LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Civic leaders and volunteers from across Kentucky piled onto the concourse of the Central Bank Center to pack up 640 boxed meals for 640 Fayette County residents in need.
“Food insecurity impacts people, 24/7/365. In central and eastern Kentucky is 265,000 people across the state,” God’s Pantry CEO, Michael Halligan said of the number of people who are food insecure.
The Kentucky League of Cities joined in today’s operation, allowing for the various city and county leaders to see first-hand, the degree to which food insecurity is an issue.
“It gets their mayors and city council members and county commissioners involved so they see how food insecurity impacts the state and take it back locally to see if they can impact it in their hometown,” said Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner, Jonathan Shell.
Mr. Shell’s office can call on federal programs to help stock the shelves from time to time, not to mention the access they have to Kentucky’s famers who might grow a surplus from time to time.
“We have several federally funded USDA programs where we have funds that come down that we can administer to help food banks of Kentucky to buy local, fresh food to put into boxes,” Shell said.
A total team effort is required to feed the more than 700,000 food insecure people across the state. His office does not put more effort into this campaign just during the holiday season. The crisis is simply more pronounced during those months, but no more or less important during any time of year.
“Imagine for a moment we were trying to do this work with employees we were paying,” Halligan stated. “The cost would be substantial. “Just last year, at God's Pantry, (we had) almost 5,000 volunteers providing more than 33,000 hours of service,” he said.
Halligan offered a lot of numbers both about his volunteers and the hunger crisis, but one in particular stood out.
“Of the 25 most food insecure counties in America, 10 of them are here in Kentucky,” Mr. Halligan noted.
