Spread Hope with the Empty Plate Challenge

In my 12 years at Metro, I’ve seen over and over how generous Tampa Bay is.

Today, I hope you’ll find it in your heart to be generous once more! Here’s how you can help . . . We’re about to launch our seventh annual Empty Plate Challenge to prepare for Thanksgiving. After the busy summer and a massive, ongoing coronavirus response, our pantry is nearly empty.

We’re asking you and your family to help replenish our food supply by taking a simple step: skip a meal — just one! — and share the money you would have spent with a local family in need. Your gift, combined with others, will provide thousands of meals for hungry moms, dads, boys, and girls.

Unlike the families that come to Metropolitan Ministries, my family has never had to worry about where our next meal will come from. I hope that’s true for you and your loved ones, too. But too many people in our community are hungry.

Thanksgiving is the season, maybe more than any other, when we should show our gratitude to God for His blessings in our lives, and then give generously to bless someone in need.

If you haven’t read Nicole’s story yet, I hope you will. Families like Nicole’s are why I serve at Metro. And these are the families I’m asking you to help during our Empty Plate Challenge.

Thank you for all you do to help hurting families in Tampa Bay. And thank you for working together with us to make a better community for all.


Just 3 easy steps to take the challenge!

  1. Sit down to discuss the campaign: what your giving goal is, when you want to skip a meal together, and who else you might invite to join you — family, friends, fellow church members, colleagues at work.
  2. Give an Empty Plate Challenge information card to each and encourage them to join you.
  3. Skip a meal together . . . and then give the money you would have spent to share help and hope this Thanksgiving.

JOIN HOPE FORCE Donate Now Download Information Card

Thanks for joining generous people across Tampa Bay to provide Thanksgiving meals for those in great need!