- This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- Coming up next, the food shortage is hitting local charities that help the hungry, Nazi demonstrators gather outside a conservative conference in Tampa, the Governor moves against woke corporations, and there's a new effort to reduce Florida's chronic shortage of teachers.

All this and more, next on Florida This week.

(dramatic music) Welcome back.

Several local charities are reporting a shortage of food and money donations this summer with empty shelves at food pantries becoming a bigger problem.

School is out and many children who rely on subsidized school breakfast and lunch programs are at risk.

So is the homeless population living on the streets, and with inflation, everyone's food bill is rising.

Joining us now as Thomas Mantz, the President and CEO of Feeding Tampa Bay, one of the organizations that's stepping up to supply food banks with needed items, and, Thomas, thanks for joining us.

- I'm glad to be here.

We appreciate you having us on.

- So what's the situation with hungry people here in the Bay Area?

Is it on the rise, and what's the cause?

- Well, I think, you know, certainly, we have two fundamental conditions that we're dealing with.

Most importantly today, inflation is on the rise and for you or I, when you think about rent, gas, and food, that might comprise 35 to 40% of our budget.

For the families we serve, that tends to be 60% plus of their budget.

So when you have a crisis that we've had in all three of those areas, rising prices and challenges in all three of those areas, it's the perfect storm for families that we tend to serve.

And so right now you have that short-term issue, but that really sits on top of a larger issue that's been around for a long time, which is, generally speaking, there's a significant portion of our population that is economically unstable to begin with.

We saw it really hit families during the pandemic, right?

That really challenged a lot of families' foundation, economic foundation, many of whom have not recovered.

So now we move into a recession and it's just a very, very difficult situation for families to make their way through.

- We have a rising number of the working poor in this country.

Is that at the center of the problem that you're pointing out?

- Yeah.

You know, "working poor" is generally a term we don't have a whole lot of affection for, but I think it's accurate.

What we would say, it's important to understand, in the State of Florida, around 47% of the families don't make enough money to keep their family afloat, and there are a bunch of different reasons for that.

Sometimes it's the cost of goods and services; sometimes it's the value of wages.

And so, as an ongoing issue, and this is what I was referring to a moment ago, as an ongoing issue, you have a fundamental imbalance inside of households, and as long as that imbalance exists, whenever there's a crisis, it makes it all the worst for those families.

- So tell me, what role does Feeding Tampa Bay play when it comes to food pantries that are around the Tampa Bay Area?

- So, an organization like ours, a food bank in the traditional terminology, we support 450 different charities across our ten-county area, so that's as large as some of the major providers, down to a little church and a small corner of our communities, we make sure that they have the food that they need.

The best example we've ever used to describe our work is we're like the larger wholesaler, and all of our agency partners are retailers, because they're located in their local communities.

We also deliver a lot of food directly to the community ourselves.

And then, finally, an organization like ours also provides other services, because when someone shows up in need of a meal, we often say, that's simply a symptom.

Underlying that, as mentioned a moment ago, are economic challenges.

So we try and provide access to other benefits, services, partnerships, trainings, that build long-term household capacity.

- There have been reports in the last few days about some of the food pantries around the area, having a shortage of food.

Are you seeing that generally?

Is there a shortage of food that's being donated to your organization or food pantries?

And is there also because of the inflation, and the tougher economic times, are you seeing a shortage in financial donations?

- Yeah, there's a lot in that question.

So I would say it's less a shortage of food, it's more an increase in need.

I know that sounds like I'm splitting hairs, but the reality is we've, you know, there has been the same food supply, by and large, grocery stores, farmers donating excess capacity.

What we have is a need that has spiked.

Some of our partners have been more resilient to that challenge; others have not.

And an organization like Feeding Tampa Bay, we're trying to find every single ounce of food that we can from every source that we know of.

And right now demand is far ahead of what resources that we typically have.

So yeah, we are going to see situations where organizations don't have all the food that they need.

It's important to note that even before the current crisis, food banks struggle to meet the needs in their communities, even though for us, if you think about it, relationally, or comparatively, three years ago, we distributed about 55 million meals across our ten counties.

Last year, it was 95 million.

- Wow.

