She was in a drug house doing what she does best — reaching out to members of the community some see as lost and forgotten — when her phone rang. It was Assistant City Manager Bill McDaniel.
“The city manager wants to talk about the Friends in the Park Program,” McDaniel said to New Hope @ Cornerstone Outreach Director Jennifer Anderson.
Friends in the Park is a coalition of 25 ministry groups, churches and community organizations housed in the Plant City Winter Visitor Center that feed the homeless, needy and at-risk almost every day of the year. It’s operated steadily for more than seven years, but the loss of its sponsor, Restoring Hope Global, put the program in jeopardy. Thanks to New Hope, it goes on.
“We sat down with the Mike Herr (former city manager) and the assistant city manager and they asked for New Hope to take over
the program,” Anderson said. “It was going to fail by July 1. It was going to be over.”
For about two of its seven years, Friends in the Park has operated out of the Winter Visitor Center, Barbara Grainger, the program’s coordinator, said. It was originally started by Restoring Hope Global, but the organization moved its operations to North Carolina about four years ago. Since then, Grainger has been the coordinator, making sure the “friends” they serve get their meals.
“My main goal is to just feed people who are hungry,” Grainger said. “That’s an immediate need. They know they can get a good meal from us. We feed them what we feed our families. A hot meal, full course, every day.”
Restoring Hope Global, McDaniel said, decided not to renew the current lease on the Winter Visitor Center. To keep those meals served there, a 501c3 organization needed to be behind the program and a new lease developed. At a June 12 City Commission meeting, the commission approved a lease for New Hope @ Cornerstone to begin a lease to use the space for Friends in the Park as of July 1.
“Keeping it at the Winter Visitor Center where they have a building to provide services out of is an asset, especially at a time like this when it’s so hot and humid out,” McDaniel said. “The people who benefit from it know where to go and it’s been successful since its inception so we wanted to see that continue. I didn’t want to see anything put risk on that program.”
While the program’s immediate goal is to provide food, spirits get nourished as well, Rodney “Hot Rod” Johnston said. Johnston, 52, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, has been homeless on and off for about a year and a half. Johnston said the Department of Veterans Affairs was able to help him find a job in Tampa until about six months ago, but when his mother got sick, he had to come back to the Plant City area to be able to help care for her. He works as a day laborer now and sometimes helps a friend sell things at a flea market, but it’s barely enough to keep his head above water. Without programs like Friends in the Park, he said, he’d be sick or in jail.
“When you’re hungry and you feel like no one wants to help you, when there’s no one there and you feel like you’ve got nothing, you make bad choices,” he said. “When there are people who love you and want to help you, you want to help yourself. Without these people, there’d be a whole lot more havoc out there.”
The homeless community is just that, a community and a family, Anderson said. Programs like Friends in the Park allow them a place to gather and feel loved, she said. They can also be directed to other outreach programs that allow them to get help with job placement, health insurance and medical needs, clothing and hygiene products. The “friends” will also now be able to take to-go plates and non-perishable food from the program, a change from the previous leadership.
“Our goal in Plant City is to save the lost,” Anderson said. “We want to let them know people love them and want to help them succeed. We don’t want to just feed them physically, we want to feed them spiritually, to help them become productive members of society.”
Friends in the Park serves meals nightly from 5 to 6:30 p.m., except Wednesdays at the Winter Vistor Center next to the Planteen Recreation Center. The program is currently looking for a few more members and can be reached through Facebook at facebook.com/parkfriendsplantcity.