Florida Good

More than 40,000 pounds of the brightly-colored gourds arrived on a semi-truck Sept. 28 just in time for this year’s pumpkin patch. Before filling the small hay-covered courtyard at Gainesville’s Trinity United Methodist Church, the pumpkins travel 1,807 miles through six states after being harvested. The church imports its pumpkins …

October is family history month, and individuals such as Kathy McCarthy Dugan are researching their family tree using resources such as local libraries, Ancestry.com and the Family History Center at the Mormon Church in Gainesville.

Peaceful Paths, the Hippodrome theater and River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding partnered for a Unity Day march and rally on Oct. 5.

Grace Marketplace offers new dorms to homeless who volunteer at the new shelter. Some pavilion residents prefer to stay outside in tents at Dignity Village.

The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is fighting to decrease hunger and sustain the health of Florida residents. The FDACS has created a new digital map to help locate and determine which areas of Florida have the least amount of access to food and resources.

According to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, some charities spend as much as 99 percent of funds raised to help fulfill their mission statement while others funnel the same portion into administration costs.

Lester Poole has stories he may never get to tell. The 94-year-old served in the United States Coast Guard from 1939 to 1947, during which he traveled the globe and went wherever the tide took him. “South Africa. Brazil,” he said. “You name it, I’ve been there.” Though he was …

The Kaleidoscope Tour visited Gainesville on Saturday for the 2014 edition of the Color Run. Nicknamed "The Happiest 5K On The Planet," the run drew hundreds of participants.

Florida’s seventh nursing home for military veterans will be built in western Port St. Lucie. Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet on Tuesday voted unanimously to approve $17 million in funding for the 120-bed facility, which will cost an additional $27 to $37 million in federal funds to construct, …

Ocala religious leaders and the Ocala Police Department organized a community prayer vigil to promote an end to the recent violence in the community. Four drive-by-shootings have left three injured since early September.