Farm Share Partners With Local Artists To Use Color To Highlight Dark Issue Of Food Insecurity

HOMESTEAD (CBSMiami) – Farm Share is hoping to make its message of food insecurity a little more colorful, while also raising awareness.

Part of problem currently is the rising cost of living. It's not just, housing, but food and transportation. This is why during the peak of the pandemic so many more people were leaning on food banks for help.

"One of the narratives that I think that's starting to form is that people are seeing all these open jobs and saying why should I donate to a food bank?" Farm Share CEO Stephen Shelley said.

Pre-pandemic, Farm Share estimates it gave out 97 million pounds of food in fiscal 2019. Then in 2020, that jumped to 137 million. Shelley said it's not just the people out of work from the pandemic that struggle.

"You have your teachers, your football coaches, your neighbor who's a nurse, they may be working two jobs and they still need to come to get food from foodbanks like Farm Share," he said.

Now Farm Share along with artists at Murals Miami are working to elevate this message, by bringing colors to a dark issue. The team at Murals Miami helped to bring beauty to the walls of the warehouse, pay homage to farmers, and help brighten the environment for workers. The project was sponsored by Molina Healthcare.

"I believe if you're working hard, at some point and time everyone is a starving artist," Julian Gonzalez of Murals Miami said.

Altogether, five murals went up. This happened at a time when food banks are still trying to adjust to pandemic shifts.

"So Farm Share is always in need of finances, to keep the operations going we've got to put fuel in the trucks, we've got to pay the employees," Shelley explained.

The murals start here at the warehouse, but plans are to spread more art, and the message along with it, that people can help to win this problem.