TROPICAL NIGHTS 2025 WAS A FANTASTIC NIGHT "IN PARIS"!

The 31st annual Tropical Nights Under Paris Lights event was a HUGE success!

The sellout crowd on Saturday, March 1, 2025, shopped, ate, drank, danced, and donated in support of our lifesaving mission! It was a fantastic evening to raise important resources for our PLUS programs: Home-delivered Meals, The Food Bank of Manatee, Daybreak Adult Day Center, and Friendship Dining Centers.

Attendees were moved by the very personal client testimonials from individuals right here in Manatee County who have been positively impacted by our life-changing work! You can watch the 2025 Tropical Nights Under Paris Lights Impact Video by clicking here. If you wish to make a donation, it's not too late! Click here to donate!

Our sincere thanks to everyone who supported this AMAZING event! Special thanks to Presenting Sponsor Mosaic, Chateau de Versailles Sponsor Herald-Tribune, Musee du Louvre Sponsor Vanessa Fine Jewelry, Champs-Elysees Sponsor Carl Reynolds Law, and all our magnificent Sponsors and auction donors for their support! Check out our Donor Spotlight in this newsletter for more details!

The event photo gallery can be viewed here: https://mealsonwheelsplus.org/tropical-nights-2025-gallery/

To read about Observer Media Group's coverage of the event, click here: https://www.yourobserver.com/news/2025/mar/02/tropical-nights/

To see ABC-7's coverage of the event, click here: https://www.mysuncoast.com/livestream/ - see the 5 pm show from Monday, 3/03/2025….our story starts at 19.42 minutes.

POP-UP LAUNDRY A SUCCESS!

Have you ever heard of a “pop-up laundry”? The Food Bank of Manatee, a PLUS program of Meals on Wheels PLUS, knows exactly what a "pop-up laundry" is! We recently “popped-up” at a laundromat in Manatee County where the need for assistance is great and put out tables of produce and other food items for residents to take home and eat. Wait, there’s more… thanks to The Patterson Foundation, the laundry customers brought to wash in the machines was paid for! We gave out over 4,500 pounds of fresh produce and saw dozens of people enjoy getting their laundry washed for free during a 4 hour pop-up in Bradenton! When you see one of our Meals on Wheels PLUS trucks parked somewhere, you know we are in service to our community! We are grateful to the many friends that join and support us in our mission to end food-insecurity for all. 

HOME-DELIVERED MEALS

Through our Home-delivered Meals program, a PLUS program of Meals on Wheels PLUS, we are providing nutrient-rich produce to our clients each month. This bonus, in addition to our meal delivery, helps to insure our homebound clients have access to healthy foods that can strengthen their bodies even if they can't regularly get out to a grocery store or farmer's market. This program, called Produce on Wheels, is a blessing to so many people! We love our Produce on Wheels program and our clients love it to! We thank our donors who make this delicious and nutritious program possible!

FRIENDSHIP DINING CENTERS

Creativity is always in huge supply at our Friendship Dining Centers, a PLUS Program of Meals on Wheels PLUS of Manatee! Our friends attending the Parrish Friendship Dining Center, had a great time creating their own designs on aprons using different mediums such as glue paint, buttons, and paintbrushes! The finished products were colorful and unique, and the clients had a wonderful time! 

Friendship Dining Centers are located in various parts of town - there's likely a convenient location for you! For more information about this program, visit our website by clicking here or call 941-747-4655 during business hours.

DAYBREAK ADULT DAY CENTER

A popular Live Auction item at this year's Tropical Nights fundraising event was a painting on canvas which featured hundreds of hearts. What made this piece so unique is that our clients at Daybreak Adult Day Center, a PLUS program at Meals on Wheels PLUS of Manatee, painted the artwork themselves! Each client had a paintbrush, paints, and paper. The colors our clients used were a variety of shades that when cutout and combined, looked beautiful together! The clients were absolutely delighted to take part in this project and were so excited to see the final outcome. Our clients put a lot of love into this piece, and it shows!

UPCOMING EVENTS: 

Our Drive Away Hunger Golf Classic will be held on Friday, May 16th, at Rosedale Golf & Country Club. Please click here for registration and sponsorship information.

COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT

The Super Bowl game in February was more fun thanks to Peace Presbyterian Church members who held a Chiefs vs. Eagles Super Bowl LIX Food Drive benefitting The Food Bank of Manatee, a PLUS program of Meals on Wheels PLUS of Manatee. The Food Bank was the happy recipient of 812 pounds of food! The Eagles supporters donated a total of 396 pounds and the Chiefs fans collected 416 pounds! In the end, the clear winner is the 100+ food pantries who shop at The Food Bank of Manatee and will get this donated food out into our community to people who need it! Our thanks to Peace Presbyterian Church for assisting us in our efforts to provide for food-insecure families in Manatee County.  

VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT

Lana began volunteering in July of 2024 and has proven herself to be a busy and industrious volunteer logging over 100 volunteers hours. She volunteers to clean and sanitize the totes from our Home-delivered Meals program, but she doesn’t stop there! She also cleans, organizes, and looks for more opportunities to be of service in the Mosaic Home-delivered Meals Warehouse. Her presence makes a huge difference. Always friendly and helpful with the staff and other volunteers, Lana is a shining example of a stand-out volunteer who serves not only people she meets while here, but also our Home-delivered Meal clients who she may likely never meet. We are grateful for Lana's service!

DONOR SPOTLIGHT

Thank you to all of our Tropical Nights Sponsors and Auction Item Donors for their amazing support! We appreciate every donation that helped to make our Tropical Nights event a success!

Thanks to our 2025 Sponsors!

Food Distribution Programs |March 2025

If you are a senior needing meals delivered to your home, we can help! Our Home-delivered Meals program is available to Manatee County residents.

The Food Bank of Manatee, a PLUS program of Meals on Wheels PLUS of Manatee, provides non-perishable food items to local food pantries and soup kitchens.

Our Mobile Produce Pantry will be out and about in the community providing fresh and nutritious produce free of charge.