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This is the Network: Feeding Tampa Bay

This month we’re featuring Feeding Tampa Bay as part of our network series highlighting members of the Feeding Florida food bank network, highlighting their work to fight hunger across West Central Florida. Serving 10 counties — Citrus, Hardee, Hernando, Highlands, Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, and Sumter — Feeding Tampa Bay provides food, support, and resources to neighbors through four community locations.

With hunger relief at the heart of its mission, Feeding Tampa Bay continues to find new ways to reach neighbors and strengthen the communities it serves. Its evolving approach combines food assistance with partnerships and programs designed to meet people where they are and help address the challenges that can make it harder to achieve stability.

Feeding Neighbors, Building Stability

Last year alone, Feeding Tampa Bay provided 87 million meals to neighbors across West Central Florida, demonstrating the tremendous scale of its commitment to fighting hunger. Providing nutritious food remains at the heart of the food bank’s mission, but the team also recognizes that the need for food assistance is often connected to challenges beyond having enough food on the table.

Factors like health, employment, transportation, and housing can all affect a household’s ability to remain financially stable. For Feeding Tampa Bay, understanding those connections is an important part of creating solutions that address hunger while also helping neighbors move toward greater stability.

That work is centered around three pillars: access, health, and economic mobility. By bringing resources closer to the people who need them, connecting food and healthcare, and creating pathways to skills and career opportunities, Feeding Tampa Bay is addressing some of the barriers that can contribute to food insecurity in the first place.

“We don’t just want our neighbors fed, we want them healthy and thriving,” said Feeding Tampa Bay CEO Thomas Mantz. 

When Food and Healthcare Work Together

Feeding Tampa Bay puts those priorities into action by looking for opportunities to improve the health of the neighbors it serves. Through Farmers Feeding Florida, the food bank takes full advantage of opportunities to source fresh, Florida-grown produce from local farmers, helping make nutritious food a stronger part of what it provides to the community.

That commitment to health extends beyond the food itself. Through a partnership with Suncoast Neighborhood Health Clinic, Feeding Tampa Bay brings medical care directly to its campus, allowing neighbors to see a doctor in the same place where they come to receive food assistance.

A nutritious meal can support overall well-being, but access to a doctor is essential for managing health concerns, receiving treatment, and preventing small issues from becoming larger ones. By bringing these services together, Feeding Tampa Bay removes the need for a neighbor to make another trip, find another location, or navigate another system to get the care they need.

Building a One-Stop Hub for Community Support

At the center of Feeding Tampa Bay’s work is Causeway Center, a 215,000-square-foot community hub where neighbors can access food assistance, SNAP and benefits navigation, crisis support, referrals, and other social services. The center also brings community partners together to offer classes and events, while The Market provides fresh and frozen groceries, The Bistro offers free hot meals, and the Learning Zone provides free community classes.

Feeding Tampa Bay also meets immediate food needs through Trinity Cafe, its free, full-service restaurant serving fresh, nutritious three-course meals 365 days a year at locations in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. Together, these programs make it easier for neighbors to access food and connect with the services available to support their families.

Feeding Tampa Bay’s work demonstrates how hunger relief can be a starting point for addressing the broader challenges families face. By connecting nutritious food with healthcare, education, and community resources, the organization is helping build a healthier West Central Florida.

If you live in Feeding Tampa Bay’s 10-county service area, there are many ways to connect with and support this work.

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