OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. — The rise in gas prices is taking a toll on nonprofits that help people across Central Florida with food assistance, transportation services, and other areas of need.

What You Need To Know

Gas prices are making an impact on nonprofits that deliver food assistance to people in need. 

Osceola Response Team said it is spending $58 a day on gas to transport food to its pantry and freezer locations across Osceola County. 

It is seeking community assistance to maintain operations. 

Average gas prices are $4.05 in Osceola County, compared to $4.28 on average at the start of April, per AAA data. 

The average gas price in Osceola County is $4.05, which is just over Florida’s average of $4.02, according to AAA.

This is down from prices at the start of April, where Osceola County’s average was $4.28, and Florida’s was $4.23. AAA data shows that April 2026 prices reflect the first time in the last year that the average gas price per gallon has risen above $4 for regular gas in Florida.

The nonprofit Osceola Response Team drives all across the county every day to drop off food donations to its freezers placed throughout the community.

“We go through $58 every day,” Executive Director Richard Herr said. “Now there are sometimes that we’ll stretch that $58 to the next day, but the next day we will be filling up again, and that’s just one vehicle.”

Herr continued, “We just came back from Clermont picking up food this morning. Today we got to go to St. Cloud and Narcoossee Road, come back here, go to Orlando. I mean, we have to, you know. That’s the biggest thing right now is that we need to start using our heads and really start looking at people that need help.”

Herr said Osceola Response Team has not gotten any state or county grant funding to continue supporting people. He has funded the organization through community donations and out of his own pocket for the last two years.

“How we survive is we’re very conservative. We have people, like this doctor at the at the pantry that doesn’t charge us any rent,” Herr said, discussing the support they have from building they rent from. “It’s a blessing. He gets blessed from Jesus. We get blessed from him, and it’s all, but you have to surround your people, and you have to surround an organization with people that want to help.”

“That’s how we that’s how we pretty much survive. By the grace of God, and we keep going every day,” he said.

Herr said that in the long run, they want to help find solutions for people struggling to survive. He said far too many people are struggling to afford not only rising gas prices but the cost to pay for housing, groceries, utilities, and more.

“The problem is the system, to me, is broke. We can take a person that is homeless and put them into a program and set them up to go back in reality, to pay these high prices. It’s like gas, food, all these high prices that you can’t sustain,” Herr said.

“I believe all of us need to join together,” Herr added. “I’m not telling the world to stop spending money right now, but be more conservative, be more thoughtful. If you have money in the bank, help somebody else, because that person may be losing their house.”

Nolan Portalatin receives support from Osceola Response Team.

“Things have gotten a little pricey, and things have gotten a little difficult nowadays living wise. So we kind of, like, need help every once in a while,” Portalatin said. “You got to figure it’s between ‘Am I going to get medicine this week, or am I going to get gas this week, or am I going to eat this week?’”

This week, he leaned on the Osceola Response Team for groceries, citing his own health and rising prices as reason why he felt drawn to the nonprofit for help.

“I’m grateful for this place I really am because there’s been many times that me and my wife have been a little challenged on food and stuff like that,” Portalatin said.

He added, “They’ve kept the food pantry going, and they help a lot of people. This place, it really gets a lot of attention.”