TAMPA, Fla. — When a Pasco County woman moved from New York to Florida, she didn’t have any plans to retire and take it easy. Miriam Soto-Burgos came with a dream to help people.

Every Wednesday you can find Soto-Burgos and her daughter Mickie Burgos-Rivera at the Metropolitan Ministries facility in Hudson picking up food to take back to the church that Soto-Burgos founded in Hudson.

It’s called God’s Workshop. A small army of volunteers unloads the food and water in the trailer and takes it into the church. Volunteers set up the food on tables for the homeless and disadvantaged people, who will fill up boxes to take it away that evening.

Soto-Burgos had spent decades working with the homeless and other people in need in New York City. When she sold her home in New York, she said she used half of the proceeds to purchase a modest home in Pasco County and the other half to open her ministry.

She has a tender heart for people in need.

“We love them just like brothers and sisters,” she said. “We hug them, you know, no matter what they look like. No matter their condition, we will give them a meeting place and a hug from Jesus through us. We are His hands and feet.”

Soto-Burgos said she developed her desire to help other people after a difficult home life as a child that included domestic violence and alcohol abuse.

Her daughter Burgos-Rivera is inspired by her.

“She does everything with all her heart. We were told when we moved here to Florida before we left New York that most people come to Florida to retire. Well, she says, ‘I’m going to Florida to work,'” said Burgos-Rivera with a laugh.

“I don’t want to retire,” Soto-Burgos said. “There is too much need in the world for me to sit around and do nothing.”

Soto-Burgos has a dream of starting a small school at her ministry to help neighborhood children. She has started a fundraiser to move that dream forward.