Our Mission

The Community Food Pantry strives to end the physical and emotional hunger of families in a dignified manner. Our comprehensive approach not only alleviates hunger with nutritional foods, but also provides support services such as health screenings, hygiene bags, and homeless outreach. We serve each client and host each volunteer with grace and dignity and without regard to race, creed, religion, income or perceived need.

The Community Food Pantry helped feed nearly 80,000 people in 2022. Each year parents who have trouble making ends meet, seniors on fixed incomes deciding between medicine and groceries, individuals who have lost a job or are underemployed come to our pantry for assistance.  Over 21.000 local families visited our pantry to receive groceries, a gracious welcome and emotional support as well as blood pressure screenings and information on social services. We host Resource Fairs for the community to allow for one stop shopping for advice and additional resources.

Our Story

In 2008, the members of Village Presbyterian Church began stocking a small closet with a few non-perishable food items to give to those requesting help with groceries. By 2009, the small closet was no longer able to meet the needs of the growing number of families seeking assistance. The members of Village Presbyterian Church transformed half of the church office building into the Community Food Pantry.  

The Community Food Pantry has continued to grow.  In 2012 the Youth Take Over the Pantry program started, where high school students take over serving, ordering food, and cleaning the Pantry every summer.  The pantry's first year of providing bags of holiday food at Christmas time was 2013.  This program was expanded to Thanksgiving the following year when our Everything But the Turkey event launched.  Our service area expanded in 2014 and again in 2015.  In 2015 we participated in Give Day Tampa Bay, Giving Tuesday, and Kindness Day for the first time, raising money and bringing in food donations to allow us to better serve our clients.  We also began to offer health screenings to our clients in 2015.  

In 2017, 2018 and 2019 the Community Food Pantry began its annual dining fundraiser, Denim and Diamonds. This evening of silent and live auction, speakers and fun has become an event we look forward to hosting for years to come as we highlight sponsors from the community, the labor of volunteers and lift the community in need. Although the pandemic has stalled our tradition, we look forward to the rebirth of Denim and Diamonds in early 2023.

We experienced tremendous growth in 2018, the CFP provided 650,000 nutritious meals to over 11,500 families.  Of the 43,000 people served throughout the year, nearly 40% are children and 15% are seniors.  We are able to extend our reach by sharing our bounty with local schools through our weekend backpack nutrition program, Christian Social Services, Joshua House, McClain, Inc., Am Vets, other local pantries, and through regular deliveries to the homeless or near homeless on the streets of Tampa.  We further our mission by participating with Vista Gardens in Carrollwood Village in a compost program for produce we are not able to distribute.

As the demand grew, we listened to the needs of those clients and increased the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables and healthy food choices offering more than just canned or processed foods. We are also now providing local schools with backpacks filled with foods for students at risk of not eating over the weekend. We partner with local schools and their guidance counselors/ social workers to assure identified children are provided nutrition.

Up until March of 2020, we were modeled as a client choice pantry where individuals come and choose their own groceries and fresh foods as they would in a neighborhood grocery store. When the pandemic hit, we were one of a handful of pantries still operating regularly, never closing our doors and acting as first responders to families in crisis. Although we had to move to an outside, mobile pantry operation, we are still focused on bringing those nutritional foods to our clients regardless of how they are being served. We gained 6,124 new clients in 2020 and another 2,211 in 2021 in because of our attention to the needs of our clients. In 2021 we added our new F-250 truck, named Brandon, that hauls our trailer and much needed food from donor grocery store to pantry each week. As of 2022, Brandon hauls nearly 30,000 pounds each week to the pantry for distribution.

In 2022, we reached 6 million meals provided to our community since inception. We were awarded a grant by Hillsborough County and have brand new floors in the pantry, a new shed, a parking pad and sidewalk and additional supplies to sustain our mission. That renovation was a long time coming. We are blessed to be a blessing to others.

“Feeding People. Changing Lives.”

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. -- Matthew 25:35