The holidays are often marked with family time, joy, gifts and lots of food — sweets, very much included.
But the reality of this season is starkly different for thousands of Florida families.
The worries are not about whether your Christmas tree or house is properly decorated for festivities — it's a fear of not putting food on the table, getting your child a gift from "Santa" and so much more.
But nonprofits like Metropolitan Ministries are working to ensure each family across Tampa Bay gets a tinsel of holiday magic this year.
ALSO READ: Tampa Bay food banks expect demand to linger past the shutdown
The faith-based nonprofit helps those without homes and low-income families in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Polk and Pasco counties. Its holiday tent assistance program is a regional tradition, where it is expected to serve 33,000 families in need for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. According to its website, it also has a goal of providing 50,000 children with "food, toys and love."
More information on getting help, volunteering, hot meal locations and ways to give can be found at Metropolitan Ministries' Holiday Central.
Also, on "Florida Matters: Live & Local," the organization's chief programs officer, Christine Long, explained how they served more people this Thanksgiving amid a reported nearly 300% increase in demand last month. She also talks about how they're gearing up for the December holidays.
The interview below was edited for clarity and length.
What was serving Thanksgiving meals like this year?
It was really beautiful but very, very busy. We had so many people in need this year that our registration closed up really quickly. But we were able to help as many folks as possible. We actually helped 15,000 families over Thanksgiving with turkey — all the fixings for their holiday meals.
We did increase the number that we would be able to serve.
As we saw the need increasing, we reached out to the community. I added an additional 3,000 households so that we could serve as many as possible, and we're expanding that for the Christmas season to help as many people as possible.
Along with all the turkeys we passed out, we did hot meals. The cooking was for all those hot meals. And we have 54 locations throughout Tampa Bay that we serve Turkey and dinners and lots of hot meals.
It was just a wonderful opportunity for people to come together, care about each other, [and] show support for folks who are struggling.
Are there meals for people to take with them?
Yeah, there are holiday tents.
It's where folks come and shop for their own food and pick out what they like and be able to take that home and prepare it in their own kitchens with their own families.
So that's a blessing for people who have homes and have ways to cook food.
And then those who don't have those means or [are] alone and lonely, they came to our meal site partner locations.
Normally you're helping about 1,000 families a month. You've gone up to 3,000 at least for the month of November. Can you sustain that level of service?
Not without [the] community's help. It really depends on everybody coming together to make that happen. We're really helpful this holiday season; the community is going to continue to support us.
The more people help, the more we're going to be able to help others. We've been blessed and fortunate for the last 50 years for this community to support our work, and i feel confident that we're going to help as many families as possible with the support of the community.
How have you dug into your reserves to serve people?
We definitely had to dig into our canned food product, which we would buy and use all year long. We used a lot of that up.
Also, prior to Thanksgiving, we pulled on all those things we ordered for Thanksgiving meals. So the vegetables and the fruits and all of the things that we need for Thanksgiving dinners or turkey dinners or ham dinners — all of those we had to pull on that as well. So there are a lot of different things, just like you would have for your meal.
Those are all the things we need to help folks here at Christmas time in particular, as we're going to be ramping back up again to make sure we have enough food to help them all. I would say some of the products that people don't think of but people need like potatoes. I would say instant potatoes and stuffing and those types of things — we always need those sides.
When we saw the need was increasing, we reached out to our board and freed up some of our reserves. We also went to the community. We got some great donors.
But we have to make that up throughout the year. You dip into the reserves — you need them to go back for another emergency.
So we're going to continue to monitor all the donations that are coming in, help as much as we possibly can, and just make sure we have what we need to get us through the years successfully.
What does your help mean for families?
The Christmas season in particular is extremely difficult for families and you also have the kind of the pressure of toys for your kids and things for your kids.
And we really want children to find hope and joy [during] the holiday season [and] parents to find relief during these difficult financial times.
And so when folks come to us at our holiday tents, they have the opportunity to, of course, get the food that we've been talking about but also toys for their children. Each child gets a couple of toys [and] stocking stuffers. This year, we're going to have PJ's for kids. So parents will come and they'll shop for their children's toys. Get to pick what they'd like and need and take that home with them, wrap it up and put it under the tree for Christmas.
You can find information about the holiday tent pop-up locations on the organization's website. If you'd like to volunteer or donate, you can also find opportunities there.
This article was compiled from an interview conducted by Matthew Peddie for WUSF's "Florida Matters Live and Local." You can listen to the full episode here.