- So organizations like ours have stepped our support up dramatically.

It's just need has remained very high.

And then, finally, the issue you addressed of resources.

I think it's always important to understand, nonprofit organizations go as far as the community can take them.

So donations tend to come in around a crisis.

They don't stay around through the crisis, they come around at the onset of it, and so we enjoy good support, but can always use more, as can all of those other 450 partners I mentioned a moment ago.

- I wanna ask you about kids, and we only have about 30 seconds, but school's out.

A lot of kids rely on subsidized breakfast and lunches - They do, they do.

- at school.

- How critical is the problem before the kids get back to school in a few weeks?

- Well, organizations like ours run afterschool meal programs, summer meal programs, that are in partnership with the federal and state agencies to try and cover that gap, because that is a significant concern.

There are more meals for children out there, but a gap still exists for the kids that we're trying to support.

Because, as you know, there's an awful lot of children that are fed breakfast, lunch, and snack during the school year, at school.

Obviously on weekends and in the summer, we try and pick up that slack, but I would say two areas of crisis for us to really pay attention to are children and seniors.

- Okay, and Thomas, how can people get in touch with Feeding Tampa Bay?

- feedingtampbay.org, And first and foremost, if you need food, you can find a way to get food, your area of our community right up front, and if folks wanna help, there are ways to connect into that as well.

- Thomas Mantz, thanks for joining us.

- We appreciate you having us on, letting us tell the story of our community.

Thank you.

(gentle upbeat music) - Nazi protestors gathered last week outside the Turning Point USA Convention in downtown Tampa, The far-right group carried swastika flags and anti-Semitic posters, along with a sign that said, "This is DeSantis country."

The Governor had spoken the day before at the convention.

Turning Point USA issued a statement condemning the Nazis, but in the past, some Turning Point members have had ties to far-right racist hate groups.

The rally was also condemned by the Florida Holocaust Museum and the two Democrats running for governor.

Charlie Christ issued a statement saying that the demonstrations had no place in our state, while Nikki Fried held a press conference the next day at the site of the hate rally and urged the Governor to speak out.

- And so I am asking you, Ron DeSantis, to denounce the Nazis that were here, here to celebrate your speech inside of this convention center.

They were holding your pictures yesterday.

These are the individuals that we need to make sure are not here in the State of Florida.

So, Ron, you are the leader of 22 million individuals, the third largest Jewish population in the country, We need to stand united.

- Joining us now on our panel this week, Pam McAloon is the State GOP Committeewoman for Pinellas County.

Justin Garcia is a reporter for Creative Loafing, Tampa Bay and Victor DiMaio is the president and CEO of DiMaio & Associates, and a Democrat.

Great to have y'all here in the studio live and in person.

Nice to see you.

Well, let's start with Justin.

Justin, Turning Point USA disavowed the Nazi protest and said, look, these are not our people.

You covered the story.

What did you find out?

- Yeah.

So about Turning Point USA condemning the protest.

First of all, they condemned it, but at the same time, a lot of the leaders kind of spread this misinformation that the Nazi protesters might be Antifa dressed up as Nazis or that they might be Feds, It might be a Fed operation, but that's just objectively not true.

These groups have been seen before all around Florida, in Orlando and in Daytona.

One of their leaders is referred to as the Nazi Grandfather, and his name is David Howard Wydner.

He's been exposed by the Anti-Defamation League in the past.

So this is something that's been around for years and years.

So these are confirmed Nazi groups from the National Socialist Movement from Atomwaffen.

Atomwaffen made a bomb threat in Daytona earlier this year.

So these groups are confirmed Nazi groups just to get that out there first, but on the scene, they were arguing with Turning Point attendees and they were going back and forth.

They were saying the N-word and other horrible things.

And then they eventually left after about like 30 minutes or something like that.

- So, Pam, I think Nikki Fried is calling on the Governor to come out and condemn the Nazis.

So far, the Governor has not done that.

What do you think about what happened there last weekend?

- Well, of course, I was at the Sunshine Summit, so I wasn't there this past weekend, but all I can say is that automatically there were certain groups such as The View automatically saying that Turning Point had a lot to do with it, and they were associated with it, which was not proven and not true.

