On the same Amalie Arena floor where the Tampa Bay Lightning came close to vying for the Stanley Cup earlier this year, TECO team members more recently struck a chord with their commitment to the community: call it a power play for caring.
Feed the Bay, an annual, large-scale event to address a huge and growing need – people without enough to eat – got a big boost on June 24 from groups across the area, with TECO among them. On multiple teams with their respective organizations, participants did more than just gather many tons of food; they made packaging it fun with races to see which team could box up the most food the fastest.
And while one of the two TECO teams took second place, the competition took a back seat to the important cause.
“It was a great experience; so many people donated food and to see it all in one place – not just from TECO but from everyone who was part of Feed the Bay – was really heartening,” Julie Nail, assistant to the director of Community Relations at Tampa Electric. “It made me proud to be a TECO team member and proud to be among so many people who want to address the critical problem of food insecurity.”
Both TECO teams, each with five members, packaged 225 bags of food. In total, Tampa’s Feed the Bay event also raised more than $30,000 in donations to help the hungry. TECO participated in the event through its membership in Visit Tampa Bay.
Another way organizers made the event fun was to encourage participants to build sculptures out of their food items. And while TECO didn’t join that contest this year, Nail hinted that things would be different at Feed the Bay 2017.
“A lot of teams had terrific sculptures, but hey, we’ve got plenty of engineers at TECO!” she said. “Next year we want to bring more of them with us for an even bigger effort to benefit people in such a basic way but crucial way – by helping put food on their tables.”
TECO team members who participated in Feed the Bay 2016
Team 1: Sarah Djak, Samuel East, Angela Marra, Julie Nail, Lindsay O’Bryan
Team 2: Miguel Becerra, Noriel Castro, Emerly Henry, Emile Nicholas, Orvanel Valdez
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