Meals On Wheels for Kids Expands Into Dade City Starting Friday

DADE CITY, FL — Tampa Bay Network to End Hunger, a tri-county leader in hunger relief, research and program development, has expanded Meals On Wheels for Kids into Dade City.

The program began packing meals on Thursday will live deliver them Friday out of Farmworker's Self-Help Inc. in Dade City.

The network’s MOW4Kids program, the first program of its kind, launched in March. MOW4Kids was developed in response to the school closures due to the coronavirus to provide home-delivered meals to children 18 years and younger.

MOW4Kids is an alternative option for food-insecure kids who are not able to access meal distribution sites throughout the county or have difficulty accessing food pantries. The program currently serves Clearwater and St. Petersburg in Pinellas County, Wimauma in South Hillsborough County and will continue to expand the program to include Date City in East Pasco County.

Farmworker's Self-Help Inc., a local nonprofit organization that provides assistance to farmworkers in Dade City, is the area’s designated packing and distribution site for the program in this service area. Shelf-stable boxes of food will be packed by volunteers on Thursdays and then delivered by volunteers with extensive background checks on Fridays.

In addition to receiving nutritious food, children develop a connection with the volunteers who stop by on a weekly basis.

Volunteer drivers are needed each week to help pack boxes of shelf-stable food on Thursdays and to deliver on Fridays from Farmworker’s Self-Help in Dade City. Routes take 60 minutes to complete. To sign up to volunteer, click here.

The network is currently accepting donations on its website to help support the MOW4Kids program.