Florida Blue Foundation awards $3.1 million to eight Florida nonprofits working on food insecurity
The health insurer's foundation announced the grants on Sept. 22. Its guidelines for the program describe four-year grants of $300,000 to $400,000, and this year's round is closed.
Jacksonville. The Florida Blue Foundation, the philanthropic affiliate of the health insurer Florida Blue, said on Sept. 22 that it is awarding $3.1 million in grants to eight community food programs across the state. The programs serve farmworkers, students, people who are homeless, uninsured residents and rural communities, and several treat food as part of health care.
The Jacksonville foundation made the grants during Hunger Action Month. It puts the number of Floridians facing food insecurity at about 3.6 million, including more than 900,000 children.
The eight grantees
The Farmworker Coordinating Council of Palm Beach County runs weekly food distribution and nutrition education for farmworkers and low-income families in rural communities. The Florida A&M University Foundation's grant is for a Food as Pharmacy hub and prescription program that the university's Lola Hampton-Frank Pinder Center for Agroecology will run from its campus mini farm, with free and low-cost produce.
The Florida Association of Free and Charitable Clinics will help its 109 member clinics, which the release says serve more than 220,000 patients a year, build and expand food programs for uninsured Floridians. The Foundation for Orange County Public Schools will expand school food pantries in low-income parts of Orange County.
In Pinellas County, the Homeless Empowerment Program will offer nutrition counseling, cooking classes, a garden, a mobile market and meals to homeless and low-income adults and families. The Poverello Center will deliver medically tailored food to people with chronic and critical illnesses in Broward and Palm Beach counties. United Way of Northwest Florida will develop a farm in rural Holmes County that grows and distributes food, and Waste Not Want Not rescues surplus food and passes it to grassroots groups in Northeast Florida.
How the program works
The release does not give the size of each grant. The guidelines for the round, which opened March 4, describe four-year grants of $300,000 to $400,000 in all, about $75,000 to $100,000 a year, from a budget of about $3.2 million. Applications were due April 22.
Eligible applicants had to have operated for at least three years since receiving 501(c)(3) status and to hold a current Florida solicitation of contributions certificate or an exemption from it. The guidelines gave special consideration to work in six ZIP codes they list and in the state's rural counties, and to programs that use artificial intelligence. Grantees must show at least a 40% gain on the foundation's food security survey over a three-year average.
Last year the foundation gave $3 million to eight food programs. Its page now lists the 2026 food security round as closed; applications for its four-year maternal health grants are due Oct. 5.
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