And they wrote a cease and desist letter and said that they need to apologize because there was not any association that they had with these protestors.

So The View did render an apology as of yesterday.

And I think that was a good thing.

- Should the governor come out and say something about this?

- The Governor, I'm sure, is still doing his homework to figure out what happened.

He's a strong person and he could come out and could say something about it, he could.

But again, he may not have all the facts, but Turning Point does know that they were not, they didn't cause the rioting.

They were not associated with it, and to make these blatant statements that they were, without having the facts, especially from The View, was, to me, despicable.

- The silence was deafening, to be honest with you, from the Governor, and it's not the first time.

Maybe we remember in Orlando a while back, there were some protestors on the interstate waving Nazi flags and things like that.

And it took him, you know, it's the same thing, it's silence, you know, I mean, Trump uses this thing, too, by saying that, you know, they're good people on both sides, which happen in Charlottesville.

I mean, these are things that happen, and they want to have their cake and eat it too.

And frankly, I'm also very disappointed with our own mayor.

I ran into two mayors, former mayors of Tampa this last week, and there was no condemnation from our current mayor, and this has happened at the Convention Center, which the city owns.

- And we should say that Tampa mayor is a Democrat.

- Yeah.

So I'm not, you know, I'm not so much blaming, you know, Donald Trump and DeSantis because they are guilty of not speaking out.

The JCC, which I'm a member of, you know, voraciously came out immediately and said that this was wrong, and so it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out.

It's not a matter what the Turning Point or not with Turning Point, the fact is that these Nazi people showed up with their Swastikas and they were waving a flag and that's the point that should be condemned.

- Justin, you-- - That's exactly correct, and I agree with you on that, yes.

- Justin, you reported in your story that Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA said that Turning Point followers need to outbreed the invading forces threatening our country.

And then you also reported that Governor DeSantis talked about invading forces.

who are these invading forces?

And who are they trying to outbreed?

- So, this ties into the Great Replacement Theory, which is popularized among right-wing groups a lot of times, unfortunately, which kind of characterizes anybody who's the outsider, which could include anybody that the right wing wants to be their enemy.

It could include immigrants, the LGBTQ-plus community, and they pit them as us-against-them kind of scenario.

And that, when you talk about outbreeding, when you talk about the invading hordes, I was there on Friday night and saw Kirk say that in person, you are immediately setting up a stage where you're creating this scenario, where you have the enemy and you know who you have to essentially be opposed to.

- These were the words uttered at the Turning Point USA convention.

Is it dangerous to say that, you think, Pam?

- Well, you're talking about the Great Replacement.

Would you explain that again?

- So, it's a theory that's been around for a while.

It was popularized, unfortunately, by Adolf Hitler, and it's been cited by a lot of white supremacists recently, the Buffalo grocery store shooter referenced the Great Replacement Theory, so did the New Zealand mosque shooter, and several other white supremacists around the country and around the world.

- Hmm.

Well, I certainly don't believe in violence, but what I do believe in, is a right to peaceful protest.

I do believe that, that's a constitutional right that we have, our first constitutional right in the Bill of Rights.

And, again, we had the summer of violence last year and hardly anything was said about that, about where there were people's businesses, their livelihoods, were being virtually burned just right in front of them, and there was also violence against police.

And a lot of, you know, terrible words were said, terrible, terrible sentences.

And yet nothing was said, so why not?

So, I'm not trying to go tit for tat, but-- - A lot was said though.

The Governor said a lot, Fox News said a lot, all the local, all the media outlets across the country, actually said a lot about what happened.

- And I gotta say, thousand of people were arrested after the Black Lives Matter protest.

- Exactly.

- But they were let go, too.

- Okay.

- That's not necessarily true, I mean, the fact of the matter is-- - Some went to prison.

- Yes, and when the practically burned down University Mall, there wasn't a Democrat alive that defended that.

I wanna go on the record by saying that, okay, Republicans are very good about throwing out that last year's riots and Black Lives Matter and all the other, you know, manure that's out there, but the fact of the matter is we did not, you know, this whole thing about defunding the police, or Black Lives Matter, that's not, there's not a Democrat that's in any point of leadership that agrees with any of those things.

