Thanksgiving is next week and the Christmas holiday season will arrive right after that.

Across the Bay area, thousands of struggling families are facing the holidays with little or no food on the table. The goal of Metropolitan Ministries is to change that.

The organization is opening its holiday tent on Thursday at 400 W. Palm Ave. in Tampa. The new tent location is a few blocks away from where it was last year.

Officials and volunteers are loading up the tent with goods for the area's needy families.

Still, Metropolitan Ministries President Tim Marks says the need is great.

"We're serving more and more families and more mature families that are in crisis in our community," Marks said. "We're also seeing senior citizens that are on fixed incomes that need help. And so this holiday season, we're very much focused on those that are experiencing unemployment."

This year, the food pantry got a financial boost from the ministries' cafe and catering business that opened in February.

Now, Marks said, comes the preparations for serving thousands of meals during the holidays.

"And what's most rewarding for us is to see families that came to us, maybe sleeping in their cars or in crisis and move on with employment their kids are safe and they're back on their own," he said. "We'll keep doing this work, one family at a time."

For information on Metropolitan Ministries, call (813) 209-1000.