{"id":13320,"date":"2025-10-21T02:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T02:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/13320\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T02:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T02:30:07","slug":"st-pete-organization-prepares-for-thousands-needing-food-assistance-this-thanksgiving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/13320\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Pete organization prepares for thousands needing food assistance this Thanksgiving"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Soaring food prices and cuts to assistance means more families are turning to local food drives for help getting by. Looking ahead to Thanksgiving, one Bay Area organization is already working on feeding families for the holiday<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Local perspective:<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s unbelievable, the cost of food,” said Karen Rae, who runs Positive Impact St. Pete.<\/p>\n

READ: Bearss Groves Farm mourns the loss of giant pumpkin ‘Jack’<\/a><\/p>\n

Every Saturday, her team provides groceries for roughly 3,000 families. Cars line up for blocks as volunteers load food into trunks at Tangerine Plaza in South St. Pete<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But, Rae said she\u2019s seeing more and more new faces each week.<\/p>\n

“There are a lot of families who are first-time in line with us. They\u2019re working-class families who simply don\u2019t make enough to cover the basics,” Rae said.<\/p>\n

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Big picture view:<\/p>\n

With Thanksgiving around the corner, Rae said the need will only grow.<\/p>\n

“There has been job loss, there have been cuts federally and locally. It\u2019s because of our neighbors who have a heart for our community, lifting each other up, that they\u2019re able to have food on their dinner tables,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

To meet that need, Positive Impact St. Pete is holding a canned food drive and asking workplaces, churches and organizations to help build what they call “Boxes of Blessings.” Each box costs about $25 to fill and gives a family everything they need to cook their own Thanksgiving meal.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s a blessing to be able to serve our community, it\u2019s so impactful, it\u2019s so emotional,” Rae said.<\/p>\n

READ: Here are the hottest Halloween costumes for 2025, according to Google<\/a><\/p>\n

What’s next:<\/p>\n

With demand rising and costs going up, Rae admitted it may seem daunting, but she\u2019s not losing faith.<\/p>\n

When asked if she worries about turning families away this Thanksgiving, she said: “We have faith, we believe God makes a way when it seems there isn\u2019t a way. He makes that way through people.”<\/p>\n

Her faith in the St. Pete community, might just be higher than the price of groceries.<\/p>\n

What you can do:<\/p>\n

Every Friday, Positive Impact St. Pete accepts canned food donations from 8-10 a.m. at 1754 22nd Street South in St. Petersburg. To make special arrangements, you can email YourFriends@PositiveImpact.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To start a food drive at your workplace or organization, or to volunteer with Positive Impact St. Pete, you can find more information on positiveimpact.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Source: The information in this story was gathered by FOX 13’s Genevieve Curtis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

St. Petersburg<\/a>Holidays<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Soaring food prices and cuts to assistance means more families are turning to local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[47,1186,115,1157,202,204,203,199,201,200,628],"class_list":{"0":"post-13320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-fl","9":"tag-holidays","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pinellas","12":"tag-st-pete","13":"tag-st-pete-headlines","14":"tag-st-pete-news","15":"tag-st-petersburg","16":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","17":"tag-st-petersburg-news","18":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13320","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=13320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}