Driven by their own experiences and desire to care for others, the team behind Feed and Fortify tirelessly tackles the issues that most impact their youngest neighbors.

It’s easy to take things for granted when you’ve never been without the bare necessities of modern amenities. But the individuals that Feed and Fortify serves—as well as much of the team driving the nonprofit organization’s direction—know all too well how much of a struggle daily life can be when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from, are ping-ponging from one living situation to another or don’t even own clean, well-fitting clothes. 

The registered 501(c)(3) organization formally began in 2012 with a mission of supporting unhoused individuals by connecting them with resources like food and temporary residences. After one of its original co-founders moved out of the area, Migdalia Maldonado rose to the CEO/president role while the team pivoted toward addressing the root cause of a systemic issue rather than treating its symptoms. 

“When I took over in 2020, the focus changed to prevention of homelessness, with the purpose of focusing on families with children,” Maldonado begins. “At that time, we decided that about 85% of our effort goes toward prevention and 15% of the efforts will go toward serving the homeless—it’s not that we don’t keep on helping, but most of what we started doing was through the schools instead.” 

Indeed, much of Feed and Fortify’s service benefits students at roughly 20 Orange County Title 1 schools, which qualify to be recipients of additional federal funding. That extra support ensures equitable access to educational opportunities for students from households struggling to make ends meet, those with high-support needs or whose first language isn’t English. 

“The Title 1 schools are located in low-income areas, and 95% of those [caregivers] are working; however, they work for companies without benefits, so if they cannot go to work for a day or two because they’re either sick themselves or their kids are sick, they don’t get paid and they might find themselves at the end of the month without enough money to pay the rent or the utilities, or have food on the table, or even afford gas to get to work,” says Maldonado. “What I like about doing it through the schools is you really address the needs of actual people.”

She adds that families in need typically have to go through an assessment process when they request assistance through certain channels. But, as Maldonado points out, “they don’t have immediate money, and an assessment can take weeks or even months—and when these families are going through a tribulation, they need help right now. They can’t wait a week.”

The nonprofit also spearheads numerous fundraisers and supply drives throughout the year, all of which invite the Central Florida community to help make a difference. Feed and Fortify collects crock pots all through April, an effort timed to precede summer vacation since “every single Title 1 school has between 30 to 50 families living in hotels or with limited kitchen facilities, and you can actually cook a healthy meal in a crock pot” and replace the in-school meals that keep children fed throughout the academic year. 

Other initiatives include school-supply drives that not only collect essentials like backpacks, pencils and notebooks but also bring those supplies directly to the children whose caregivers have limited transportation options—while also reducing teachers’ financial burden of pouring their own limited funds into their classrooms. In November, the nonprofit collects garments like gloves, hats and socks, in addition to sleeping bags and blankets since families moving from one hotel to another often don’t have their own warm bedding. The holiday season also brings with it a food and gift-card drive for families who cannot afford Thanksgiving meals, connecting them with the traditional essentials right on down to utensils. A toy drive in December is augmented by the nonprofit’s raffle- and auction-fed coffers; last year, it funded gifts to more than 300 K-12 children. 

The Feed and Fortify Legacy Gala serves as the nonprofit’s big fundraiser of the year, with this year’s Oct. 4 event promising a night of fine dining, entertainment and a silent auction, all while supporting families in need. And, as Maldonado emphasizes how community support is critical in successfully undertaking all that Feed and Fortify continues to accomplish, she notes the uniquely beneficial impact of corporate giving, which is celebrated with a special February meeting. 

“That’s where we thank the business community for what they have done,” she says. “We show them what we’ve done with the money, we show them how we’ve spent it and we show them what we want to do in the following year.”

And, of course, a diverse, compassionate internal team makes Feed and Fortify’s efforts go even further and with a deliberate, mindful approach. With backgrounds that include growing up in an orphanage, understanding the challenges of single parenthood both as a child and provider, the struggles of recent immigrants, limited access to resources and more, the nonprofit’s board draws on their own lived experiences and challenges to inform how they use their areas of expertise like law, marketing, education and community-building to identify the most impactful work. 

“Everybody works very, very hard because we all have a heart for the community and we’ve all been in their shoes at one time or another,” Maldonado says. 

Maldonado’s own accounting expertise is also an asset when it comes to meeting people where they are while providing access to tools of empowerment and self-actualization. As the Feed and Fortify team is always on the lookout for new ways to make a big difference by applying for grants and exploring new ventures, she points to one specific new program—From Homeless to Homeowners—that aims to provide a multi-faceted, forward-focused education. 

“What we want to do is create seminars and gather people from the different schools to start teaching them how to create a budget, how to fix their credit so that we can show them how to buy a property,” Maldonado explains. “I’ve had my mortgage license since 2005, so most of the time, I am able to guide people and help them get money from the down-payment assistance program.” 

Feed and Fortify always invites the local community to help out however they can—“we’re all about volunteers,” Maldonado affirms—and witness the profound impact a hard-working, big-hearted collective can have just by answering the call to make a difference. 

“Some of these children are sleeping in cars or on the street,” begins Maldonado. “The parents are so grateful: A lot of the time, they’re just working so hard to make ends meet and they don’t have the time to express their gratitude beyond the person they’re facing. It’s often the schools that turn around and write us notes about how grateful a family is to sleep in a hotel instead of on the street or pay their utility bill. We have so many pictures of these families who are happy their child has a new bike or new bag, or that they have enough money so their kids will have electricity or running water again.”