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I Am Hope Cafe Aims To Open In March

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By D'ANN LAWRENCE WHITE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 6, 2008

Updated: 02/04/2008 05:45 pm

BRANDON - A few renovations, a dozen picnic tables, some tax-deductible donations and a whole lot of helping hands are what it will take to get the I Am Hope Cafe up and running by March, say members of the Greater Brandon Ecumenical Ministries.

With the donation of temporary space on Mason Street off Parsons Avenue, the group is ready to start recruiting and training volunteers for the soup kitchen, which will serve the area's homeless and needy.

It has been a yearlong endeavor for Ecumenical Ministries. The group's Project HOPE, an acronym for Helping Other People Excel, includes faith-based organizations and nonprofit groups intent on helping meet the needs of Brandon's growing homeless population.

Vince Ferraro, a Brandon accountant, Project HOPE founder and board member for the Emergency Care Help Organization and the Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County, has seen those needs firsthand. He regularly joins volunteers with Concerned Action InChrist, a nonprofit counseling program, to feed the homeless each Saturday morning in an empty lot north of the Church of the Nazarene on Kingsway Road.

Volunteers there bring home-cooked casseroles and side dishes and donations of clothes, work boots, hygiene products and other items donated by area residents.

"The homeless are very respectful and appreciative," Ferraro said. "They only take what they need."

Some have heartbreaking stories, such as a man who showed up for the first time a few weeks ago, Ferraro said. He is a Hurricane Katrina refugee. His wife and child drowned during the flooding.

Some in the area's homeless population recently have become crime victims, Ferraro said.

The tents and all the belongings of four men who regularly visit the Church of the Nazarene were burned. Another homeless man was badly beaten.

Ronald Heimburger of Riverview believes everyone deserves a hot meal, a safe refuge and dignity. He has started two soup kitchens and has been a volunteer at the Faith Cafe in Tampa, run by the South Tampa Ecumenical Ministries, for three years.

"You'll find these places will spin off other needs," said Heimburger, a transportation consultant by profession. "At the Faith Cafe, we now have people volunteering to give haircuts, nurses giving medical checkups. We have a book with all the social services that are available, and we're working with Hillsborough Area Regional Transit to put together a bus route with all the social service agencies on it."

Construction contractor and developer Mitch Burley of Mitch Burley Construction in Brandon has offered to make needed improvements to the 1,000-square-foot building on Mason Street that will serve as Project HOPE's food preparation area. There will be no cooking on site. Food will be precooked by volunteers or come from Metropolitan Ministries in Tampa.

The diners will be served on picnic tables under a covered area next to the Mason Street building.

Use of the property has been donated for a year and a half, but Ecumenical Ministries still must pay the property taxes and electricity and water bills. So the group has garnered Florida nonprofit status so it can accept tax-exempt donations.
Ecumenical Ministries also is seeking donations to buy picnic tables and serving supplies, and it needs someone willing to build an asphalt handicapped parking area.

The five groups that have signed on as directors of Project HOPE will provide monthly donations to offset costs.

Bay Life Church, Concerned Action InChrist, the Emergency Care Help Organization, First Presbyterian Church of Brandon and the River of Life United Methodist Cluster - made up of seven United Methodist churches - each also have signed on to feed the homeless one day a week.

Weekday hours will be from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Concerned Action InChrist also will offer meals from 9 to 11 a.m.
Ecumenical Ministries hopes to find one more partner so it can offer meals six days a week.

Faith Cafe volunteers have offered to help train new volunteers at the Brandon soup kitchen. Between 10 and 15 volunteers at the cafe provide about 200 meals a day to the homeless.

"It will be good for you to volunteer a few hours at the Faith Cafe, go through the experience and find out what you're getting into," Heimburger said.

For now, Project HOPE member organizations plan to start recruiting volunteers from within their own ranks. Other volunteers in the community, including high school students who need service hours, will fill in when needed.

The group also needs a Web designer willing to donate time to develop a site.

Anyone interested in volunteering or making a donation can call (813) 689-7153 or write to vince@fhhcpa.com tomgill@tampabay.rr.com.

Reporter D'Ann Lawrence White can be reached at (813) 657-4524 or dlwhite@tampatrib .com.

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