TAMPA, Fla. — Feeding Tampa Bay held the grand opening of its new facility Thursday morning. Feeding Tampa Bay's new Causeway Center is a 215,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility.
ABC Action News Anchor Lauren St. Germain toured the new building with Feeding Tampa Bay’s President & CEO to learn how the services will benefit so many people across the Tampa Bay area.
“We often say internally this is just the start of what we want to do. This is the opportunity to become the organization we want to be and provide the services that the community needs in a much different way,” said Thomas Mantz.
He continued when talking about the new facility, which they consider a community center: “We built it to really change outcomes for families in the Feeding Tampa Bay area. Lauren, it has been years in the making. We started dreaming of this five to six years ago."
ABC Action News was there for Feeding Tampa Bay’s version of a ground-breaking ceremony at the end of January 2023 and again in August 2023 when it was still a major construction zone.
“How much food can you guys actually hold in this building now compared to the previous building?” asked ABC Action News Anchor Lauren St. Germain.
“We currently move about 85 million meals into the community; this facility can at least double that, if not more,” said Mantz.
He continued, “Lauren, today we have more people seeking our care than they did during the pandemic.”
Mantz showed ABC Action News the increased shelf space and the cold space.
“Would you put this food on your table? Don’t put food on someone else’s table you wouldn’t put on yours. One of our main objectives is healthy food. The families we serve, they don’t have access to good, nutritious produce. This allows us to get that,” said Mantz.
The facility has a grocery store and a restaurant, but the goal is to go beyond meals.
“This area is all about services other than food. When someone comes to us for food, we know that’s just a symptom. They have stuff going on in their household,” said Mantz.
Inside the building there is a variety of resources from medical to financial.
“It will be fully operational in the next few days. How long will it take us to live out the vision of the dream of what this will be? I think we built this as constantly evolving whereas needs, issues, changes, concerns, opportunities happen … we are prepared to adjust,” said Mantz.
More space also means Feeding Tampa Bay has more room for volunteers. For more information, click here.
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