The “Give and Take Box” at Free Rider Fellowship offers anonymous help for anyone in need. The box was designed to offer assistance for people in Plant City with a focus on single parents or those struggling to make ends meet.
Aaron Brown has been the pastor of Free Rider Fellowship since it’s inception approximately 11 years ago. When his congregation first told him of their desire to create the box he was skeptical about its success. He said he went along with it, thinking it wouldn’t hurt to try, but that he truly doubted it would be an actual asset to the community.
Within a matter of days he admitted he was wrong.
“It literally only took a few days for me to realize this was going to take off,” Brown said. “I was out there when we installed it on a Saturday and by Monday morning I had watched people come up, look at it, try to figure out what it was. I have a great bird’s eye view from my office. I was sitting in there working on sermon work and watching cars pull up, look at, watching people take food from it and then, surprisingly, I watched car after car pull up and put food and items in it.”
Brown said it didn’t take long for him to become a believer. There were multiple times he and members of his congregation would pull up to the church and find bags of groceries from Publix stacked on their front porch because the box was full of food.
The idea for the box came from Glen Tussing, a founding member of the church. Brown said Tussing thought the box would be a great asset to those in need. Tussing told Brown having the box at the front of the church would allow any member of the community to either donate or to stop by and take what they need, regardless of if they attended the church or not.
“What we wanted to do is help the needy, the person who maybe is a single mother, or a single parent in general, who is struggling to make ends meet and is struggling to put food on the table for their kids. They can drive by and get food and there’s no shame in it, it’s all anonymous.”
— Aaron Brown
Brown has spread the word about the success of the box and he said other churches throughout the state are considering creating one as well.
“We’ve had anonymous donations constantly since we put the box out,” Brown said. “It’s been a pretty awesome thing.”
Brown said his church was searching for a way to serve the Plant City community. They had originally fed the homeless a few times and then Brown said they sat back and realized that need was being met by others in the area.
“Every day of the week there is someone feeding the homeless and that’s great, that’s awesome,” Brown said. “What we wanted to do is help the needy, the person who maybe is a single mother, or a single parent in general, who is struggling to make ends meet and is struggling to put food on the table for their kids. They can drive by and get food and there’s no shame in it, it’s all anonymous.”
The hope, Brown said, is that one day when people are in a more stable financial situation they will remember the help they received and have the desire to help those still in need, either by giving back to the box or by helping in some other way.
The box is located on 2207 Mud Lake Road in Plant City. Dry and canned food along with supplies and even money are left in the box for anyone in need. If you would like to donate, simply drive up and place your items inside.