TAMPA, Fla. — A Bay area woman is devoting her time and energy to helping veterans. Mary McColgan started and runs a nonprofit called Veterans Depot. The organization provides used furniture, household supplies and food mostly to formerly homeless veterans who have moved into a home.

On a recent Tuesday morning, McColgan was supervising several volunteers who were loading up a trailer at the Veterans Depot warehouse in Hillsborough County.

“We have one vet. He needs a small amount of furniture,” she said. “He’s a formerly homeless veteran. He needs a dinette set, a sofa and a coffee table.”

Volunteer Mike Vaughn had the trailer attached to his pickup for the delivery. He’s a big believer in McColgan’s mission.

“It’s just anybody that needs anything, we will drop what we are doing and give 100% to help Mary out in whatever aspect of this,” he said.

Inside the warehouse there is lots of gently used furniture that has been donated. McColgan said some people donate the furniture after they learn about her organization on social media. Others donate based on word of mouth.

She said she recently got some nice Ikea furniture.

“They didn’t like the way it matched with their other furniture. They were going to buy more and they called us,” she said.

Veterans Depot also provides the veterans with cleaning supplies and food boxes. McColgan stages some of those supplies at her home and people then take the supplies to the veterans’ homes.

McColgan said starting and operating Veterans Depot has been life transformational. She had become disabled after a back injury at a previous job. She slid into depression and wound up getting a DUI. She did community service at an American Legion post and got interested in helping veterans.

There is a lot of hard work involved with her mission, but she says it’s worth it.

“It’s heartwarming to see how happy they are to know that people really do care. And that’s my biggest project to know we care,” she said.