- But if that's true, then why did the Governor feel that he had to set the tone for not defunding the police?

- Because Governor DeSantis, just like Donald Trump, they're like two peas in a pod, they're fighting this culture war, and they're both running for President of the United States, let be honest, okay, and they're trying to, they use these little groups, no matter how good or bad they are, to fight this world.

- Sorry to say, we're almost out of time.

- Governor DeSantis is continuing his campaign against so-called woke corporations, his term for companies that try to be socially responsible.

At an appearance this week in Tampa, the Governor announced plans for the state to take action against companies that discriminate against users based on political or religious ideology.

- Our investments of funds should be for the best interest of our beneficiaries here in the State of Florida.

It should not be a vehicle to impose an ideological agenda.

- He singled out corporations such as PayPal, which froze a large donation to Moms for Liberty, and which has cut off accounts and fundraising platforms affiliated with far right groups, such as the Proud Boys, for violating its policy against promoting violence or intolerance.

The Governor also mentioned the crowdfunding website GoFundMe's decision to block donations to that convoy of Canadian truck drivers, which had shut down the country's capital, Ottawa, in January and February to protest vaccine mandates.

Earlier this year, the Governor also attacked the Disney corporation for its GLBTQ-friendly policies.

The Governor, though, has been selective about which corporations he goes after.

This week he said he does not want the board that oversees state pension funds to consider socially responsible investing when it chooses where to put its money.

But after Russia invaded Ukraine, he's been reluctant to call for Florida to divest the $300 million it has in Russian-related companies.

Pam, is the Governor on the right track?

- I think the Governor is on the right track.

It seems to me that big tech has, the left has a big, has a lock, on big tech, and that freedom of speech hasn't seemed to apply equally both ways, it's my opinion, but when it comes to, like he was saying, as Governor DeSantis was saying, when it comes to investments within the State of Florida, there have to be healthy investments that are going to put forth a healthy state pension for public workers, such as your policemen, your nurses, and the various sundry other state workers that are there.

We can't compromise investments and potentially not have a healthy state pension system just because you disagree with a company's, you know, wokeness, or lack of wokeness, as been discussed.

So I think he is on track, and we're talking about ESG.

ESG deals with the environment, it's environment, sustainability, and governance.

So, also known as wokeness.

- All right, so, and Victor, wokeness is also socially responsible, when you talk about the environment or socially sustainable, you're talking about socially responsible investing, but Pam says, look, just get, go for the best investment.

What do you say?

- Well, we have historically as far as pension fund, when South Africa was supporting apartheid, we made a conscious decision to not pull monies out because of whatever we had going on in South African investments.

So it's not new or unusual to do that.

We, you know, it's investment fund, there's a thousand things you can invest in.

If Russia is acting the way they are, and we decide to pull out of it, there's nothing wrong with that.

I mean, we're not hurting the investment fund by trying to do the right thing socially, which is what I don't even know what the heck woke means.

I mean, Jesus Christ was woke.

I mean, you know, if you wanna be Christian about it, I mean, woke means you you're trying to do what's best for people, and for the environment, I see nothing wrong with that.

- Okay, and we're gonna have to leave it at that.

- But that's a choice that the individual should have.

I mean, electric vehicle versus a gas-driven car.

Some people say, hey, you're woke if you have an electric vehicle, but you're not if you're driving a gas car.

- Well, I have an electric vehicle and it works perfectly fine, - Wonderful.

and I'm very happy with it.

(Pam laughs) - Florida has 9,000 teacher vacancies it needs to fill before school begins next month.

And now, under new state program, military veterans with no degrees can fill the role.

Military veterans who have an honorable or medical discharge will now receive a five-year pass that allows them to teach in the classroom without the usual accreditation or the education requirements that other certified teachers must earn.

The teacher shortage has been an ongoing crisis in the state as more and more Florida teachers leave the profession because of low pay and low morale.

The Governor says this is an opportunity for military veterans to use their skills in the classroom.

Educators and Teachers Unions say it will reduce the quality of classroom instruction.

So Vic, will this reduce the quality of classroom instruction or will this decrease the teachers shortage?

- Well, you know, across the board, it's not just with teachers, with all businesses are having a tough time getting workers in general, so this is not anything new or unique.

