{"id":377565,"date":"2026-08-21T15:28:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T15:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/377565\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T15:28:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T15:28:14","slug":"community-food-finder-utilizes-ai-and-people-to-help-feed-underserved-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/377565\/","title":{"rendered":"Community Food Finder utilizes AI and people to help feed underserved communities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Urban Health Partnerships<\/a>, a South Florida non-profit organization that helps locals find food distribution sites through an AI-powered app, is expanding and enhancing its platform to help feed more people.<\/p>\n

UHP, whose mission is to improve people\u2019s health and well-being through different services and initiatives, was recently awarded a $50,000 grant from Citizens Florida, part of Citizens Financial Group, through its Champions in Action program that supports non-profits. The grant will go toward UHP\u2019s and Food & Nutrition for All\u2019s collaborative Community Food Finder platform.<\/p>\n

The funding will be used to train staff in AI to help scale the program and expand its Food Finder Squad, which consists of volunteers who vet and verify food resource listings.<\/p>\n

The Community Food Finder app<\/a> launched during the government shutdown last October, when many workers were furloughed and SNAP benefits were withheld.\u00a0\u201cOur organization is founded on the belief that we need to work with the communities that we serve and that we need to really drive their leadership,\u201d said Arely B. Lozano Cant\u00fa [pictured above], UHP\u2019s director of health access and livability.<\/p>\n

UHP encourages residents to upload photos of flyers and announcements or screenshots of texts and social media posts about local food distribution sites on the Food Finder app, to further spread the word in the community. The app uses AI to extract uploaded information and turn it into a sharable live calendar listing, after it has been reviewed and verified by UHP staff. Food pantries at churches and community food banks are examples of food distribution sites that are uploaded and shared. \u201cThere are very strategic ways in which nonprofits and organizations can ethically and purposefully work with AI in order to ensure that we can meet our goals,\u201d said Cant\u00fa.<\/p>\n

Since Community Food Finder\u2019s inception nine months ago, over 300 food distribution events have been posted. UHP is hoping that the app will gain more users, and in turn, that more South Florida communities will have better knowledge and access to food.<\/p>\n

\u2713<\/p>\n

Check your inbox for a confirmation email.<\/p>\n

\u201cArtificial intelligence is changing how organizations operate, but many nonprofits don\u2019t have access to the training and resources needed to take advantage of these tools,\u201d said Jim Weiss, who serves as the president of Citizens Florida. He said that UHP \u201cis helping close that gap by using technology to strengthen food access, improve information sharing, and better connect people with critical community resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Jeffrey Pressly<\/p>\n

Over the past two decades, Citizens\u2019 has awarded over $13 million to more than 420\u00a0non-profits.<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Pressly, UHP\u2019s community-engaged research & innovation manager, who uses AI software like Claude, vibe coding and Base 44 on UHP\u2019s apps and website, spoke about Food Finder\u2019s evolution: \u201cBuilding out what was first a community action planning dashboard and an outreach navigator into tools that the community is actively using in real time \u2013 all done within a year, really speaks to our team\u2019s dedication and also to the needs of our community.\u201d <\/p>\n

Future plans for UHP include the addition using AI to translate pages to Creole and Spanish, adding food distribution sites in Broward County, as well as featuring produce from local farms.<\/p>\n

UHP launched version 3.0 of their existing Food Finder platform in July. With more updates planned thanks to the grant, version 4.0 might be available within the next few months, said Cant\u00fa and Pressly.<\/p>\n

\"\"UHP team memebers celebrate grant funding from Citizens Florida. Pictured below: UHP at work in Homestead.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:<\/p>\n

\"Caitlin<\/a> <\/p>\n

Caitlin Granfield is a freelance journalist in South Florida. In addition to Refresh Miami, her articles, covering a variety of topics, can be found in the Miami Herald, Aventura Magazine, Miami New Times, WLRN and the Biscayne Times.<\/p>\n

\"Caitlin<\/a>Latest posts by Caitlin Granfield (see all<\/a>) \t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Urban Health Partnerships, a South Florida non-profit organization that helps locals find food distribution sites through an AI-powered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":["post-377565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377565","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=377565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}