While many Plant City residents were still without power through the weekend, Danny McIntyre of iImpactPC and pastor Calvin “Pee Wee” Callins of Greater New Hope Anointed Ministries sprung into action to provide warm meals for those in need this past weekend.
With the assistance of several local organizations – including Fryed Egg Productions, Stingray Chevrolet, Achieve Plant City, the Plant City Chamber of Commerce, First Baptist Church of Plant City, Unity in the Community, United Food Bank of Plant City, Felton’s, Winn-Dixie and others – iImpactPC rolled out the smoker and began cooking hot meals that included sausage, chicken, rice, beans, bread and water that would be boxed up by volunteers and passed out to anyone in need as they drove through the parking lot at the Sadye Gibbs Martin Community Center. Several Plant City residents showed up to serve and assist in any way they could, while the event also brought out members of the Plant City Economic Development Corporation, Chamber of Commerce and City Commission, along with assistant city managers Mercedes Perez and Jack Holland, city manager Bill McDaniel and Mayor Nate Kilton, among others.
“Every time there’s a hurricane the thought is, with Plant City Strong, how do we support one another?” McIntyre said. “So they called me on Saturday last week and said, if this thing comes, are we ready to activate – that’s our favorite word, activate – and we said yeah. Some people have power, some don’t, and we wanted to feed as many as we can. We’ve had tremendous support from the people that have come out today. Those folks have contributed either financially with their personal time.”
The event was nothing new to iImpactPC, however. When Hurricane Irma made its way through the state of Florida in 2017, McIntyre reached out to Callins in an attempt to help. They ultimately set up shop in a church parking lot, spreading the word and providing meals to all those who came through the location hungry. He says that their first event began with 150 or 200 individuals that Saturday morning, then it continued and grew into the evening and he later got a call asking when he would be starting the following day. So McIntyre got up and continued helping on Sunday. Last weekend’s event started at noon on Saturday and picked up again the following day.
“That’s what really makes our city so special, it’s that people recognize that everybody is going through a challenge, just like with COVID,” Kilton said. “We’re all impacted by it to some degree but we take care of our homes, our friends and family, then what are you going to do after that? You make sure that you know that there are people out there that might not be in the same situation. Some of the folks coming through this line probably still don’t have power and just having a hot meal is super meaningful to them, so those little things make a big deal to people.”