NEW FACILITY TRIPLES CAPACITY TO SERVE PEOPLE WHO NEED FOOD.
The United Food Bank and Services of Plant City (UFB) is moving from its temporary location on the Plant City HCC campus to its new facility on Alsobrook Street. Between February 10 and February 21, UFB was closed for normal operations. However, mobile food pantries intermittently popped up during these days. Check the UFB web site for daily updates: https://ufbpc.org.
“Our new home is a symbol of hope, growth and a brighter future,” Mary Heysek, President of UFB, said. “The United Food Bank has always been a place of compassion and support, but now we have the physical space to match that spirit.”
The new facility will triple the capacity of the UFB to serve people. The building is 111,038 cubic feet, with a 16-foot ceiling, has 5,000 square feet of storage, and contains a 1,847 square foot sorting room for kids’ food. The space includes a room for nutrition classes, and an area to teach people how, and what, to cook. “This new location allows us to increase our partnerships,” Heysek said. “The growth we have experienced has been incredible, and our volunteers and staff always meet that demand.” Florida Senator Danny Burgess, and Florida Representative Lawrence McClure procured a $2 million grant from the State of Florida that payed for completing the new facility.
The mission of UFB is to provide assistance to the needy in moving them from a “state of hunger” and “impoverishment” to self-sufficiency, empowerment, and self-reliance. The vision of UFB is to stamp out hunger in East Hillsborough County, and raise the standard of living for the truly needy. UFB offers opportunities for self-improvement, education, job skills, and enhancing life for individuals and families—all to effect change in the community. To this end, UFB provides food directly to clients in the community through its Feeding Our Community program with on-site daily food distribution, and off-site, in-need, neighborhood outreach. Clients receive a box of food once every two weeks.
In 2024, volunteers put in over 17,500 hours working to distribute food donated by partner companies, agencies, and individuals:
• 4,330,996.86 pounds of food distributed
• 209,519 people served
• 20,574 kid weekend & break bags
• 836 college food bags
• 3,022 legacy senior food boxes
UFB has in place several initiatives to support those in need of food:
Feeding Our Future. United Food Bank partners with social workers at 17 schools who identify kids who are in need of food over the weekends. To cover them during weekends, the kids can get a bag of food to take home. The Kids Break Bag Distribution offers bags of food daily to children while they are out of school for the summer.
Feeding Our Legacy. “This program helps provide seniors with food and things like adult diapers and medications. UFB delivers to two offsite locations—Plant City Towers and Bealsville.
Feeding, Educating, Empowerment for Development (F.E.E.D.) This program teaches parents the correlation between nutrition and their children’s early learning, and how this affects academic performance.
Self Sufficiency Classes. These are classes to help people move from dependence to independence. UFB offers Money Smart classes, health literacy classes, and cooking classes in Spanish and English.
“This new building represents not just a physical move, but the ability to deepen our impact on our community,” Heysek commented. “It allows us to provide more nutritious items. It’s a game changer for the work we do in both education and hunger.”
