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At the heart of our mission is the Food Center, a multi-purpose 13,500 square-foot haven where the hungry and homeless congregate to eat, sleep, obtain clean clothing, shower, receive counseling, medical treatment, legal advice, attend AA meetings and in a nearby trailer, store their personal belongings.
Our bright, cheerful facility, opened in 2003, replaced a smaller “soup kitchen” that had been operational since 1985. We not only offer a warm welcome to our guests but, more importantly, three nutritious, quality meals every day of the year, averaging about 700 a day, 21,000 per month, 252,000 a year.
And thanks to the generosity of the public that, year after year, donates hundreds of pounds of food, our kitchen staff prepares, and our many volunteers serve, special feasts on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.
We also provide food baskets of non-perishable comestibles to needy families referred to us by the Conferences of the District. Filled according to the size of the family, we distribute about 1,000 of these life-sustaining baskets a year.
There’s also much activity between and after meals. Every afternoon at 4 p.m. the men and women living on the streets use our showers in our Personal Hygiene Program. We offer them clean towels, toiletries and clothing from our Thrift Store. At 9 p.m. the Center becomes a “dormitory”, a Night Shelter for up to 60 men and women. And on Sunday afternoons it’s a meeting place for a chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous.
A vibrant, vital, visible lifeline for the hungry and homeless of St. Petersburg, that’s our Food Center.
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