TAMPA, Fla. — Metropolitan Ministries is looking for volunteers during its busy holiday season.
"I have this motto that I live by, that's to always do more for others than I do for myself,” said Ms. Grace.
Since high school, Grace has been volunteering her time with Metro Ministries. Around the holidays this year, she'll be at the kid zone, tucked inside one of Metro Ministries' holiday tents.
"It is massive. It's like the size of a Walmart,” said Nathan Gula, Metro Ministries’ Director of Volunteer Services. “We distribute full meals for families for Thanksgiving, and then we do food as well as toys for the kids for Christmas."
Metro Ministries will serve about 35,000 families between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and volunteers like Grace help pull it all off.
"A typical holiday season, we'll see about 16,000 volunteers come through between our main tents, our community pop-ups, our campuses that are still fully operational all year,” said Gula.
Gula said the recent hurricanes shifted the need they saw in the community with their operations, which normally would've been preparing for the holiday season. Instead, they changed gears to the immediate needs they were seeing in the community.
Gula explained they’ve seen that reflected in the number of volunteers, too.
"We still need over 1,000 volunteers for our holiday tents to make them operational,” said Gula. “Because October is usually the biggest month where people sign up, this year, that did not happen. Everyone was focused on hurricane relief, hurricane help, and a lot of the folks who maybe regularly would've been volunteering instead are the ones who are needing service."
Gula said one of their biggest needs is bilingual volunteers.
Volunteers can work at a variety of locations from the holiday tents to pop-ups throughout Hillsborough, Pasco, and Pinellas Counties.
"You might not always have monetary giving, but if you can give your time, it means a lot,” said Grace.
You can find more information on volunteering here.
