HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Gourmet isn't often the first word that comes to mind when people think about a food pantry, but one Temple Terrace mom is spicing things up with the assistance she gets from the pantry at her daughter's school.
“This is my magic… you know, whipping up something when you have very little,” said Marlene Nieves, a mother of three young children.
Her daughter is entering first grade at Temple Terrace Elementary School, where Feeding Tampa Bay helps run a food pantry for families.
“With the chicken breast… One day I came in, and they had sugar; I didn't have sweet and sour, I didn't have anything to kind of make it super tasteful. So I grabbed some oil, melted some sugar, and I did my sweet chicken out of them. That's like my house favorite; I have to make it… like once a week,” Nieves explained.
She started sharing some of her pantry creations on social media, and now others look to her for recipes.
“With the cost of living and different inflation and the cost of groceries… food insecurity has become something that is a struggle for a lot of students and a lot of families,” said Temple Terrace Elementary School Principal Ashley Cochol.
Nieves knows it can be hard to ask for and even accept help.
“I was a little bit prideful whether I grabbed the help or didn’t grab the help, but I decided to be humble. I was like, ‘You know what, I need the help. I need to feed my kids,’” she said.
Her gourmet pantry posts now let people know they’re not alone.
“There's a lot of families out there that either they don't know that there's hope or that they're afraid of asking for help because of pride or whichever the reason it is and knowing that once you go into a pantry you are able to give your family or your loved ones a nice warm, home-cooked meal,” Nieves said.
The school’s food pantry provides for nearly 100 families in the community every week.
