Nov 04, 2024
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers don't get much time off during the regular season. But when they do, you will often see our most admired players out in their community giving back.As the Buccaneers take on the Chiefs on Monday Night Football, we wanted to see their heroics off the field."The Bucs are there with us all along and helping with that. We run several great programs yearly, such as "Turkey Time with the O Line," and they help us fund school pantries," President and CEO of Feeding Tampa Bay Thomas Mantz told ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska. "They're invested deeply in our work already, making sure that our neighbors, friends, colleagues, and coworkers have the resources they need. But when a storm happens, we need folks to step forward. We need community leadership to step forward because that's when we're at our most vulnerable and need the most resources."Following the devastating back-to-back hurricanes, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers owners are donating $2 million to hurricane relief. The Glazer family gave an additional $1 million to support local non-profit organizations helping those impacted by Hurricane Milton. This is in addition to the $1 million the Glazer family donated to local agencies in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.The money a non-profit like Feeding Tampa Bay receives from donations will go a long way."How strapped were you guys with the storm?" Paluska asked Mantz."Well, so we never are funded for a storm. We are funded to make sure that we take care of our daily responsibilities," Mantz said. "An organization like Feeding Tampa Bay looks after about a million people across the 10 county area. That increases by 50% during a storm. So, an organization like the Bucs and others help us step into that. For perspective sake, we normally provide our partners with about 200,000 meals a day during the storm. We've been doing close to 400,000 meals a day, doubling our output."The team also has a social justice board made up of players. Each year, they vote on the most important initiative to the community. This year, players are going all in on mentoring youth."They nominate captains on the field, but many people don't realize that they nominate captains off the field. We have a social justice board, and they decide as a group what they want to be a part of. And the Glazer families come up, and they said, hey, we're going to match you up to a million dollars for any initiative that you want to come together as a group and be part of this community," Brian Ford, Chief Operating Officer of the Bucs told Paluska.Ford said those initiatives were the biggest volunteer efforts for all the Bucs employees."This past week, we had 100 high school students, and their big initiative this year was mentoring, and we brought these students in and side by side with the players, and we're going through, you know, this is the fifth year that we've had this mentoring program. This is the first year that we're doing it with high school students, and it's making an impact," Ford said. "And what's really special, they all want to be a part of it."Even though the players are superstars in their own right, Ford said that they are ultimately humble and grateful."They're brothers, uncles, fathers, they have feelings, and they have real, you know, issues, just like you and I, and they want to be part of their community, and they're tremendous," Ford said.To learn more about Feeding Tampa Bay, click here.For more information on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Foundation and work in the community, click here.
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