Community Foundation of Collier County Receives Hunger Heroes of Distinction Award

The Hunger Heroes of Distinction Award was presented to Eileen Connolly-Keesler, CEO/ President of the Community Foundation of Collier County. In her role, Eileen oversees the Community Foundation’s mission and addresses community needs by providing leadership and coordination through grantmaking and fund development.

According to Liz Pecora, Vice President of Development and Communications of Our Daily Bread Food Pantry (ODBFP), this award is for the amazing team at the Community Foundation (CF) “to show our appreciation and our admiration.”

Pecora shared that “one of our blessings has clearly been the Community Foundation of Collier County. Their experience, oversight, care and support of ODBFP has been instrumental in our ability to meet the demands we have faced. To put it quite simply, they have been our role model “Hunger Heroes” that we are proud to be partnered with. Together, we are working to wipe out hunger.”

Pecora recalled the first phone call she made to CF in early 2016. “They have always been there for us,” remarked Pecora “and they helped us develop our networks; our donor management system; helping us with our website; providing funding for our programs and have been extremely helpful in the development of ODBFP over the years.” 

In 2021, ODBFP was the recipient of a $10,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Collier County. These funds supported the work of ODBFP that provides food six days a week from their home base on Marco Island for those who live or work on the island and at nine other mobile locations in East and South Naples.

According to Pecora, “We live in an area where one in eight adults may not know where their next meal is coming from. For children, that number rises to one in five.”

ODBFP has been on the frontlines during the pandemic addressing increasing food insecurity on Marco Island. According to Eileen Connolly-Keesler, “CF is proud to help them in their mission to wipe out hunger with this grant.”

The grant has enabled ODBFP to improve the health of their guests by providing well-balanced food options. ODBFP buys fresh produce, eggs, milk, dry and canned goods and meats (protein) which are often lacking in the diets of food-insecure school children.

In 2021, ODBFP saw food insecurity explode from helping 2,500 pre-pandemic guests per month to 12,000 guests by June, 2021. It was like an avalanche according to Pecora. Many of them were first time recipients. According to Eileen, food pantries reported catastrophic rises in need last year.

During the pandemic, the Community Foundation stepped up to administer $5 million in federal CollierCARES funding directed to the County that was earmarked for local food pantries. Before that money was available, the Community Foundation supported food banks with emergency relief through the Collier Comes Together Coronavirus Relief Fund.

Eileen’s fear was the red tape from the government entities, so CF stepped in and was able to move the money in two directions during this process. One from the government and one from the Community Foundation. According to Eileen, during the distribution of the money through the government, they found pantries they did not know existed with families who needed it most and CF funded them as they would never have qualified under the federal guidelines.

Can’t Afford Paradise- when we think of Collier County or Naples, Florida we think of enormous wealth and wealthy people vacationing here. We often don’t think of the people who work here, who actually do have food insecurities and housing needs. 

Collier County is an expensive place to live with housing prices off the chart. Lack of affordable housing is another recurring topic with high costs to rent or own a home that is out of reach from entry-level workers, teachers and hardworking folks who want to be part of the community.

According to Eileen, there is huge wealth and huge poverty with a very little middle class in Collier County. A study conducted by CF a few years ago showed that the top 1% of the people in Collier County make $389K or more a year – the median number of that 1% makes $4.2 million annually and they are living and sharing their resources, wealth and philanthropy with the community. And we are grateful for that.

But if you look at the 99% in Collier County, the median number was $58,000 annually. So, you have $4.2million and $58,000; 1% vs. 99% - that tells you a lot. If you want to live in Collier County before the pandemic, you need to make at least $66,000 annually.