Updated: 6:02 AM EDT May 25, 2021 The pandemic rocked Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida. Need skyrocketed, forcing the food bank to not only create new programs but find new space to support those efforts.That new space is Mercy Kitchen.Mercy Kitchen is Second Harvest Food Bank's newest push to end hunger in Central Florida.When hundreds of thousands of people lost jobs or took a hit to their income, they turned to Second Harvest and its array of options to keep food on the table.Last year Second Harvest developed several new pandemic relief programs including Bring Hope Home, which delivers food to homebound individuals and seniors, seven-day meal boxes, that provides a week's worth of breakfast or lunch to individuals and family meal boxes.“It's a family meal for four or five days. So they have five days worth of meals and everything goes inside that they're going to need and they just pop them right into the oven. And we have a recipe and a guide for them to follow when they pop everything right into the oven and have a meal ready for them to go,” DeAundra Rodriguez with Second Harvest said.Those family meals are assembled in Mercy Kitchen by teams of volunteers. An assembly line fills pans with healthy meals that only require some re-heating.Meals specifically for kids who attend after-school programs are also assembled at Mercy Kitchen.Rodriguez helps oversee the programming.“It's amazing. This building has done amazing things for us, we are reaching out to more people, we're able to reach out to more people now than we were before,” Rodriguez said. “I love my job. I love being here. And I love what I do. helping the community.”Each day Mercy Kitchen produces 23,000 meals which are distributed all across Central Florida. Mercy Kitchen is also community-powered. Volunteers make up the bulk of people packing these meals each day.“When you see the need and how day after day, we're still packing 1,000s of boxes, it really puts it in perspective as to what the community really needs,” Susan Keogh said.Keogh spends a few days a week volunteering in the warehouse side of Mercy Kitchen, packing the non-perishable 7-day boxes.Click here to DONATE NOW“Second Harvest is such an important part of the community. And we are dependent on everyone else understanding what we do here. And as a result of people really knowing what Second Harvest. That's how the community builds,” Keogh said. “And we are a small group in a very necessary group. And if everybody gave back just a little bit. This would be phenomenal.”