Community Services Award – Presented by ei³

As the region’s largest hunger-relief nonprofit, Feeding Northeast Florida (FNEFL) embodies a mission to use food as a catalyst to strengthen lives and communities. The organization rescues high-quality surplus food, sources nutritious food and mobilizes the public to fight hunger across a 12-county service area the size of New Jersey. Programs include mobile pop-up pantries, agency-supported permanent pantries, children’s snack meals, nutrition box deliveries, healthy food prescriptions, veteran and military pantry support and the distribution of other basic needs including menstrual products. In 2024, FNEFL distributed 35.7 million pounds of food — equal to 30 million meals — through nearly 500 agency partners to over 310,020 people experiencing hunger and food insecurity — including nearly 94,000 children. FNEFL operates with a team of 97, two warehouses, a fleet of 20 refrigerated box trucks and nearly 16,000 volunteers.

Meals on Wheels of the Monterey Peninsula (MOWMP) promotes the health, dignity and independence of older and vulnerable adults through nutrition and compassionate support. Each year, MOWMP prepares and delivers more than 700,000 meals to homebound seniors and individuals with disabilities and serves nutritious meals in welcoming group dining settings across Monterey County. The MOWMP Community Center offers social connection, activities and daily meals for older adults who can gather in person. The organization also provide meals for at-risk youth, and pet meals for the animal companions of clients. With the help of over 600 volunteers, MOWMP addresses hunger, isolation and food insecurity, ensuring that those most in need are nourished, supported and never forgotten.

Founded in 1963, the mission at Meta House is to end the generational cycle of addiction by healing women and strengthening families. Meta House accomplishes this by delivering trauma-informed, gender-specific and family-centered substance use disorder treatment and supportive services across a continuum of care that includes inpatient / residential treatment, outpatient services and recovery housing. Meta House serves a primarily low-income population of women who often face significant challenges in addition to their substance use disorder, including mental health disorders, homelessness and/or unstable housing, limited education and employment challenges. Meta House specializes in treating women who are pregnant, postpartum and parenting. As such, services are designed to treat both mother and child simultaneously so the family can heal and thrive in long-term recovery.

Red Feather Development Group partners with Indigenous communities to improve housing conditions and promote health, safety and self-sufficiency. Serving the Navajo and Hopi Nations, Red Feather provides critical home repairs, weatherization, accessibility modifications and healthy housing education while fostering long-term solutions through community-driven, culturally respectful approaches. Red Feather prioritizes elders, veterans and families with children and those most impacted by inadequate housing. The group also advances sustainable practices, such as solar and energy efficiency upgrades, to reduce environmental impact and utility costs. The organization empowers individuals to create safer homes, supports cultural continuity and strengthens community resilience across some of the most remote and underserved regions in the Southwest.

The mission of The Food Brigade is to ensure no child or adult in New Jersey goes hungry, and to establish food security for neighbors facing poverty and systemic inequalities. The Food Brigade accomplishes this mission by (1) providing direct food assistance through our network of Community Markets and (2) implementing a holistic approach which includes the offering of wraparound services to address the root causes of food insecurity. The Food Brigade strives to treat all who come for assistance with the highest level of dignity and respect, in a trauma-informed manner. In the last two years, The Food Brigade helped feed nearly 128,000 people in need — including more than 40,000 children. In 2024, the organization rescued over 295,000 pounds of food from going into dumpsters and landfills — nearly 148 tons — and redirected this safe-for-consumption food to people dealing with hunger and food insecurity.