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John Murphy Named Fifth Third Bank Orlando Magic Magic for December

  • Fifth Third Bank Orlando Magic Makers

  • VIDEO: December's Fifth Third Bank Magic Maker

    Every month the Magic and Fifth Third Bank selects a community member as the Fifth Third Bank Orlando Magic Maker for their dedication and significant contribution to the Orlando community. This month John Murphy is recognized for his many years of volunteer service in the Central Florida community through his company Harvest Time International.

    Murphy began his venture of providing disaster and hunger relief when he established Harvest Time International in 1991. HTI began by working with local, state, urban and community outreaches to the poor and needy. The main goal of HTI at the time was to distribute food and clothing to help facilitate ministries reaching out to their communities who had limited resources. Later, a strategy was developed to find large volumes of donated product to help supply other non-profit organizations to give the needy assistance in their communities. Murphy even distributed food from his own garage at one point to accommodate the amount of product being received for distribution.

    Along with being the founder of HTI, Murphy has done a variety of other community work to help out the Central Florida area. In 1995, he was the co-founder and co-chair of the Seminole H.E.A.R.T., (Home-based Emergency Action Relief Teams) which is still in action today for emergency and disaster relief. In 2004/05, he provided $102,000 to help with the hurricanes in Florida and supplied 23 semi-tractor/trailer loads of relief product for the victims.

    Murphy has also been a part of the largest joint Christmas program in Seminole County for 10 years straight. The program includes free entertainment, community services, food and raffles to those less fortunate in the community. Gifts given away in past years have included x-boxes, play stations and new bikes (80 bikes were given away in 2007).

    “Our eyes have been opened to the overwhelming number of people in Central Florida alone who are struggling to make ends meet,” Murphy said. “We want to offer them ways to relieve their suffering and give them hope that there is a way to rise above and not beneath, to be on top and not the bottom, to be the head and not the tail!”

    Throughout his years, Murphy has distributed over $250,000,000 of donated products to homeless, low-income, financially distressed, elderly and disabled families. Without his personal engagement and hundreds of hours of overtime, many sacrifices and even his private finances, all of this would not have been accomplished.

    “Reaching out to people who are in need of assistance has kept life real,” said Murphy. “Our programs have expanded and multiplied in direct response to the needs of the people. People in need are encouraged when they find that someone cares and is doing something to change their situation.”

    For more information on Harvest Time International, please visit www.harvest-time.org.