When Brooke Thomas was just 7 years old, she started spending her own prepaid lunch account money to buy food for classmates at Centennial Elementary School in Dade City who couldn't afford snacks. That quiet act of generosity has since grown into the Thomas Promise Foundation, a nonprofit now helping feed more than 1,600 children every week across Pasco County.
The foundation, founded the year after Brooke began helping her classmates, was born after adults around her recognized the community's broader food insecurity problem, according to Tampa Bay 28. Brooke's mother, Dianna Thomas, has said Brooke was simply trying to help children who could not buy snacks of their own. Founders Dianna and Wade Thomas launched the initiative in 2012 after discovering their daughter was giving away her lunch money, an origin story detailed by the Tampa Bay Times, which also reported that a high school survey at the time found nearly 9% of local students said school lunch was their last meal of the day.
What started small has become something far larger. In its first year, the foundation helped just 55 children at one school; by 2021, it had distributed more than 1 million meals to food-insecure Pasco County students since its inception, according to reporting by The Laker/Lutz News. The organization now serves 35 schools, packing and collecting food throughout the week to prepare weekend meal bags for children who lack access to school meals once classes let out on Friday.
How the Weekend Food Bags Are Built
The foundation's weekend packages are custom-designed with items like macaroni and cheese, applesauce, granola bars, and cereal, creating six full meals light enough for elementary students to carry home in their backpacks, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Volunteers pack the bags each week so low-income children have something to eat when school meal programs aren't running.
Brooke, now nearly 23, remains involved with the foundation she helped inspire and has said she wants to help others. She has also said she plans to expand the foundation's mission into other counties beyond Pasco. Joseph Simmons currently serves as the foundation's executive director, according to Tampa Bay 28's report.
Institutional Recognition Fueled Early Growth
The foundation's growth got a major boost in 2015, when the Tampa Bay Lightning named 11-year-old Brooke a “Lightning Community Hero,” presenting the foundation with a $50,000 grant and drawing national media attention from outlets including People and Good Housekeeping, per the Tampa Bay Times. That recognition helped expand weekend backpack deliveries from a single elementary school to dozens of schools across the county.
Today the nonprofit relies on a mix of donations, grants, and fundraisers, including grant writing and support from groups like Suncoast Credit Union Foundation and United Way Pasco County, according to financial filings compiled by Cause IQ. Those filings show the Thomas Promise Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) formed in 2012 in Dade City, reported $282,421 in revenue against $301,507 in expenses for its most recent fiscal year.
Bellamy Brothers Headline Saturday's Fundraiser
The foundation will hold its biggest fundraiser of the year Saturday, featuring a dinner and concert with country music duo The Bellamy Brothers. Howard and David Bellamy are Pasco High School graduates from nearby Darby who have hosted annual benefit concerts at the Pasco County Fairgrounds for the charity, according to The Laker/Lutz News, which noted the brothers gave their first public performance in Dade City in the late 1960s before racking up 20 No. 1 country hits. Information on the fundraiser is available online.
Dianna Thomas has said the need for the foundation's services continues to grow in Dade City and surrounding communities. That need is backed by county-level data: roughly 11.1% of Pasco County's population, an estimated 67,000 residents, lived below the federal poverty line between 2020 and 2024, according to USAFacts. Census data compiled by World Population Review similarly shows Dade City, the Pasco County seat where the foundation is based, has a poverty rate exceeding 11%.
Rising Lunch Costs Add Pressure on Families
The pressure on working families has intensified as school costs rise. The Pasco County School District introduced a policy raising student lunch prices by 5% annually starting with the 2025-26 school year, pushing elementary meals to $3.40 and high school meals to $3.95 due to rising operational costs, according to WUSF. While students who qualify for free or reduced meals are shielded from the increase, the rising prices widen the risk gap for working families already struggling with weekend hunger.
That struggle isn't unique to Pasco County. The Florida Policy Institute added child food security as a core evaluation category in its 2025 Child Well-Being Report, identifying childhood food insecurity as a top policy concern across all 67 Florida counties, WUSF reported separately. The report found that child food security directly affects academic performance, physical health, and long-term economic mobility, underscoring why local efforts like the Thomas Promise Foundation continue to expand more than a decade after one first grader decided to share her lunch money.
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