PLANT CITY, Fla. — A Tampa Bay area food bank is looking to raise money for a new building to better serve the local community and meet a growing demand.
The rising cost of living is taking a toll on families all over the Tampa Bay area. Jackie Santiago is a mom of three boys.
“My husband and I, we both work, but things weren’t getting there. It was just, you know, we’re just barely getting by and barely making it,” said Santiago. “You could see some places you have to cut, so then you want to start cutting on food and stuff like that just to be able to pay the bills.”
She uses the United Food Bank of Plant City and said it’s been a blessing.
“It has just been tremendous for me and my family,” said Santiago.
United Food Bank has seen that growing demand.
“When I came six years ago to the United Food Bank, we were distributing 850,000 pounds of food a year. Now, we’re close to four million pounds of food,” said Mary Heysek, the Executive Director of United Food Bank and Services of Plant City. “We were serving 1,200 people a month, and that was going pretty smoothly, and then with the high inflation, COVID hit, and now we’re serving over 11,000 people a month in these nine communities in East Hillsborough County.”
Heysek said they outgrew their building years ago and can’t sustain at this level in their current facility, so they’re asking for support in their campaign for a new building.
“Now, what we’re going to do is tear this building down. We’re going to move someplace temporarily,” said Heysek. “And then we’re going to rebuild right where we are at this building.”
It’s a $5 million project, and so far, they’ve raised $1.6 million. Heysek said they hope to be able to break ground at the end of June this year and be finished and moving into the new building by January 2024.
“I’m ecstatic to see what’s going to come of this,” said Santiago.
