Feeding Tampa Bay update on food relief and hunger-free Tampa Bay

1:12:41Okay. We w what time is it?

1:12:45It's eleven sixteen.

1:12:47Okay. It's time for uh time certain which is R forty.

1:13:00Well who's presuming that

1:13:10There they are.

1:13:13Oh, they're online? Yes, sir. This is a presentation from uh feeding Tampa Bay, their CEO Thomas Mant. Okay.

1:13:19Thomas, I think you're online. You're good to go. Yes, I uh think everybody can see me and I do see our presentation up. So thank you, Commissioners, for the opportunity to present uh to you today. We wanted to make sure we gave you an update on what we're doing up in Pasco County and how food relief uh and the work that we do is impacting the folks that you all are elected to uh serve. Uh and that we're certainly pleased to be able to serve along with you. So I'm not sure who's driving our slides for us

1:13:49today, but we certainly appreciate you doing that. And we'll run through a little presentation here, and if you all have some questions, we certainly would be happy at the opportunity to answer those. So next slide, please. If you all don't know this, feeding Tampa Bay is a part of Feeding America, which is a national food bank model. And this is critical to Pasco County because if you don't know, there's not enough food in Pasco County to feed everyone in Pasco County. So we bring food resources from outside of

1:14:19the county via the state and nationally. And we work along a model that's tried and trued and tested. We've been here close to 40 years, and food banks in general have been around for over 50 years. And so we apply the skills, tools, resources from that model and use that locally in Pasco County. County. Uh next slide, please. Just a little bit more about us. If you don't know, Feeding Tampa Bay is the largest food relief organization in this 10 County

1:14:49area. You can see the areas we serve. I think it's always important for counties to understand that while we look at borders and boundaries in the way in which we govern and serve, the reality of the clients that we serve, they don't observe borders in the same way. So someone in Pasco County that lives there could be getting food in Hillsborough County or in Ellis County. And so we think it's important that you understand it's an integrated process that we're able to build for you. you as it notes there we're nourishing right now more than a million folks

1:15:19who are food insecure we support about 450 or 500 agencies and then I think importantly for you all uh because of the pandemic we'll actually provide close to 90 million meals in the course of the this pandemic year and I'll talk a bit more about um uh Pasco County in a moment next slide please

1:15:41I think importantly as we look at the impact of the pandemic, uh pre-pandemic, we had about one in seven folks were food insecure. Now it's one in six. And if you don't know, one in four kids are food insecure in Pasco County today. And then A statistic which really just amazed us was in our work during the pandemic, we found that in doing some surveys, some 68% of the folks who were coming to receive food had never been in a food line before.

1:16:11And I think all of all of us know someone who's been impacted by food insecurity. We know neighbors, friends, family members, uh, people that were impacted. folks ended up in our and our partners uh care uh uh as uh as we uh went our made our way through the pandemic. Uh next slide please So we want the Commission to know our goal is a hunger-free Tampa Bay by 2025. And what that means, pretty simply, is everyone that has want or need of

1:16:41a meal, we're able to provide it. Or just as importantly, we're able to get folks out of a food line by providing resources, training, partnerships, programs that create personal or household stability. It's a big and audacious goal, but it's been Done across other counties and regions in the United States, and we've actually spent time studying those to make sure that it's possible. In our world, there is enough food to feed everyone, it's just the ability to gather it and move it as necessary. And of course, as you all would well

1:17:11know, that obviously costs money. So next slide, please.

1:17:21So, as we talk about that, we want a hunger-free Tampa Bay by 2025, and we really want two outcomes, which is health and capability. Most critically, food provides health. So, whether you're a child trying to learn in school, whether you're a senior trying to stay out of a doctor's office and live a good, retired life, whether you're a family trying to make ends meet, we want health to be the outcome. The output's food. The outcomes health. We also want capability. Just as importantly, we're investing money in making sure

1:17:51that we can get people out of a food line. We often get asked the question, and it's a fair one: what are you doing to make sure that over the longer run people have access to greater resources so they don't need a food bank forever? We're just as committed to that strategy as any other would be because we want to do the same thing. thing you want, which is to make sure that our friends and neighbors can live the lives they want to live. You'll see four different strategies down there. I won't go into those, but we have a strategy to fit our uh objective as an organization. Next

1:18:21slide please. I mentioned health and capabilities. Sorry, I previewed my slides. We can go on to the next one. So our key strategies here in Pasco County. So let's talk a little bit about the county first. Next slide.

