Karen Crumley has been selected as the 7,866th George H.W. Bush Daily Point of Light Award honoree, a national program that recognizes individuals who demonstrate the transformative power of service and who are driving significant and sustained impact through their everyday words and actions that light the path for others.
With only 260 people selected each year (one person per weekday) from all across the United States, Crumley is thrilled that she was recognized as the honoree on July 30 for her volunteerism.
Crumley, following a 50-year career at the Tampa Tribune, discovered that students and working families had challenges accessing food banks on weekday evenings and weekends. She knew she wanted to be a part of finding a solution for hunger relief in Plant City. That solution became Feeding Plant City, a nonprofit established in 2020, dedicated to ending food poverty in the Plant City community.
“With rent and other bills increasing so much, many families are struggling to stretch their money to make it to the end of the month, even to the end of the day, the need for food is increasing,” she said. “Hunger relief is something that’s not going away and I thought it was a noble cause and a place where I could make a difference.”
Feeding Plant City’s mobile food pantry, which partners with Generations Renewed and Feeding Tampa Bay, delivers food to several locations in and around Plant City on Saturdays (to help working families) from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. (or until food is gone). It distributes more than 300,000 pounds of food each year to anyone in need of food (patrons must bring their own grocery bags).
Her impact in the community reaches far beyond food assistance. Crumley also volunteers her time recruiting hundreds of volunteers to paint homes of blind homeowners with The Kind Helping the Blind, hurricane disaster relief projects and has even donated more than five gallons of blood as a donor. She has volunteered on all types of projects – everything from conservation to hunger to even adopting a highway. As the Plant City Lions Club’s service chairperson for local and global projects, and a Lion advisor for a local high school, she encouraged students to volunteer and earn points towards Hillsborough County Schools Bright Futures scholarships program.
Even her emails speak to her giving nature. She shares the message “Everyone has the Power to be Kind” at the end of every email. “If you can do something to make a difference then you should do it,” she said.
The spirit of volunteerism was instilled in her by the example of her parents. “I’ve been volunteering almost my whole life because my parents were always getting involved in the community,” said Crumley, who moved was raised in Tampa but moved to Plant City in 1971.
While the recognition warms her heart, she’s doesn’t volunteer for the glory. “It’s about donating your time and resources to give back to the community and empowering others to volunteer and make a difference,” she said. “There’s an indescribable joy that comes from making a positive difference in peoples’ lives.”
She encourages individuals interested in getting involved in volunteering to find service organizations they know, from women’s clubs, Lions Clubs, food banks and rotaries. “If we can get more kind-hearted people to band together to do free community service, to help the other person, then that’s a legacy that I would like to add,” she said.
For more information about the George H.W. Bush Points of Light Award visit pointsoflight.org. For more information about Feeding Plant City visit its Facebook page at Feeding Plant City or email Crumley at kscrumley@yahoo.com.