LEHIGH ACRES, FL. – Lehigh Community Services has been a cornerstone of support in the community for 49 years. The organization provides a range of services to more than 50,000 clients annually, focusing heavily on aiding the senior community.<\/p>\n
Charlotte Rae Nicely, the executive director, said, “We feel like we are vital to this community.”<\/p>\n
The organization operates a food pantry and distributes food nine times a month, along with literacy classes and free income tax preparation from January through April. These efforts aim to boost the local economy by returning more than $1 million annually through tax programs.<\/p>\n
“We’re really driving the economy out here, even though everything we do is free,” said Nicely.<\/p>\n
Lehigh Community Services also assists with food stamp and Medicaid applications and offers health improvement education through Lee Health. They conduct a “homeless happy hour” daily, providing food and essentials like blankets and jackets, especially during cold snaps.<\/p>\n
“We offer them sandwiches…chocolate milk, fruit cups, snacks, sandwiches,” Nicely said.<\/p>\n
Meals on Wheels distributes over 1,200 meals a month from their location, serving those who are homebound. The organization also provides limited financial assistance for utilities through resources from United Way.<\/p>\n
Nicely\u00a0expressed pride in her team’s work and the sponsors, emphasizing their dedication to helping community members navigate systems like Medicaid and food stamps.<\/p>\n
“We love to help and we’re thankful that we’re able to do that through the different resources that we have,”\u00a0Nicely said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEHIGH ACRES, FL. – Lehigh Community Services has been a cornerstone of support in the community for 49…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,325],"class_list":{"0":"post-154512","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cape-coral","8":"tag-cape-coral","9":"tag-cape-coral-headlines","10":"tag-cape-coral-news","11":"tag-lee"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}