🌅 🥫 Hunger, Hope & a Hint of Downtown

It’s Monday! and I am excited for another week! Also, I'm getting wind that Port St. Lucie is supposed to make a huge announcement on the Walton One Project (if that doesn't make sense to you, it's the Mid-Florida Event Center). My thoughts? From what I hear, it's supposed to be somewhat of a City Place / Downtown situation, but we'll see. This is just my speculation obviously.

There's a City Council meeting today at 1 PM, October 13th, where they're supposed to present it. I'm looking forward to it and will probably stream the meeting so we can all see what happens.

☕ Caught my Eye: Cafe 772 is opening another new spot! Check out the details here.

💜 People Pass Shoutout: Thank you to everyone supporting the newsletter! If you want to help keep this going, support here.

Alright, let's jump right in!

☀️ Day: High of 80°F | A mix of clouds and sun. Winds N at 5-10 mph.
🌙 Night: Low of 64°F | Clear skies. Winds light and variable. 8% chance of rain.
🌅 Sunrise: 7:20 AM | 🌇 Sunset: 6:55 PM
🌙 Moonrise: 11:48 PM | 🌚 Moonset: 1:28 PM
🎶 Sounds like: "Judy" — Al Green

You can never plan too much. That’s why Yates Funeral Home is giving Sunland readers a free guide to help you make more thoughtful decisions for yourself or for loved ones. No pressure. Just helpful info.

What's Going On: Food banks are seeing pandemic-level demand again, with some pantries reporting increases as high as 37% compared to last year. Unemployment has been ticking up over the last two years, and the strain is showing up in food bank lines.

By the Numbers:

What's Happening, Brother: Multiple factors are colliding at once. High cost of living. SNAP benefit cuts. People who used to donate are now returning for help themselves.

The bigger context: St. Lucie County unemployment hit 4.7%, the highest in four years. 2,726 students are experiencing homelessness in our schools. The Salvation Army had to raise thrift store prices to stay afloat. One in five Florida children under 18 doesn't have enough to eat.

Who's showing up: Food banks are seeing people who've never needed help before. Former federal workers. Regular donors. People who don't know how to navigate the system because they've never had to.

"We're having lots of people tell us they've never had to seek assistance," said Krista Garofalo from Treasure Coast Food Bank. "The system is hard for them to navigate because they've never done it before."

The deeper issue: Cheap, processed food is often all people can afford. But healthy food affects job performance, kids' school grades, household economics, and community health overall. House of Hope is trying to combat this by growing greens on their Palm Springs farm and teaching low-cost cooking classes, which saw 4,000 more applicants this year.

How Can I Help:

The bottom line: Unemployment has been gradually rising, and thousands of families are feeling it. When nearly 3,000 students don't have stable housing and food pantries are serving 37% more people, the picture becomes clear.

💭 Your take: Are you seeing this struggle in your community? What solutions do you think could help? Share your thoughts here.

Big shoutout to TCPalm's original reporting on this story.

Restaurant customers are complaining about the 107-space short-term lot being monopolized by long-term parkers ignoring the three-hour limit, months before JetBlue and American join Breeze Airways. Airport Director Todd Scher is exploring employee relocation and enforcement options, while plans to pave and double Lot C capacity may delay that project until late spring or summer.

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Fort Pierce voters head to the polls November 4th at eight locations including Havert L. Fenn Center, Fort Pierce Masonic Lodge, and Renaissance Business Park to fill the city commission seat vacated by James Taylor III's resignation. If no candidate wins a simple majority, the top two finishers advance to a January 13th runoff.

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A consultant engineer's mistake has left Veranda Gardens HOA facing $100,000 in reinstated special assessments after the city reversed a 2022 exemption on their clubhouse property. HOA president Kelly Finn says the city acknowledged the parcel was exempt under state law protecting common subdivision elements, issued a refund, then changed its mind six months later without notifying residents who are now preparing to sue.

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If you have an event, send it to me here

Over the weekend, me and a couple of friends did a cleanup on Avenue I. The reason? I'm actually trying to adopt Avenue I as a street for the Keep Fort Pierce Beautiful program.

That way, everybody who reads this, anyone who asks "hey, how can I volunteer or help either you or Sunland or any volunteer opportunities you may have," this is gonna be our chance. I think it's perfect synergy and coming together of a bunch of different things. So excited to push this across the line. Be on the lookout for an announcement about the first cleanup, hopefully by next month. Alright

See you tomorrow!
With Love, Ja’Min

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