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This was the 4th year our family participated in Feed The Bay. However, this was the first year we bought the matching shirts 
Each year seems to bless us more than the last, but this year, my children were paying attention to the numbers…
As a collective group, this year marked an event that topped the scales. Feed The Bay started in 2006 and in 2012 it marked the collection of 1 Million pounds of food having been collected over the course of 6 short years! Praise God!
- 2006 – collected 30,000 lbs of food
- 2007 – collected 33,000 lbs of food
- 2008 – 12 food agencies were helped with 189,000 lbs of food
- 2009 – 13 food agencies were helped with 316,500 lbs of food
- 2010 – 13 food agencies were helped with 131,600 lbs of food
- 2011 – 11 food agencies were helped with 138,193 lbs of food
- 2012 – 15 food agencies were helped with 180,908 lbs of food
In the total 6 years of events = 1,019,201 lbs of food has been collected and distributed back into our community’s food agencies.
But how has it impacted my personal life? It gave my children a view of the world they are not quite used to seeing every day, the reality that people are hungry and that those people live in our own home town. We could easily know someone who goes to bed hungry at night. So what do you do? How do you help them understand that we can make a difference, even though we seem so insignificant. We now make our giving part of our everyday grocery shopping. We choose a few items each week to take in to our food pantry at church. We talk about the people we see on the street as we drive through downtown Tampa, who are asking for food and we make up ziplock bags to give out to those less fortunate. We pray! We pray for those hungry little kids, and for the jobless sitting on the corners, and for each of them to find the Hope we have found and in Him for which we are so grateful. Thank you Jesus, for blessing our collective efforts and allowing us to join together, to do more.
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.” ~Matthew 25:35
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