bit helps her feed her kids.
She receives SNAP benefits but says they are “not a lot” and don't cover food costs for the entire month. To help fill in the gaps, she receives food assistance from The Neighborhood Center of South Lake.
“This helps me more,” Khyona said. “It's keeping us afloat.”
Her kids, ages 6 and 9, attended summer school for most of the summer, but with a pick-up time of 1 p.m., it's hard for her to work a 9-to-5 job and take care of them. Food from The Neighborhood Center's summer kids' take-home kits means one less worry.
“It's been keeping me where I don't have to worry about if they're going to have a snack or not, or if they're going to have something to eat early in the morning,” Khyona said.
The Groveland food pantry, a feeding partner of Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, provides additional food for families with children during the pantry's regular food distributions along with the usual fresh produce, frozen meat, and bread. The take-home kits contain ten shelf-stable meals and five snacks for the week while the kids are not in school.
“There are fruit cups, mac and cheese, Chef Boyardee, things like that, sometimes shelf-stable milk,” said Trish Kry, CEO of The Neighborhood Center. “It brings more food into the household when it's needed.”
The demand for food assistance increases during the summer months at the Neighborhood Center and throughout Central Florida at Second Harvest's feeding partners. Over the summer, kids don't receive breakfast and lunch at school like they do during the school year, which is an extra financial burden on families.
“The need ramps up in the summer months,” Trish said. “In this area, many people are also no longer fully employed. They work in the service industry, have lower wages, and get sent home early when it's not busy or if businesses close for vacation. I've seen an uptick in multiple new families. There are probably five people who register every day.”
She said 66% of the neighbors served by her organization are working families, and The Neighborhood Center is packing summer take-home kits for about 750 kids every week.
“There's a lot of worry among our children,” Trish said. “It's interesting to see how excited they get when the cart goes around and they see the food.
“They're hungry. You hear things like, ‘Grandma, does this mean we get to eat tonight?' The statements you hear, they break you. Parents will tell you the fighting in their house stopped because everyone gets food.”
Khyona said her kids like the fruit cups and get excited about the cookies and cereal in take-home bags.
“They just like food,” she said. “They love to eat.”
She works hard to ensure her kids have what they need but cannot seem to get ahead.
The money she makes delivering meals must pay for their hotel room right now, as the house where they live with a relative is currently under repair. Her husband has his barriers, finding work with health challenges and needing a new government-issued ID, for which they have not had the extra money to cover the fees.
The housing situation is not always stable, even when they can stay with family.
“The house we live in, it's not my home,” Khyona explained. “At any moment, he can tell us to get out, and if he does that, we have to go stay in a hotel. He did it last year, and we had to get out, and luckily I had been driving all day, so I had money to pay.”
The family started working with another local organization to help resolve housing and employment issues.
In the meantime, Khyona is grateful for the support she receives because of people like you.
“The bags from here help,” said Khyona, adding, “Especially when (SNAP) runs out and there's not enough to get to the end of the month.”
