A Feeding America Tampa Bay facility in Land O’ Lakes is being repurposed, meaning it will no longer be a place where local agencies can pick up food for their pantries.
That will be an adjustment for local agencies — such as Daystar Hope Center of Pasco County Inc., in Dade City — that have been picking up food from the Land O’ Lakes facility to pack in bags and boxes to give to people in need.
(B.C. Manion/Staff Photos)
But Thomas Mantz, executive director of Feeding America Tampa Bay, said he believes the new system that will be used in Pasco will help deliver more food to family dinner tables faster.
Under the new system, Feeding America Tampa Bay will pick up food from suppliers and deliver goods to local agencies directly, or will facilitate arrangements between local agencies and local food suppliers, Mantz said.
“We did this in Pinellas County two years ago,” he said, and the organization’s experiences have demonstrated that the model works.
The change will not mean less food going to feed the poor in Pasco County, Mantz said. “We are invested in Pasco.”
In 2013, 3 million pounds of food was distributed in Pasco. In 2014, the amount increased to 4.5 million pounds of food.
Still, there needs to be more, Mantz said.
“There’s not enough food in Pasco County to feed everybody,” Mantz said.
The Land O’ Lakes facility will stop providing food to local agencies in early July, Mantz said.
It will be put to a different use, and that use will support the organization’s overall mission, Mantz said.
One possible use would be a chophouse, where fruits and vegetables would be chopped and bagged, to keep the foods fresh for longer periods, Mantz said.
Sister Jean Abbott, who oversees Daystar’s operations, said she would welcome arrangements that allow her pantry to pick up food items directly from local grocers.
“It eliminates them running their trucks all over the road. It eliminates us running our trucks all over the road,” she said.
“We used to go to Sweetbay. We went there twice a week,” she said. We’d gladly do that again. That was a sweet deal for us. We loved it,” she said.
In fact, when Kash’n Karry rebranded to Sweetbay, they got rid of all of the stuff that said Kash’n Karry,” Abbott said.
“We had two or three truckloads of stuff — out of their freezers, off their shelves, packaged things.
“Merciful heavens, we had stuff. It was wonderful,” Abbott said.
Published July 1, 2015