Frankly, there's been a nonstop battle with the Teachers Union and the Republican party, and the current Governor, because the Teachers Unions tend to, you know, support Democrats, and they do support a few Republicans, but the fact of the matter is, nothing against military people, they've served our country, did a wonderful job, we support the military.

But the fact of the matter is, you're lowering the standard a bit to get teachers just in the door to teach the kids.

And if that's all the option they have, you know, that's what we're gonna have to live with.

- Justin, what do you think about this idea of giving military veterans a chance to teach?

- So, I know that teachers around the state are speaking out against it.

I've met several teachers from around Tampa Bay in person who have shown up to protest, not necessarily this in particular, but other issues with the Governor who want to get paid more, who deserve to get paid more, quite honestly.

And that's the solution, is you invest more in your teachers, you care about them more, you make them feel comfortable in the classroom to do their job, rather than add another factor into their teaching life that makes it more complicated and more difficult.

- Pam, would just have 30 seconds for you, finish it up.

- Okay.

I would just like to say that Governor DeSantis did put forth another $180 million to pump up the minimum salary, the entrance salary, that teachers would receive, you know, being brand new teachers.

And I think there's been overall a $2 billion infusion into teachers' salaries, into doing exactly what you're saying, you know, that the state should be doing, which they are doing.

The other thing that we're not taking in, and I'll cut this short, - We just have 15 seconds - Teachers Unions, let's take a look at what they stand for, and that has to do with pay scales.

Pretty much it's an antiquated pay scale whereby a teacher that doesn't have as much experience is still getting as much as someone else who has has more.

- Okay.

Well.

- I was just gonna say, Florida teachers are notably underpaid compared to a lot of the rest of the country, and that's a fact.

- The culture wars are making it difficult to teach, all these restrictions by the legislature and the Republican-led government.

- I wish we had more time, but before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to?

Justin, let's start with you, your other big story of the week.

- Well, I think somebody else in the panel is gonna take a couple of my stories, so I'll go with one I wrote yesterday about the call for rent control from City Council or any, some kind of rent stabilization, - Tampa City Council?

- Yeah, as we've seen over the past couple of years, rents have skyrocketed and they're unbridled, and normal everyday, working class people are hitting the streets because they can't afford to live in their city.

So they're considering that, it's very complicated.

It'll be an issue with Florida state law, but I think it's a step in the right direction to make sure just everyday people aren't being priced out of living in the city.

- All right, Pam, your other big story.

- Well, what I'd like to follow, what I'm going to follow, is China buying up our land, our agricultural farmland.

And they have purchased over 192,000 acres of agricultural farmland and which they they've spent close to $2 billion.

So recently up in North Dakota, they've purchased more property that's only 12 miles away from one of our military bases.

So I am very, you know, concerned about, we know what China does at intellectual property.

So I'm very concerned about this particular base because it's very droid-intensive and we have our secrets that we need to keep, our intellectual property.

- Yep.

That's for sure.

- Vic, your other big story.

- I actually have two stories.

One, kudos to La Gaceta newspaper, celebrating their hundred-year anniversary this year, and Patrick Manteiga.

And to my friend, Justin, who's done incredible job at Creative Loafing, researching and studying.

A lot of corruption that's going on at City Hall, this story is related to a City Councilman who was attacked and asked to resign on a sexual harassment thing where he had never an opportunity to defend himself.

And a judge just kicked out, just threw out, the lawsuit just a couple days ago, so, or in last 48 hours, so that's a very big story.

And I'd like to point that out, thanks to Justin for doing that.

And also we have a judge named Jared Smith who's running against a Jewish woman, and his wife was in a Christian church the other day and saying that she needs to find Jesus.

So, La Gaceta pulled the endorsement today for Jared Smith and endorsed Nancy Jacobs, that's a big story as well.

- All right.

Well, thank you all for great show.

Justin, you're the hardest working man in show business.

You're writing so many stories for your newspaper.

Hey, thank you for joining us.

You can view this and past shows online at wedu.org or the PBS app, and you can write us at ftw@wedu.org From all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend.

(dramatic music) - Florida This Week is a production of WEDU, who is solely responsible for its content.