Feeding Tampa Bay’s new home at Causeway Center is the Tampa Bay region’s first community hub of its kind, offering 215,000 square feet of space to meet the immediate and long-term needs of our neighbors.
Our new home will allow us the ability to fully address the demand for food assistance throughout our 10-county region and the capacity to offer expanded services that enable neighbors to connect and cultivate a sustainable, self-sufficient future.
Causeway Center will be a Smoke Free Campus
Feeding Tampa Bay’s new Causeway Center will be adopting a Tobacco and Smoke Free policy in an effort to promote a healthy, nourishing, and empowering environment for our entire community. This new policy will take effect upon moving into our new home in May.
Feeding Tampa Bay’s Causeway Center - Facts & Stats 2024
FTB
- Feeding Tampa Bay is redefining what it means to feed our region, knowing food alone will not solve hunger. By creating pathways to possibilities for nearly 1 million people, Feeding Tampa Bay connects and convenes solutions, partners and resources that nourish long-term stability. As a member of the Feeding America network, we will work to dismantle barriers for individuals, families and seniors across West Central Florida.. Feeding Tampa Bay — It’s possible.
- Focusing on prevention and policy along with the provision of healthy food
- Creating a center that can serve as the centerpiece of our community
History
- FTB has been serving the community for 42 years.
- 727M+ meals have been served
- 268,000+ volunteers
- 873M+ pounds of food distributed - One of the largest food banks in the nation.
- Forbes Top 100 Charities, 2003 (#98)
The Causeway Center
- FTB’s Causeway Center is the largest social services project in Tampa Bay history!
- A 60 million dollar investment raised by the community, for the community.
- Former space 80,000 sq ft and rented. ($700,000 annually) - Five years of thoughtful planning, tremendous community support and partner collaboration - based on the question, ‘what is most needed to better serve our community? The answer: A Community Center that welcomes all and can serve all.
Our Community
- Nearly 1 million are food insecure in West Central Florida.
- Hard working adults, families, children and seniors struggle to make ends meet. - 1 in 6 adults and 1 in 4 children struggle with food insecurity.
- Today we are capable of 85M meals annually.
- The Causeway Center capacity makes 150 million meals annually possible, which are needed to end hunger in Tampa Bay.
- 1.4M meals are recycled weekly - 400+ agency partners.
- 98% of all donations go directly to support FTB’s mission.
- 50,000+ volunteers support our work annually.
- 85,000 volunteers in the future.
- Every volunteer hour saves FTB $33.49 in labor costs.
Facility details
- The Community Center is a state of the art, 215,000 sq ft warehouse.
- 90,000+ sq ft warehouse will store 4x as much cold and freezer storage to receive, store and distribute fresh foods safely as well as host training space for FTB’s workforce development program, freshforce.
- 35,000+ sq feet dedicated to community connections.
- 11,000+ sq feet of volunteer space.
- 11,000+ sq foot kitchen capable of 10,000 prepared meals daily.
+ Offering more meals alongside groceries that fill gaps
- 28,000+ sq ft of temperature controlled areas (freezer, cold, special dry and docks).
+ Historically 25% of donated fresh foods were turned away due to lack of space.
+ New space provide opportunity to repurpose foods - cabbage to coleslaw
- 64,000+ sq feet for dry goods, 5 racks high (3 racks previously). - Parking - 500 cars and 50 trucks.
- If you know, you know.
Ways we serve
- The Neighborhood -
- The Market - a free grocery story accessed by appointment respecting the time and comfort of our guests.
- The Bistro - a Trinity Cafe project that will offer complimentary meals, with options to pay what you can and purchase as well.
- Training/Classrooms - available to train, educate and collaborate with neighbors and partners.
- Causeway Hall - a meeting space that can be reserved by the public giving our community the opportunity to gather.
- With a table seated capacity of 300, or a conference capacity of 485, the space can be separated into three smaller spaces.
- Event logistics and catering will be available - Freshforce - expanding to accommodate 500 graduates annually.
- Historically, graduates 100+ annually. - FTB currently provides $350M in economic impact.
- The Center will increase that impact to $550M.
+ This number is based on the value of food donated, jobs created, CO2 savings (landfill), and other elements