Tampa Bay foster care nonprofit breaks ground on new 12,000-square-foot center

A Kid’s Place of Tampa Bay, a nonprofit focused on providing housing and support services to youth in foster care in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Polk counties, broke ground on a 12,000-square-foot activity center on Tuesday.

The funding for the activity center is from an $8 million Building a Brighter Future campaign which launched its first phase last fall. 

The MacKinnon Family Activity Center — named after major donor and family of Dottie Berger MacKinnon, founder of A Kid’s Place — is going to be completed by Construction Services Inc. of Tampa and will include a large indoor gathering space for events, rooms for therapy, family visitation, arts/crafts and vocational education, an outdoor basketball court, an outdoor courtyard, and a swimming pool.

“This is a momentous day for A Kid’s Place and another step forward in providing foster children in Tampa Bay with the educational, health, therapy and family services they deserve,” says Beth Bradburn, chair of the A Kid’s Place of Tampa Bay board of directors and the capital campaign’s steering committee in a released statement. “The MacKinnon Family Activity Center will enable us to offer deeper, more frequent and more impactful experiences to help our kids find stability, and to heal and go on to live successful lives.”

A Kid’s Place of Tampa Bay was founded in 2009 and has served more than 1,700 foster children and over 753 families.