We are grateful for the continued support of Justin Gaffrey and his art gallery! Food for Thought is honored to be the beneficiary of Justin Gaffrey's Exhibition Opening: "LIFE STILL."

“LIFE STILL,” is an opening reception for Justin's new collection of paintings!

During this event, a drawing will be held for a 16 x 20 Hand Painted Artist Edition of a new artwork. Tickets for the drawing are $20 each and can be purchased at the Gallery from 5/2 - 5/22.  All proceeds will benefit Food For Thought Outreach Inc. and the winner will be announced at 8pm.

When: Wednesday May 22nd, 6-9 pm

Location: Justin Gaffrey Gallery

Additional Details:  Please join us for complimentary drinks and appetizers. Beer will be provided by Props Craft Brewery.

Those in attendance will have the unique opportunity to purchase new works from the collection and several different limited-edition, archival prints from the "LIFE STILL" collection.

More event information can be found HERE

Thank you Justin and team for your continued devotion to the community by supporting Food For Thought through your own donations and time, as well as through the DCWAF! We are thankful for community members like you.

We are so thankful for our volunteers at here at Food For Thought, and love when people volunteer their passions and talents.  In addition to volunteer opportunities for the backpack program, we also use volunteers in the Full Circle Kitchen and Full Circle Garden.  Today, we would like to thank Richard McCord and Ryan McNay from Marrow Private Chefs for the time the have spent helping in the Full Circle Kitchen and share a little more about them:

Richard & Ryan run Marrow Private Chefs, a boutique catering company that specializes in preparing restaurant quality, fine dining meals in your home.  These two became involved with FFT in the fall of 2018 while helping with Hurricane Michael relief, providing food to those affected by the hurricane.  After learning more about the FFT program, they both knew they wanted to continue to help in the Full Circle Kitchen to share their love of food and cooking.

The Marrow guys have lead a quite a few cooking classes for students and they "love getting to interact with the kids! We have truly enjoyed the opportunity to share our passion for food and cooking with the next generation. Whether they have a desire to work in the culinary field or simply want to be a better home cook, it is great to work with kids that want to learn!"

During one of the classes, they ventured to make homemade taffy, which the students absolutely loved, as well as Ryan and Richard.  They said, "Who doesn’t like homemade starburst?! Aside from that it is incredibly rewarding to work with folks who are so dedicated to helping others!"

We truly are grateful for the Richard and Ryan who take the time out of their busy catering business to help teach and make an impact on the students who take part in the Full Circle Kitchen.

You can learn more about how to become a volunteer HERE

Believe it or not, summer is quickly approaching! While many kids are looking forward to spending time at home, being with friends and enjoying the summer weather, there are also many kids that are uncertain for how they will be fed during the week without their school providing meals. 

For the last eight summers, Food For Thought Outreach has provided food to students in need while they are on Summer Break.  Students that are on free and reduced meal programs during the school year, miss on average 110 meals over the summer, which is why Food For Thought does not stop providing meals to kids over Summer Break. 

The FFT Summer Program serves both Okaloosa and Walton Counties, providing 66K meals to 600 students over three months.  The students involved in the summer program are able to pick up a month's worth of food, three times at our pick-up locations located within both counties.

By continuing to keep kids fed throughout the summer, it is empowering these students to stay nourished and not worry about where their next meal will come from while they are out of school.  We are looking forward to be able to provide food to our students throughout the summer in hopes they will be able to enjoy their break as much as possible. 

Will you consider to sponsor a family over the summer? There are three ways that you can donate today for our Summer Program: 

• $35 - Feeds a student for a week
• $175 - Feeds a student for a month
• $375 - Feeds a student for the whole summer

The deadline to register for this year's Love All Tennis Tournament is Thursday, May 16th! If you have not registered yet, do so quickly as there are only 8 team spots available! Sign up today, HERE!

This event will be held at Rosemary Beach Racquet Club on May 18th and will host 24 doubles teams; running from 8a - 5p. 

As we are prepping for the Summer Meal Program, Food For Thought will be hosting three separate food drives in Walton and Okaloosa county.  At each location, the Food For Thought Van will be present, where you can bring a pre-packaged food item to donate for the summer meal program.  There are 600 families that are part of the FFT Summer Meal program, creating a need for 6,600 food items to be distributed to these families.

Here are the dates and locations for each of the "Cram the Van" Food Drives so you can help:

At the Pizza-by-the-Sea, Watercolor Crossings Location, if you bring 5 food items to donate, they will give you 50% off of a pizza purchased (same day).

At the Destin Winn-Dixie and at Grand Boulevard, bring in 10 items to Cram the Van, and you will be entered into a drawing.

Suggested pantry items:

During each of these food drives, a Food For Thought Staff member will be there to answer any questions, as well as share current volunteer opportunities.  

Look for one of the Food for Thought Vans at each of these locations to drop food off.  Thank you for your support to keep kids from being hungry over the summer!

 More Event Info HERE