ECHO<\/a> is a nonprofit aimed at helping bridge the gap to stability for families.
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It offers resources to help people get a job and housing, as well as food and clothing.
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The nonprofit is expanding to a new location in the Thonotosassa area.<\/p>\nStepping inside the nonprofit, it\u2019s all about making people feel at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s neighbors helping neighbors,” said Eleanor Saunders.<\/p>\n
She is the CEO of the ECHO, which is focused on helping families in need with resources like clothing and food, which they can shop for three times a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur neighbors can come and shop for themselves, make the choices they need to make for their own families, so it\u2019s based on family size and people just take what they need,” she said.<\/p>\n
It depends on volunteers to make it all happen. But that\u2019s not all \u2014 Saunders says the organization’s goal is to offer long-term solutions to help people get back on their feet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe make connections with local hiring employers and literally use our social collateral to make those connections,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Just last year, ECHO served nearly 1,500 people through its services.<\/p>\n
Saunders says that number grew because of the government shutdown.<\/p>\n
Along with those challenges, the nonprofit is seeing the need grow in areas beyond its reach.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Thonotosassa, one in three children live below the poverty line, one in five people live food insecure. We need to be there, and there are no resources there,” said Savanna Thompson, the director of advancement for ECHO.<\/p>\n
She says there has been a 36 percent growth in need for the Thonotosassa area, and transportation has been a big issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not able to get to get to where food is, and they don\u2019t have options there,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit says the new location will help make resources more accessible.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you see people being able to shop for themselves and they\u2019re empowered and they\u2019re finding resources, you can\u2019t help but say, ‘We want to do more of this,'” said Saunders.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit says its goal is to open the Thonotosassa location within the next year. Then the shift will focus on a potential new location in south Hillsborough County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Families in the Thonotosassa area will soon see relief and support from the Emergency Care Help…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[274,4369,276,6076,115,135,137,136,278],"class_list":["post-122347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-top-stories","tag-food-insecurity-and-hunger","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-lizbeth-gutierrez","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}