1:18:39So when you look at Pasco County, there are about uh today as you all know there's a little over five hundred and fifty thousand folks who are living in the county. Pre-COVID, at about a 14% food insecurity level, we had about 75 to 80,000 folks who every day were experiencing food insecurity. The post-COVID level, we're at about 18% food insecure, and that takes that number up close to 100,000 folks every day in Pasco County who are looking for some degree of food relief

1:19:10and or social services. Further, we would tell you that in our um uh look at the way the county is uh built out, it's a higher percentage based on um the Alice population. I'll talk more about that in a moment. But when we do the math on those hundred thousand folks, that means there are about eighteen million missing meals every year in Pasco County. So last year we provided about five point five million meals. This year we're looking to close to double that, nine

1:19:40million meals, and by twenty twenty five we'd get to that fully realized number of eighteen million. I think you all tend to know us mostly through our partners, uh, because if you think about the way that which we work is we do some distribution ourselves, but a lot of our work is to make sure that our local partners in Pasco County have the resources they need. So great organizations like Volunteer Way and Lester and his folks who we've been partnered with for many, many years, uh First UMC United Methodist Church of Hudson, you A

1:20:10lot of the folks that you know, uh we make sure that they have the resources they need. Let me go on and dive a little deeper into food insecurity in uh Pasco County. Next slide please. When you look at this map, which is what we pay attention to, it goes on a gradation from left to right or light to dark as to where we have the greatest concentration of folks who are food insecure or within the Alice population. If you don't know, Alice stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained,

1:20:40But Employed. If you wanted to take a rough number across the whole of Pasco County, about 42% of the residents of Pasco County earn. enough money uh to be over the uh poverty threshold, but not enough money to keep their households stable. So going back to that five hundred and fifty thousand folks in the county, if you looked at an Alice population of some forty-two percent, you would have close to two hundred and thirty thousand folks who economically are considered unstable.

1:21:11And what things like the pandemic do is they really rock the world. of folks that were already teetering on the edge economically. If you go to the next slide, you'll see how we try and concentrate our services across those areas. So the red areas are where we are concentrating most of our relief efforts either directly ourselves or with our partners. And we do that in a few different ways, but we want you all to know that we study population, we study population base,

1:21:41area of need, and try and make sure that we have resources built into those areas as effectively as we can. Next slide, please. So, how do we do that? So, one is we have school pantries that are opened that aside from food relief through the agencies, we have school pantries that we started building out several years ago that are allowing us to get to families in a different way. One of the things that we know is we have to be present where our community is. And so school pantries

1:22:11is where we started, but we've even moved Into in Pinellas County, we're working with the bus system, we're working with medical offices, federal qualified health centers, all of those as we start to move into finding ways to put food where our clients are, not necessarily where we are, but where they are. You'll note our health care partnership with Baycare. We're working with two local hospitals as we build out a process by which we Can identify folks who are presenting with an illness

1:22:42but probably have an underlying cause of food insecurity. And then we also during the pandemic built out a meals-to-go and homebound delivery service because we found that not everybody needed groceries, people also needed prepared meals. So we went from preparing about 500 meals a day to at our peak preparing 10,000 meals a day. We settled it somewhere between two and 5,000 meals prepared every day based on what folks need. But this was particularly critical for seniors and other folks

1:23:12who don't always have the ability to manage a bag of groceries. Next slide, please.

1:23:20For you all, we did develop one of the additional methods that we developed in order to move more food into the communities. We launched Omega Pantry in June. Last year, we are grateful for your all support and partnership in that, and several of the commissioners have volunteered with us over time. Thank you for that. But we want to be accountable to what was given to us, the financial support given to us because it comes directly back to the county in terms of food. So we provided a little over 1.25 million meals, which

1:23:50affected about 30,000 plus folks. In the community, we are still uh providing that mega pantry and will continue to do so. Um, and then we also beefed up our drops in different places to make sure, as you go back to that map, that we were hitting the areas uh where there were folks in greater concentration to make sure that we could answer uh the pandemic's uh call. Next slide please. And then finally, as we start to move forward, as I mentioned

