Tampa Bay’s Thanksgiving turkey giveaways start this weekend, to help fight hunger during the holiday season

Foster Farms organic frozen whole turkeys pictured in San Jose, California on Dec. 14, 2019. Credit: ZikG / Shutterstock ‘Tis the season for the greater Tampa Bay area to fight food insecurity one food pantry at a time. This Thanksgiving season, many food pantries, churches and businesses across the Bay area will have turkey and food giveaways throughout the month of November. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), over 18 million households in the United States, or 13.7% of the population, dealt with food insecurity in 2024. Many of these families cope by rationing their diets or relying on food pantries. The USDA says, food insecurity is the limited or unavailability of nutritious food based on financial burden. According to the nonprofit Feeding America, the food insecurity rate in 2024 for Hillsborough County was 15.2% and Pinellas County was 14.2 %, both of which are above the national average. So families don t go hungry this season,