Bob Gardner and Tim Durksen have taken over Bob’s kitchen with paper bags.

In each bag goes a sandwich, a fruit cup, a bag of chips, a small box of raisins and a small chocolate bar. They repeat the process about 100 times.

  • Roadside solicitation ban affecting newspaper vendors, panhandlers
  • Nonprofit organization stepping up to help those affected

“We started bringing out bagged lunches on the weekend and it’s grown from 10 to 12 bags a week to 150 bags a week,” Gardner said.

The men are part of an organization called Messengers of Hope Mission. The faith-based group is aimed at helping the homeless in Pasco County. They bring out bagged lunches every Sunday.

“We certainly have the pressure to do more,” he said.

Gardner said the organization has continued to grow since its start in 2014, but now feels the pressure to do even more. A recent decision by the Pasco County commission bans roadside soliciting, seven days a week. That decision went into effect May 8.

The ban covers all types of roadside solicitation, from panhandling to selling newspapers. Many of the people who the organization helps used that extra cash selling the Sunday paper to help make ends meet. That includes people like Mike, who lives in a tent.

“It sucks,” Mike said about the ban. “I’ve lost a lot of customers, a lot of my regulars… they don’t even show up anymore. I’ve lost a good half of them.”

Mike and his friends can only sell newspapers in parking lots. He said he used that cash to buy food or gas for his bike.

Gardner and Durksen met up with Mike on Friday to give him a brand-new tent. They’ve known Mike for almost a year. Mike’s current tent has holes in it “from the raccoons” and this new one will keep him dry during the wet summer months. They also brought him a jacket.

“They’ve helped me out a lot,” Mike said. “Every Sunday they bring us food. They’ve been trying to help by finding different places for me to stay and supplies that I need.”

Durksen said the county’s ban only pushes the homeless out of view, but doesn’t help them.

“The need doesn’t go away,” he said, “The fact that people are not visible doesn’t mean that they’re still not there. They still need the help and it’s up to us to help them because we have the resources to do so.”

Still – the organization wants to do more.

“We’re working hard on trying to get a building we could use to actually house Messengers of Hope,” Gardner said. “So we can have the homeless come to where we are. We would still continue to go out to where they are, but we want a place to have them come in and be able to get their mail or use a computer.”

For more information about Messengers of Hope, check out their website or Facebook.