WEST PALM BEACH — Cheryl Meade, who serves as an at-large member to the South Florida Water Management District governing board, shared a special message at the SFWMD June 11 meeting.

“I live in tiny little Monroe County, the Florida Keys,” she said. “I want to give a shout-out to our farmers to the north of us.

“They fed Monroe County during the COVID shutdown. We’ve been shut down. We just reopened, and we are a community that lives off of tourism and fishing. We had to close ourselves off to the rest of the world because we did not have the infrastructure to weather a surge of the flu.

“People in Monroe County were suffering, and the farmers fed us,” she said. “If you are one of those stakeholders who brought us food, I want you to know that people lined up for miles to get those boxes of fresh vegetables and fruits, and we are so grateful.”