When the Florida Panthers take the ice at Amerant Bank Arena on Wednesday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs, they’ll be aiming to score more than just goals. 

They’re also seeking to cross-check food insecurity in South Florida.

The defending Stanley Cup champions have partnered with a Florida-based health insurance company and an area nonprofit to help feed hungry residents in the region. Billed as “Goals for Food,” the partnership between the NHL team and Florida Blue contributes 650 meals for every goal scored by a Panthers player at home during the regular season.

AS HUNGER NUMBERS INCREASE, FOOD PANTRIES IN AMERICA MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER

Harvest Drive, a South Florida nonprofit based in the county where the Panthers play, coordinates the distribution of meals in the community.

“There’s just no words to tell you how great it’s been going,” Harvest Drive founder Renee Herman told Fox News Digital. “It’s just amazing.”

The Panthers have been partners with Harvest Drive for years, but they only began tying their performance on the ice to food donations last season during the team’s run to its first-ever Stanley Cup crown.

The Panthers scored 168 goals at home during the 2023-24 season – amounting to 109,200 meals – and have totaled 40 so far this season. That’s 26,000 meals and counting.

THIS THANKSGIVING, NEARLY 35% OF AMERICANS SURVEYED ARE TURNED OFF BY TURKEY

Last week was Harvest Drive’s busiest of the year. Volunteers from Harvest Drive and the Panthers served about 2,400 families ahead of Thanksgiving.

Families referred to Harvest Drive by school social workers and other agencies don’t just receive a turkey, Herman said.

“They get full perishables” — including milk and pie, plus a $30 Walmart gift card, she added.

A volunteer wearing a shirt celebrating the Panthers’ Stanley Cup win is seen sorting collected food as part of the “Goals for Food” program. (Florida Panthers)

It’s “everything that you need to complete your dinner,” Herman said.

“So, it’s not just getting a turkey and they leave,” she continued. “They get everything.”

‘Hunger is a 12-month thing’

Although there is increased awareness of food insecurity during the holidays, the Panthers wanted to do something that was sustainable throughout the year. 

Hence, the Goals for Food program.

FOOD RECALLS AHEAD OF THANKSGIVING: 3 YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT

“The reality is hunger is a 12-month thing,” John Colombo, vice president of the Florida Panthers Foundation, told Fox News Digital.

Aside from the goals program, the Panthers hosted a food packing and distribution event in August coordinated by Harvest Drive. Volunteers collected 22,000 pounds of food to benefit 1,000 families.

The team also hosted a food drive for fans to donate non-perishable items before its Nov. 7 home game – a 6-2 victory over the Nashville Predators. The Panthers’ six goals were the most scored at Amerant Bank Arena this season — resulting in 3,900 donated meals.

The Panthers scored a season-high six goals at home against the Predators on Nov. 7, resulting in 3,900 donated meals. (Joel Auerbach/Getty Images)

Why 650 per goal? It was a number that the Panthers, Florida Blue and Harvest Drive believed would make a difference.

“That’s a lot of meals for one single goal,” Colombo said.

“We can’t control wins and losses on the ice, but we can control how we partner in the community.”

The Panthers, Colombo said, are “really lucky” to be able to work with Harvest Drive because of its direct link to South Florida schools.

“These kids, every two weeks, go home with meals in their car when they get picked up from school,” Colombo said.

He said the food goes “right from our donors, right into the hands of social workers that are going right into the cars of these kids [who] really need the food.”

A “Goals for Food” volunteer loads bags of food into the back of a vehicle.  (Florida Panthers)

Other NHL organizations have been doing their part to help feed the hungry this Thanksgiving. 

Players from the Carolina Hurricanes and Nashville Predators recently distributed turkeys to local families in need — while the Buffalo Sabres provided vouchers for future game tickets in exchange for turkey donations during an area food drive.

“We’re selling hockey in the middle of the Everglades,” Colombo said, recognizing that the team is “a little different” from some of its peers in the NHL. That starts in the community, he suggested.

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“We can’t control wins and losses on the ice, but we can control how we are as a partner in the community,” Colombo said. 

“And I think that’s always been our goal here.”

Authorities arrested two members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua in Tennessee last week, when officials issued a warning about a resurgence of the gang in the state.

On Nov. 19, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officials arrested Luis Alejandro Ruiz-Godoy, who was wanted on outstanding warrants through INTERPOL, a spokesperson with the Memphis Police Department said.

ICE transported the suspect to Louisiana for deportation. Additional details about his arrest were not available.

On Monday, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) officials announced the arrests of four individuals, including one Tren de Aragua member, during a sex trafficking sting last week.

