HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — It really is a beautiful sight.
Despite the stifling heat on Wednesday afternoon, a group of volunteers banded together to make a difference in countless people’s lives.
As families streamed through the Hillsborough County food pantry, volunteers loaded large gifts — boxes full of fresh groceries — into the trunks of cars.
These are groceries that people like Joy Barbee and her daughter might not have had access to otherwise.
“This is a big help to us because it’s free,” Barbee said. “You just come and pick it up.”
Wednesday’s food distribution was the effort of Three B’s Ministry and Martha Diaz.
Diaz is an infectiously generous good person whose mission in life is to help others.
Her altruistic spirit was forged by the trials and tribulations of her past: She moved to Florida from Puerto Rico with her 5-year-old daughter in 2010 and found herself homeless despite earning an advanced degree.
“I was so nervous. I was so scared,” she told ABC Action News in a previous interview. “I have a friend in Puerto Rico. She’s my best friend and I would call her all the time, crying, and she’s like, ‘Why don’t you come back? Come on, come back. I’m here for you.’ And I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to go back. I have to stay here. Something tells me there is a purpose for me in this place.'”
Once her life finally stabilized, she was able to get the help she had hoped for while homeless.
What began as an effort to provide meals to sick friends during the COVID-19 pandemic eventually grew into her nonprofit organization, Three B’s Ministry.
“First of all I want to thank God, and then I want to thank all the people who were involved in making this happen,” she said Wednesday.
But in April, Diaz was reduced to tears by worry.
Her food pantry lost its location at a church in Valrico and had to find a new home by June 1. Diaz worried she would have to suspend the nonprofit’s operations.
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Several ABC Action News viewers then pitched in, one of whom reported the dire situation to the news division, and after the station ran a story about the ministry’s urgent need for a new location, another viewer, Chirag Amin, helped provide a new location for Three B Ministries on Lithia Pinecrest Road near Brandon.
The first food distribution at the new location took place Wednesday, and while the nonprofit is still figuring out logistics at the new location, the food distribution went smoothly.
“It feels so real and like it’s happening right now,” Diaz said, “and I’m so grateful to everyone who helped make this happen.”
But the story doesn’t end there.
Now, ABC Action News viewers have a new opportunity to support a food pantry that provides food to at least 150 families each week.
Diaz says the food pantry needs a refrigerated truck to provide more types of food to more people, and ABC Action News Gives wants to help Three B’s Ministry purchase such a truck.
You can donate to the cause by clicking here .
