{"id":368561,"date":"2026-08-11T17:24:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T17:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/368561\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T17:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T17:24:13","slug":"st-pete-free-clinic-announces-expansion-of-fresh-foods-at-the-jared-s-hechtkopf-community-food-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/368561\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Pete Free Clinic announces expansion of fresh foods at the Jared S. Hechtkopf Community Food Bank"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1708\" height=\"833\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-11-125359.png\" class=\"attachment-264736 size-264736 wp-post-image\" alt=\"FRESH Pantry at the Jared S. Hechtkopf Community Food Bank in St Petersburg.\" large=\"\" decoding=\"async\"  \/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFRESH Pantry at the Jared S. Hechtkopf Community Food Bank in St Petersburg. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today, the St. Pete Free Clinic announced the expansion of fresh foods at the Jared Hechtkopf Community Food Bank.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The expansion comes after the ALICE report found Lealman has one of the highest poverty rates in Pinellas County.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This report is released every year by the United Way Suncoast. It looks at the state of poverty in Florida by county.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It also evaluates what is known as the ALICE threshold \u2013families that live above the poverty level but still cannot afford basic household necessities.<\/p>\n<p>In Pinellas County, 37% of households fall under that threshold and 10% live under the poverty level.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jennifer Yigley is the CEO for the St Pete Free Clinic. The clinic shared a prerecorded interview with WMNF.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cGroceries are the leading concern for most people when it comes to being able to afford just the basics. Second only to groceries are housing and healthcare. The free clinic is on the front lines of two out of three of those critical needs nationally. We see that play out every single day in Pinellas County and in the Lealman zip codes in particular.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lealman is a small unincorporated community east of St. Petersburg and south of Clearwater.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly 69% of Lealman households are under the ALICE threshold or living under the federal poverty level<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe have found that folks from the Lehman area and these zip codes are coming down to visit us at our Downtown Indoor Choice Fresh Pantry location which serves every zip code in the county, but we\u2019re really excited to make what we do so much easier to access by being right here in the community with our neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Currently, more than 2000 Lealman residents visit the downtown St Pete Free Clinic food pantry or use a mobile drive-thru distribution in South St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But in hopes to streamline the process and increase access to fresh foods, the clinic is expanding to an appointment-based service at the Jared S. Hechtkopf Community Food Bank.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Families will be able to enter the warehouse and pick up their own groceries at no cost, rather than receiving a pre-selected box.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All Pinellas County residents are welcome to set an appointment through the clinic\u2019s website but proof of address is needed to enter the warehouse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESH Pantry at the Jared S. Hechtkopf Community Food Bank in St Petersburg. Today, the St. Pete Free&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[6157,13450,149258,3535,16665,30415,596,14024,202,204,203,199,201,200,65059,19299],"class_list":["post-368561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-class","tag-food-bank","tag-food-costs","tag-food-insecurity","tag-local-government","tag-news-and-public-affairs","tag-pinellas-county","tag-poverty","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-state-politics","tag-united-way"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368561","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=368561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}