Seeds of Hope is celebrating its 12th anniversary of raising both money and food for the Wildwood Food Pantry and Wildwood Soup Kitchen.
The Seeds of Hope concert series is currently taking place in and around The Villages. No tickets are sold. Rather, admission is in the form of nonperishable food items and/or fully tax-deductible monetary donations. (Checks are accepted, made payable to: Seeds of Hope-WSK.)
Top entertainers from in and around The Villages donate their time and talents. They are dedicated to raising monies for these two entities. Seeds of Hope, the Wildwood Soup Kitchen and the Wildwood Food Pantry have no paid staff. All work is performed by dedicated volunteers. The Wildwood Soup Kitchen is housed at the First Presbyterian Church of Wildwood while the Wildwood Food Pantry is housed at Wildwood United Methodist Church.
Last year, the Wildwood Soup Kitchen served more than 85,000 meals and provided more than 4,500 snack packs to supplement children from Wildwood Elementary School and the Center Hill Mission, Bushnell over the weekends. In that same time frame the Wildwood Food Pantry served more than 170-200 households (435+ people) at each of their distributions (twice per month.) In total, 268,000 pounds of food were distributed.
The goal this year, through concerts, food drives, local businesses and donations, is 40,000 pounds of food and $40,000.
The remaining series includes:
• 7 p.m. Friday, March 3 at New Covenant United Methodist Church: John Rogerson, Billie Thatcher and Chris and Gillian Bolus.
• 7 p.m. Saturday, March 4 at Oxford Assembly of God Church: Southern Gospel
• 3 p.m. Sunday, March 5 at United Church of Christ at the Villages: Billie Thatcher with Swing Band
A Pancake Breakfast will be held from 8 a.m. – 11 a.m. Saturday, March 11 at the Wildwood Soup Kitchen located at the First Presbyterian Church, 203 Barwick Street, Wildwood.
