God’s Pantry CEO Michael Halligan. Photo by Bradley Quinn
At the end of this month, as many of us are fretting about details like Thanksgiving table centerpieces and which wine pairs best with roasted turkey, thousands of people in Central and Eastern Kentucky will be trying to determine where their family’s Thanksgiving dinner will come from. Approximately one in six Kentuckians is considered to be “food insecure,” meaning that sometime in the previous year, he or she experienced limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods, according to a 2014 report published by Kentucky Food Banks.
“I think the face of hunger would surprise most readers,” said Michael Halligan, the CEO of the Lexington-based food bank God’s Pantry. “It could be your next door neighbor and you don’t even know it.”
God’s Pantry works to find diverse solutions to help address the problem of hunger in 50 counties in Kentucky. The Commonwealth is home to a staggering 11 of the 50 most impoverished counties in the country, based on median income.
“Food insecurity is an economic issue – [it] could be because of unexpected medical expenses, could be because of loss of a job, could be someone who has a mountain of student debt and isn’t able to pay that off as quickly as they would like,” Halligan explained. “Many people are one unfortunate event away from being uncertain where their next meal may come from.”
The work of helping supplement meals for over 600,000 Kentuckians is a logistically complex, year-round effort for God’s Pantry, which enters its 65th year of operation in 2020. There are a couple of times a year when food insecurity increases, however, and God’s Pantry’s efforts increase alongside it: in the early summer, when kids are on summer break from school, and around the holiday season, when individuals are trying to balance purchasing gifts for loved ones with keeping their homes heated and keeping up with normal expenses.
“A family’s food bill increases by as much as $60 to $80 per month per child [during the summer], simply because they are now trying to feed their kids at home, as opposed to during the school year, when they are getting that free or reduced price lunch,” Halligan said. Having the kids home for three meals a day during winter break, on top of other holiday expenses, contributes to increased need around the holidays as well.
Using a “fighting hunger, delivering hope” approach, God’s Pantry employs solutions for both of these times of increased need. Summer feeding sites at places like YMCAs and libraries (33 were in place this past year) are available for children in need to walk to and receive a hot meal at no cost. Then when November comes, a God’s Pantry program called Sharing Thanksgiving ultimately provides Thanksgiving meals for over 5,000 families in Central and Eastern Kentucky. The Sharing Thanksgiving program starts with a popular ticketed event called the Basket Brigade. Pre-registered volunteers come in shifts to the warehouse on a mid-November Saturday (Nov. 16 this year) to put together the non-perishable components of a Thanksgiving meal in assembly-line fashion. As Thanksgiving nears, turkey, eggs and other perishable items are added to each basket, and the baskets are distributed the week before the holiday.
Seasonal spikes aside, the work of God’s Pantry is in full force year-round. Many folks are familiar with the organization for its wildly popular signature fundraising event, Taste of the Bluegrass. Taking place in May, the event features more than 50 food and drink vendors, and brings about 1,000 attendees together to socialize around food. Providing families in need the opportunity to socialize and create memories around meals is an integral part of the organization’s mission, and Taste of the Bluegrass – which raises $150,000 to $200,000 for the organization – serves as a means to not only raise money and provide a great event for the community but to also “subtly make the connection between a fundraising event and the work that we do every day,” Halligan said.
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Located on Jaggie Fox Way, God’s Pantry’s Lexington warehouse is a storage, processing and distribution facility that provides food to more than 100 local shelters, pantries and soup kitchens, as well as four additional distribution centers in the region. Photo by Bradley Quinn
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Located on Jaggie Fox Way, God’s Pantry’s Lexington warehouse is a storage, processing and distribution facility that provides food to more than 100 local shelters, pantries and soup kitchens, as well as four additional distribution centers in the region. Photo by Bradley Quinn
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Located on Jaggie Fox Way, God’s Pantry’s Lexington warehouse is a storage, processing and distribution facility that provides food to more than 100 local shelters, pantries and soup kitchens, as well as four additional distribution centers in the region. Photo by Bradley Quinn
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Located on Jaggie Fox Way, God’s Pantry’s Lexington warehouse is a storage, processing and distribution facility that provides food to more than 100 local shelters, pantries and soup kitchens, as well as four additional distribution centers in the region. Photo by Bradley Quinn
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Located on Jaggie Fox Way, God’s Pantry’s Lexington warehouse is a storage, processing and distribution facility that provides food to more than 100 local shelters, pantries and soup kitchens, as well as four additional distribution centers in the region. Photo by Bradley Quinn
Located on Jaggie Fox Way, the Lexington God’s Pantry warehouse stores, processes and distributes food for four additional God’s Pantry warehouses and distribution centers in the region, as well as 115 Lexington area shelters, soup kitchens, pantries and youth programs. The warehouse processes about $3 million worth of food at any given time, or two to three weeks’ worth for the population it serves.
To keep the process running as efficiently as possible, God’s Pantry runs similarly to large fulfillment centers such as Amazon. Inventory in the warehouse – a variety of food products that were either donated to or purchased by the organization – is available in an online shopping portal and updated in real time for the 400 agencies they partner with to view and order. Once orders are placed, they are gathered and either delivered or picked up by the agencies, which then distribute the food into pantries throughout the state as soon as possible. Because goods like produce and dairy products have short shelf lives, quick turnaround is necessary. The streamlined system makes it possible for 40 percent of God’s Pantry inventory to consist of fresh produce.
“Historically, food banks provided staples: canned goods, non-perishable foods that you would find in a grocery store. Over the last 10 to 15 years, we’ve become much more attuned to everything in the grocery store,” Halligan said. “A canned item may have a two- or three-year shelf life. Milk has 14 or 15 days. The things that we have to do look very different today than they did 20 years ago, when it was [all] non-perishable dry goods.”
The organization’s growth continues into the world of social media. God’s Pantry recently started utilizing platforms like Twitter and Snapchat to better share events with the community, such as produce drops throughout the summer. Another notable way the organization has integrated new technology to further its reach is through the Meal Connect app, which is designed to help connect restaurants and caterers with excess food with organizations that get food to those in need. The app, which God’s Pantry has utilized for the past year and half, also helps reduce waste in the community.
“Restaurants and retail places can use [the app] to inform us when there is food available for us to pick up,” explained programs and partner services director Danielle Bozarth. “They typically use it at Keeneland and UK after football games...The next day [after an event] they’ll let us know what food is left over and how much needs to be picked up and we’ll rescue all that food.”
All the teamwork and collaboration that fuel God’s Pantry aside, Halligan likes to emphasize that the origins and structure of the organization can ultimately be traced to one person making one choice. That first choice that set God’s Pantry into motion came from founder Mim Hunt, a concerned citizen who began distributing food to the needy from an operation based in her basement and station wagon in 1955. Her small operation evolved over the years to become what God’s Pantry is today.
“It started with [Mim] distributing product out of the back of her station wagon to a small number of people in neighborhoods close to where she lived,” Halligan said. “Today, [God’s Pantry serves] a quarter of a million people, 16,000 square miles and 50 counties. One person’s dream translated into all the actions that we do today.”
For more info on God’s Pantry volunteer opportunties, including the Nov. 16 Basket Brigade, visit www.godspantry.org.
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Photo by Bradley Quinn
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Photo by Bradley Quinn