VENEZUELAN GANG’S HUMAN TRAFFICKING OPERATIONS SURGE IN TENNESSEE’S MAJOR CITIES

Tennessee’s Human Trafficking Task Force obtained information that led them to a hotel in Hamilton County, where law enforcement encountered the four suspects and confirmed that they were part of a human sex trafficking operation.

Three female suspects – Wilimar Herrera Guedez, 29; Rebeca De Los Juarez Lucena, 26; and Yidalbris Marcano Salas, 29 – are charged with prostitution. Salas is also facing multiple counts of drug-related charges, as well as one count of unlawful weapons possession.

NEW REPORT WARNS BLOODTHIRSTY VENEZUELAN GANG’S FOOTPRINT WILL REMAIN IN US ‘FOR DECADES’ 

The male suspect, Adelvis Rodriguez-Carmona, 30, is facing one count of patronizing prostitution, multiple counts of drug-related charges, and one count of unlawful weapons possession. TBI investigators determined that Rodriguez-Carmona is “a known member of Tren de Aragua (TDA) who is additionally suspected of committing violent crimes in Chicago and New York City.”

“This is part of an active and ongoing investigation and there is no information available at this time,”  Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Nashville Public Affairs Officer Mike Meares said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

Four suspects, including a Tren de Aragua member, have been arrested in Hamilton County, Tennessee, in a sex-trafficking sting. (Hamilton County/ Valerie Schremp Hahn/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Tribune News Service)

At the time of the release, he remained in the custody of the Hamilton County Jail on $125,000 bond.

The arrests came the same week TBI officials issued a warning about the growing number of TDA members in the state.

“This gang has exploited [the border],” TBI Director David Rausch on “Fox & Friends” on Nov. 22. “They go from human trafficking to organized retail crime theft, and then they move into the drug trade, taking on the cartels in very violent, bloody battles that they’ve had.” 

WATCH: TBI DIRECTOR DAVID RAUSCH DISCUSSES TREN DE ARAGUA

Rausch said the gang has been running human trafficking operations and expanding into other criminal activities in Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga. Law enforcement is limited in their efforts to crack down on gang-related activity, especially if suspects do not have an immigration “detainer,” the TBI director added.

“If we come upon them and they have a detainer on them, then we can take them into custody. But other than that, then all we can do is monitor and assure that they aren’t violating the law. But that is a challenge,” said Rausch, calling it a game of “cat and mouse” that’s getting more dangerous.

Rausch warned Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee during a budget hearing about the resurgence of the gang in major Tennessee cities. 

The Department of Homeland Security recommended last month that more than 100 migrants that it has identified as having possible ties to a bloodthirsty Venezuelan gang be put on an FBI watchlist, after the agency flagged more than 600 with possible ties overall.

Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind and Adam Shaw contributed to this report.

When a Georgia judge convicted Jose Ibarra, Laken Riley’s killer, on 10 counts and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole, politicians and pundits across the country expressed frustration that he was not sentenced to death.

Over a nearly four-day trial, prosecutor Sheila Ross brought 29 witnesses to the stand to prove that Ibarra brutally attacked and killed Riley, a 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student who was jogging on the University of Georgia campus by bashing her head with large rocks and possibly strangling her.

But Georgia Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez decided not to pursue the death penalty against Ibarra in May, about three months after Riley’s murder, saying in a May 31 press release that the decision to seek life without the possibility of parole instead of death was “reached after careful deliberation with the senior prosecutor and the support of the victim’s family.”

“Our utmost duty is to ensure that justice is served and that the victim’s family is an integral part of the deliberation process,” Gonzalez said in a statement at the time. “We understand that there will be those outside this office who will disagree with our decision and seek to exploit this case for political gain. However, the integrity of our judicial process and the pursuit of justice must always transcend political considerations.”

LAKEN RILEY MURDER: JUDGE SENTENCES COLLEGE STUDENT KILLER AFTER FAMILY ADDRESSES ‘MONSTER’ IN COURT

Fox News contributor and former criminal and civil trial attorney Ted Williams, who also worked as a homicide detective in Washington, D.C., called Gonzalez’s decision “absolutely outrageous.”

“This person should burn her bar card,” Williams said. “Each case, and this case, should have been ruled, and a decision on the death penalty should have been made on the merits. This is friggin’ outrageous.”

He added that “capital punishment is left to the discretion of the local prosecutor under Georgia law.”

Jose Ibarra appears at his trial at the Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

“A prosecutor should make a decision on whether to seek the death penalty on how egregious and violent the murder was,” Williams explained. “Political leanings should never factor into that decision. Sadly, prosecutor Deborah Gonzalez failed Laken Hope Riley in death by not seeking the death penalty against Jose Ibarra. If there was ever a case that called for the death penalty, it was this case.”

