JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 As we enter the holiday season, locals in need and agencies that serve them need extra support.<\/p>\n
For Jesse York, the Salvation Army of Northeast Florida\u2019s<\/a> Towers Center of Hope in LaVilla has given him much more than shelter.<\/p>\n York said, \u201cI feel better than what I ever felt, because I feel like now I have a family, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n York has faced some challenges in life, but said he\u2019s finding stability through the Salvation Army\u2019s supportive programs and another critical necessity \u2013 nourishment.<\/p>\n York said, \u201cIt feels good knowing, though, that I\u2019m able to be able to go in there and eat and, and I\u2019m thankful for that because there\u2019s a lot of people out there don\u2019t have that.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Minerva Torres is Social Services Director and said their goal is to meet the clients where they are and serve them with dignity. Dr. Torres said, \u201cThey come here for different reasons, you know? So once the case managers assess the situation, then they start working with them. Of course, they get shower; they get, of course, the meals.\u201d<\/p>\n The Towers Center of Hope serves more than 40,000 meals a year.<\/p>\n Food Services Manager Kent Beaumont said his goal is to make the most of the donations that come into his kitchen.<\/p>\n Beaumont said, \u201cI do the best job I can to making sure that they all get something, and that can be somewhat of the difficulty of my job, but it\u2019s what, what gets us excited.\u201d<\/p>\n Excited to serve and impact lives with the help of the community.<\/p>\n Dr. Torres said, \u201cIf you donate funds, know that you\u2019re donating to an organization that is deeply, deeply rooted to what we\u2019re doing in Jacksonville. We want to help with the homeless. We want to help them get permanent housing and situated.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Torres said in addition to cash and food donations, they also welcome volunteers. For more information, go to Action News Jax dot com.<\/p>\n The Salvation Army\u2019s major fundraiser, the Red Kettle Campaign<\/a>, kicks off on November 13 at Ballast Park in San Marco.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 As we enter the holiday season, locals in need and agencies that serve them need…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[982,2006,116,118,117,165886,165889,634,165887,34430,165885,88182,165888,28402],"class_list":["post-419869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news","tag-doctor","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jesse_york","tag-kent_beaumont","tag-local","tag-minerva_torres","tag-salvation_army","tag-salvation_armys_towers_center_of_hope","tag-torres","tag-tower_center_of_hope","tag-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419869","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=419869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}