St. Petersburg program creates self-sufficient communities
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - It's Saturday morning in the Lealman neighborhood of St. Petersburg and volunteers are handing out food and cleaning out alleyways and homes.
"What you see here today, the same thing's happening in east Tarpon Springs right now," Steve Cleveland, CEO of Florida Dream Center shared. "The goal is to make, to provide a self-sufficient community and get neighbors to help neighbors and people to be able to be self-sufficient."
It's all a part of the Florida Dream Center ‘Adopt-a-Block’ program, which began in 2014.
"We have a lot of seniors that live here. We have a lot of disabled veterans that live there. We have, I mean, people that just need a hand up and that's what we're trying to do is just get them out of a situation that can help it, to put them into a better situation, a better quality of life," explained Cleveland.
Mike Calabrese and his wife, Kathy, and daughter, Emily have volunteered for seven years.
"It's just a good feeling knowing that you're helping your neighbor, you know, you're helping a neighborhood that needs help and people that need help," said Mike. "So, it feels really good when you do it."
Kathy Calabrese added, "You get very dirty, but it's such it's rewarding to be helping clean up, believe it or not. And then, so, I did that for about a year or two and then after that, I also help hand out food on other Saturdays."
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For Emily Calabrese, it was a chance to make new friends.
"I would play with the kids while their parents would get the food boxes and then I would make friendships with them," she commented.
The grass-roots initiative has helped feed hundreds of families and has cleaned up more than 1500 tons of trash.
"There are 178 alleys in this community and we mow and maintain those alleys so that it drops the crime rate. It helps our deputies so that they can drive by and look down the alleys," said Cleveland.
A big chore to take care of so they could use more volunteers.
"They help at the food pantry to load the trucks that you're seeing behind me or the trailers or they come here and they help give out the food and work, or they go with Mike, who you're going to meet in a few minutes, and they go out in the community and do the hard work,"
Cleveland said.
Hard work that is showing the importance of neighbor helping neighbor to build a better community.
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