YMCA feeding families
If you’re having difficulty getting fresh food at this time, you now have another option for help.
The Tampa Metropolitan Area YMCA announced Tuesday its network is one of several in the Tampa Bay area partnering with community organizations to help food insecure people get what they need. In the Tampa Metropolitan network’s case, this is a partnership with Feeding Tampa Bay.
All Y facilities in the Tampa Metropolitan network will get visits from the Tampa Y’s Veggie Van, a traveling mini-market that provides pre-packaged bags of produce for free with no ID, paperwork or pre-screening procedures required for people to obtain them. Dover and Plant City are set to be two regular stops on the Veggie Van’s route, which will also include Sulphur Springs, Wimauma, Lacoochee, Tampa Heights and the TGH Healthpark.
Contact Lauren Reyes at Lauren.Reyes@tampaymca.org or 813-867-5440 for more information on schedules and stops.
Goodwill-Suncoast closing stores, donation trailers
Goodwill-Suncoast has changed some things up as the social distancing movement continues.
Its 20 retail stores and all donation trailers were officially closed to the public on April 3 and will remain closed until further notice. If you wish to buy anything from Goodwill, you’ll have to do so online at shopgoodwill.com or goodwill-suncoast.org/shopgoodwill/.
You can, however, still donate at all stores and brick-and-mortar locations. Donation carts will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from noon to 4 p.m. Sundays. Donation receipts are available on-site.
HCPS Grab and Go program expands
Hillsborough County Public Schools’ Grab and Go program, which provides free breakfast and lunch meals a day for children, now has a much greater outreach.
After starting in March with a handful of schools acting as collection sites, with all three Plant City-area high schools serving as pick-up points for locals, children can now get meals at many of the county’s elementary, middle and high schools. The list of sites in the Plant City area now includes the following schools:
Bryan Elementary
Burney Elementary
Cork Elementary
Dover Elementary
Durant High School
Jackson Elementary
Knights Elementary
Marshall Middle Magnet
Pinecrest Elementary
Plant City High School
Springhead Elementary
Strawberry Crest High School
Trapnell Elementary
Turkey Creek Middle
Walden Lake Elementary
Wilson Elementary
All you have to do is drive up to any location between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. and on-site workers will give your children one pack each per day. Children must be present in order to receive meals. The service is generally available five days per week but, since this Friday was supposed to be a non-student calendar day, all sites will be closed. To make up for the lost day, families who visit any of the sites today can collect two meal packs per child.
The program has been scheduled to run through April 15. Visit sdhc.k12.fl.us for more information.
