Miami Commissioner Manolo Reyes to distribute food, face masks

Miami City Commissioner Manolo Reyes will spend Thursday afternoon handing out snacks and face masks to members of the community impacted by COVID-19.

Reyes is appearing at a pair of events in the Miami area to distribute supplies. The handouts will be made in partnership with Florida Lumber and Farm Share.

The Commissioner’s first stop will be at Liga Contra el Cancer, located at 2180 SW 12 Ave. Beginning at 1:30 p.m., Reyes will help hand out 1,200 face masks for patients and doctors at the center. Another 125 boxes of snacks will be available.

At 3:30 p.m., Reyes is scheduled to appear at Smathers Plaza Apartments, an affordable housing complex for seniors located at 1025 SW 30 Ave.

According to Reyes, another 300 face masks will be available, along with several more snack boxes for residents of the complex.

This isn’t the first time Reyes has stepped forward to distribute supplies during the novel coronavirus outbreak. Earlier in April, he joined a Feeding South Florida distribution event at Miami’s Magic City Casino.

On top of typically food-insecure individuals, limitations on social gatherings have also heavily impacted the economy. Those restrictions have already left many Floridians out of work. Though the federal government has approved a stimulus package to help people weather the storm, many Floridians are concerned with where they can access their next meal.

Wednesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he was relaxing a statewide stay-at-home order, allowing for local governments to begin a limited, phased reopening of the state’s economy.

But that announcement does not apply to Miami-Dade, Broward or Palm Beach counties. South Florida’s tri-county area has served as the epicenter for the outbreak in the state.

As of Wednesday, those three counties made up nearly 60% of the cases in the entire state. The city of Miami has the most cases of any Florida city, with more than 7,400 of the state’s 33,193 cases in total.

Still, those counties have begun reopening some county and city amenities such as parks and marinas.