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Groundbreaking is planned for a new home for Daystar, a social services agency that helps the homeless and working poor.

ST. PETERSBURG – After 35 years of service to the homeless and economically challenged, St. Petersburg’s Daystar Life Center is poised to make a move.

Community leaders, Daystar Life volunteers, and new neighbors have scheduled a groundbreaking for the new location at 9:30 a.m. Sept. 8. The group’s new home is at 1055 28th St. S (just south of I-275 and right across the street from the Thomas ‘Jet’ Jackson Recreation Center).

Since 1982, the Daystar Life Center has provided the basic necessities of life on an emergency basis to those in need to help stabilize their lives and to prevent hunger and hopelessness. Most clients live below the federal poverty level. They are the working poor or unemployed. Ongoing help is available for individuals and families who are food-insecure; struggling to stay in their home, in transitional housing, or homeless.

But the cramped 4,000-square-foot facility at 226 Sixth St. S has been bursting at the seams.  A communitywide search identified available land in Midtown, and so the planning to build a bigger, better structure began.

“This move will help us expand our services and provide more hope for our neighbors,” Executive Director Jane Walker said. “The new facility has been years in the making, but with a donation of over $1.5 million by Daystar Life board member Kevin Milkey, his wife, Jeanne, and family, it is finally becoming a reality.”

The new building will house expanded services, ranging from a “choice pantry,” where clients can choose healthy food to prepare at home, to a demonstration kitchen, with cooking classes that can help bring a creative energy to preparing those fresh meals.  An expanded clothes closet and new training rooms will offer clients access to even more resources.

Daystar Life Center is a nonprofit organization that recently received a “four star” award from Charity Navigator for financial accountability and transparency. Because of a committed core of more than 200 volunteers, and a very small paid staff, the Daystar Life Center is able to devote 95% of all income to program services, with less than 5 percent on fundraising and administration.

For information about Daystar, go to daystarlife.com.

Daystar | Social Services | Tampabay News

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