1:24:21before, we're going to continue to build out our partnerships in Pasco County. Traditionally, the Church Network has been a terrific partner to us and will remain so. But as I mentioned before, people are spending their time in different spots. And I I uh noted this a moment ago, but we as I said we launched a unique partnership in Pinellas County with the bus system and we put actually pantries at different bus stations because we knew people were using public transportation. We've had conversations in Hillsborough County

1:24:51about using the library system because that's where people go to get internet. And we've mentioned federal qualified health centers and other places where we know that our community is so that we can make sure that food is available to them. I want to just skip down to a few of the bottom there. The groceries on the go is actually a mobile grocery store that allows us to put a grocery store in a place where there's not one. Uh because we find that again, access is a challenge. Uh and then we're launching in Uh Pinellas

1:25:22County in early uh July, the launch of an empowerment center, which is a centralized hub of service where we bring food in the form of a Trinity Cafe, which is a sit-down meal, a pantry where folks can get groceries, but we also then reach out to the partners in the community and we build a wraparound services model so that when someone walks in for a meal, Walk out with a future. They walk out with access to resources, capabilities, and other things that might not be available

1:25:52to them if it weren't for them coming in for a meal. I think as we would share with this commission, when someone comes in for a meal, that's not all they need. And part of our objectives to make sure that when they come into our care, we provide them with resources and partners. We don't provide everything. We're uh that's not who we are, but we do connect folks with other partners, uh mission partners, community partners, so that they know where to go to get the resources uh that they need. And I'll finish my presentation

1:26:22today with letting you all know that we are in the midst of the development of capital campaign here in Tampa. If we're going to get to a hunger-free tw uh Tampa Bay by 2025, or in your instance, a hunger-free Pasco County. We'll need to change our facility and capabilities. We're in rented space that we've long outgrown. So at some point we'd like to talk to the commission a bit more about our work on that capital effort. And the reason why it matters is the greater our strength is, it will translate into more resources

1:26:53directly into Pasco County, not only meals, but program services and other methodologies. We can employ to get folks out of a food line. So with that, I hope I maintained my responsibility for timing and I'll finish my presentation, Mr. Chairman, and again thank the Commission for the opportunity to present to you all today.

1:27:13Yeah

1:27:13sir.

1:27:15Mr. Mm. Right on time and Uh you've done a great job and I've actually been out there working on the line at um There's a college and I don't know if you're still at that site or if you're over at Burke's Park in East Pasco.

1:27:29We moved a couple yeah, we moved a couple of times, yes sir.

1:27:32So but y'all do very good work and Certainly appreciate everything you do in our county. Ms. Starkey.

1:27:39Yes, and I've had the pleasure of working with them when they did food distributions here on the West Side. And also I went down to their facility and had a wonderful tour. It is it's so impressive what they're doing uh um and and their growth has been amazing. And I would really encourage the other commissioners to to go down and take that tour. Um Uh they're gonna be moving. I don't know when. Do you You're not you're not moving any time soon, are you?

1:28:06No, we have property identified and we're finalizing that and of course we have to raise the money to build a new facility. But uh but thank you, Commissioner. Yeah, so

1:28:14really really uh very cool um program and you know they have companies that come in and work. When I was there, Jable was uh doing I think two shifts. And uh you know, it's something to think about that the county could go down and do a shift maybe one day. Um but um certainly uh as they um come come uh You know they're gonna be uh building in Penellas County and then we hope they'll come up here to Pasco County and anything we can do to help. I've committed to help

1:28:45them um here in the county. uh just love their mission and and what they do. So

1:28:51Anybody else? Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner, for that. It was great to see you here.

1:28:55I say thank you for your great work. I know um especially Volunteer Way and and the other groups that are on there, you're doing a great job supplying, so appreciate it. Yes, sir. Thank you very much.

1:29:04Lester's one of those heroes. Yeah.

1:29:07Thank you. Thank you for all you do for our county. So certainly appreciate it. Yes, sir.

1:29:12Well we appreciate the time to present to you today and we thank you for your partnership and support and we remain committed to making sure that uh that uh our community is taken care of. We'll uh hopefully see you all soon. Yes, sir.

1:29:24Mr. Moore, did you have something to say? I see you Showing up.

1:29:28Well I I thank you. I'll I'll wait till um Mr. Mayetz gets off and I was gonna make a suggestion. But it's on a

1:29:35He's he's done. Go ahead. Thank you, sir.