Shore Acres resident who served meals from his yard after Helene, Milton starting non-profit

Local man creates nonprofit to help neighbors

FOX 13's Kailey Tracy shares the mission from one man to help his neighbors that were affected by last year's hurricanes.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Thursday marks one year since Hurricane Milton hit an already storm-ravaged Tampa Bay Area.

Following Milton and Hurricane Helene, Matt Thorn started serving meals and handing out supplies to the community from his front yard in Shore Acres. He called it the Relief Market and Grille.

"I was doing roughly about 300, 400 meals a day during the hurricanes," he said.

Thorn said in the five months after the storms, he served nearly 25,000 meals. In January, he started the process of turning the Relief Market and Grille into a non-profit, and 3 Daughters Brewing gave him a food truck to use. 

What they're saying:

"Creating it into a non-profit was the trust factor that people in the neighborhood and the communities that I was serving and providing meals to and market supplies and cleanup supplies to begin trusting me. And I think that is important in natural disasters, but I think in just life in general is to have that level of trust with someone that you can rely on," Thorn said.

It’s not just people recovering from storms who he wants to help through the non-profit. Thorn says he plans to partner with St. Pete and local organizations and non-profits to identify anyone in need, provide them with food, and connect them with long-term services.

"A disaster isn’t always a hurricane. It could be your house burning down. It could be you’re in a car accident and somebody has a ton of medical bills," he said.

What's next:

Thorn plans to bring the food truck to local festivals and markets and charge for food there, as a fundraiser.

"I enjoy cooking. I did not think that it would be like a profession per se, and then I really kind of started thinking about it and I was like, ‘This could really, not from just a business standpoint, but this could be something that is important from a human standpoint of combining my work in non-profits for 20 years, plus my enjoyment of cooking.  And this could really turn into something that is meaningful and impactful,’" he said.

Thorn hopes to be up and running by St. Pete’s Shopapalooza Festival at the end of November.