WOLFE COUNTY/BATH COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) — The second Friday of every month, hundreds of cars line Highway 205 N in Hazel Green.
A convoy of people waiting patiently to get some much needed help.
Once at the front of the line, each car makes it's way through the human conveyor belt of volunteers ready to fill their backseats and trunks with food.
For some families, it was likely the last food they were able to get prior to Thanksgiving.
“Typically at this mobile pantry, they serve 1,200 families. Sometimes these families, as you can see the line, they started lining up last night," God's Pantry VP of mission delivery Daniella Bozarth said.
"It takes us several, several hours to distribute the food to get to the last car.”
The food drive is put on through a partnership between the Hazel Green Food Project and God's Pantry.
It's one of 20 such mobile food pantry drives God's Pantry lends a hand with every month, leaving a last impact across several communities in Central and Eastern Kentucky.
“It’s vital because it supports my students it supports their families and it supports my community," Red River Valley Elementary School teacher Amy Phipps said.
“They bring several items every two or three weeks for our school that my students take home for their families.”
There are so many hands involved in making the mobile food pantry go.
Of course God's Pantry leaders and a strong volunteer base, but also partners and sponsors that support the cause.
Anthem, for example, just extended it's partnership with God's Pantry through 2026, committing $200,000 to help the many Kentuckians fighting hunger right now.
“In Kentucky 1 in 8 people have food insecurity," Anthem regional VP of medicare Dave Mull said.
"When you’re food insecure, it really impacts your whole health and your ability to live your best life and for us that’s an important piece of the people that we serve.”
The Hazel Green Food Project is one of the hundreds of smaller pantries that God's Pantry helps support across 50 Kentucky counties.
All of them fitting into the puzzle the non-profit uses everyday to try and solve food insecurity.
Another piece is in Bath County where the team at Christian Social Services runs food drives with God's Pantry's help.
“I’ve lived here for 42 years. These people, they’re very thankful for what they get. They’re always telling me ‘God bless you.’ They’re just really thankful," Peggy Brashear said.
The volunteer base in Bath County has continued to work despite taking a big hit earlier this year.
Back in February, their main headquarters was lost to a fire.
Since then, community leaders have helped CSS push through the challenges of not having a headquarters anymore.
Everyone aligned with the shared goal of making sure as many as people as possible have food on the table.
“We need the volunteers to help and you can see we’ve got a lot of volunteers here today," Brashear said.
"They are all on the same mission to help the community."
Danielle Bozarth, who has worked at God's Pantry for the better part of 30 years, can't stress enough how important volunteers are to their work.
Without them, having the power to reach the current amount of people in need would be impossible.
“There are about a quarter of a million people depending on God’s Pantry Food Bank to distribute food. We couldn’t do that with our current staff number. We do it all through volunteers. We couldn’t do it without them," Bozarth said.
If you want to learn more about the work God's Pantry does, volunteer yourself, or find out when and where their mobile food pantry may be near you, click here.
