LITHIA, Fla. — Seeds of Hope, a Lithia charity has a dual mission: to provide food assistance to people in need while also giving students meaningful community service hours.
Since starting in 2009, Seeds of Hope has grown to offer three ways of distributing food. There’s a mobile pantry, a Backpack of Hope program coordinated with local schools, and a weekly food distribution at their food bank.
“People come up, they pop open their trunk and the students will put a box of food in the trunk of their car. We don’t ask for any identifications, we don’t put any limit on the number of times people can come,” said Kevin Robbins, Food Pantry Director.
Robbins said pre-pandemic they were handing out 125 boxes of food a week. Right now, their weekly distribution is 325 boxes of food to families in need.
“Because of the rate of inflation and the fact that food is so expensive we haven’t seen the need for our services to go down in this area,” he said.
Weekly food distribution is every Thursday from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Seeds of Hope food bank located at 710 E. Bloomingdale Ave., Brandon, FL.
