"I Don't Have Enough." Let's Talk About That.
We are one of the fastest growing metros in the country. Real estate is booming. The tech corridor is expanding. The food scene gets written up in national publications. And yet the wealth gap here — between the Tampa Bay that gets celebrated and the Tampa Bay that gets overlooked — is not closing. It’s widening. The kids growing up in the shadow of that gap are watching opportunity accelerate away from them in real time, and they’re drawing the only logical conclusion available: this isn’t for me.
Would You Rather Pay $500 Now or $5 Billion Later?
Right now, there are approximately 22,000 young people in the Tampa Bay area who are not in school and not employed. No diploma. No job. No clear path forward.
We don’t say this to shame them. We say it because the data tells us exactly what happens next and it costs all of us more than most people realize.
When a young person falls through the cracks, the community catches them. Through drug rehabilitation programs. Mental health services. Public assistance. SNAP. Incarceration. Court systems. Emergency housing. The estimated lifetime cost to support one disconnected youth, across all of those systems, is $250,000.
That number isn’t an abstraction. It’s the cumulative weight of crisis after crisis — each one preventable, each one expensive, each one paid for by the community that didn’t intervene early enough.
Multiply $250,000 by 22,000 young people.
That’s $5 billion…paid slowly, painfully, and reactively, long after the window to make a real difference has closed.
Catching sparks
What is The Small Magic Foundation and why does it exist?
We are a Tampa Bay 501c3 whose mission is to inspire and empower youth by equipping them to drive change in themselves and their communities, through small acts with big impact.
We exist because there is a gap in opportunities for local kids here in the Tampa Bay area. AND there are very real costs associated with that gap.
It’s Been A Minute
Our “Small Magic Opportunity Grant” will be a place where kids between the ages of 13-19 can create a community project .
Our First Event- EcoFest!
We held our first event, a pop up rock painting booth at the EcoFest at Learning Gate Community School!
