Second Harvest celebrates serving 500 million meals in Central Florida

ORLANDO, Fla. (FOX 35 ORLANDO) - A major milestone at the Second Harvest Food Bank today as they marked more than half a billion meals served throughout Central Florida.

Seconds away from the moment, the room filled with employees, volunteers and donors started to count down. But those numbers only continued to go up.

That number – 500 million – represents 36 years of meals served throughout the community.

So what would that look like if all of those plates were lined up side to side?

“It would reach about 80,000 miles which is incredible,” Dave Krepcho, the president and CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank said. “You could go around the Earth four times.”

All of those plates represent the thousands of lives changed, like Judie Kellogg, whose family fell on hard times during the recession when her husband lost his job.

“You don’t want to go ask for help you know,” Kellogg said. “You’re ashamed. It’s embarrassing. You feel like you let your family down.”

After a year of struggling, they found new hope here.

“My husband went in and got that first box of food and he cried,” she said.

Feeding their family was just one less thing to worry about as they looked for work.

“My husband and I were down to our last pennies and they had a part-time position open,” Kellogg said. “Fast-forward six years later I’m the grocery alliance manager. I’m out in the community working with our donors.”

Now she is part of the change that helped change her family’s future.

“This is huge,” she said. “This is really a big day.”

As their mission to end hunger continues, the people here hope to one day see that counter sto