“Ibarra violently murdered Laken Riley. He stalked Laken and took a rock and bashed her skull in.”

— Ted Williams

Republican Georgia State Rep. Houston Gaines told Fox News Digital that had the death penalty been on the table, Ibarra may have chosen a plea deal instead of life without parole, and a trial exposing the graphic details of Riley’s murder would not have been necessary.

Deborah Gonzalez, the DA for Georgia’s Western Judicial Circuit, takes part in the inaugural Athens Pride Parade in downtown Athens, Ga., June 12, 2022. (Joshua L. Jones/USA Today Network)

“[I]f there was ever a case to pursue the death penalty, this is one to consider,” Gaines said. “At least leave it on the table … make the defendant plea to life without parole.”

LAKEN RILEY MURDER: FAMILY OF SLAIN UGA STUDENT SOBS IN COURT AS WITNESSES DESCRIBE CRIME SCENE EVIDENCE

In 2020, when the George Soros-backed prosecutor — a former state representative — took office as DA, she expressed opposition to the death penalty.

“I do not support the death penalty. It is cruel & in humane.”

— Deborah Gonzalez

“I do not support the death penalty. It is cruel & in humane,” Gonzalez said in a Sept. 23, 2020, post on X. “As DA of #athensga I will not seek it in any prosecution. The eye for an eye argument does not make our community whole. Restorative justice does that.”

Laken Riley’s last moments were caught on a UGA trail camera Feb. 22. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

On her first day in office, Gonzalez’s office outlined some of her new initiatives, which included not seeking the death penalty, in a memo her office sent to the Georgia state legislature at the time. Gaines shared parts of the memo on X in February after Riley’s murder, urging the DA to pursue the death penalty.

In that memo, Gonzalez said she would “take into account collateral consequences to undocumented defendants,” or, in other words, the negative impacts of criminal convictions for illegal immigrants.

“District Attorney Gonzalez is wrong for factoring into her decision not to seek the death penalty ‘collateral consequences to undocumented defendants,’” Williams said. “It is outrageous to believe that any DA sworn to uphold the law looking at the facts of this case would take into consideration how undocumented defendants are to be treated in the criminal justice system. A decision to seek the death penalty should be based solely on the individual merits of a case and not whether a person is undocumented.”

Gonazlez, who lost re-election in 2024, decided not to prosecute the Ibarra case and handed it to special prosecutor Ross, who scored a hasty conviction after the nearly four-day trial.

Gonzalez received criticism from Gov. Brian Kemp and other local politicians for her failure to get a single conviction in a jury trial for a criminal case over the course of her term, WSBT-TV first reported in February.

LAKEN RILEY’S ALLEGED KILLER JOSE IBARRA FLEW FROM ‘GROUND ZERO’ OF MIGRANT CRISIS TO GEORGIA

Houston Gaines has criticized Deborah Gonzalez’s decision not to pursue the death penalty in Jose Ibarra’s criminal case in the murder of Augusta University student Laken Riley. (Gaines/ © Joshua L. Jones/USA Today Network)

“She made the decision before the case even happened,” Gaines said of Gonzalez’s anti-death penalty stance. “When you come into office and you make blanket policy statements, that’s the issue. … Again, you have individuals who come into our community like Jose Ibarra because … we’re a community that has welcomed individuals who are in this country illegally and who commit serious crimes. And they know that violent criminals are more likely to get off easy in Athens than in other places.”

Gaines also noted that Gonzalez “only has a couple of lawyers left in the office because they’ve had 35 resignations for 17 positions over the last couple of years.”

“They’ve had an over 200% turnover,” the state representative said. “So, she really has no lawyers left in her office, and they weren’t able to handle this case.”

Gonzalez’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Prosecutor Sheila Ross presents her closing arguments before Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard during the trial of Jose Ibarra at Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

Ibarra illegally crossed into the United States through El Paso, Texas, in September 2022 and was released into the U.S. via parole, ICE and DHS sources previously told Fox News. He briefly lived in New York City, where he was arrested in 2023 for endangering a child. He and his 29-year-old brother, Diego Ibarra, were also previously cited for shoplifting in Athens. 

Jose, Diego and their younger brother, Agenis, lived in an apartment building less than a half mile from the on-campus park where Riley was running the morning of Feb. 22. Their apartment complex backed up to a shortcut that leads to running trails along UGA’s campus where Riley was found dead in a wooded area, partially naked and covered in leaves, that afternoon. She died of blunt force trauma and asphyxiation, according to a Georgia Bureau of Investigation medical examiner.

Diego, who worked briefly at a UGA cafeteria before his arrest in February, had ties to a known Venezuelan gang in the U.S., Tren de Aragua, according to federal court documents.