The Kentucky Department of Agriculture has secured a USDA grant to purchase freezers and refrigerators for 52 food pantries statewide. These appliances will be used to keep food fresh during the COVID-19 pandemic. The KDA purchased 32 chest freezers and 24 refrigerators with top freezers using $25,000 from the Emergency Food Assistance Program.
This is a recent step in Commissioner of Agriculture, Ryan Quarles’ Kentucky Hunger Initiative to link farmers to charitable organizations and government programs.
Commissioner Quarles stated, “the freezers and refrigerators are helping food pantries preserve donations of perishable items such as eggs, meat, and milk so they can be distributed to food insecure Kentuckians at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has cost many their jobs, worsening our existing hunger problem.”
Feeding Kentucky reaches approximately 1 in 7 Kentuckians and distributed 86 million pounds of food in 2019. Tamara Sandberg, the executive director of Feeding Kentucky, said the increased storage capacity “could not have come at a better time.”
The organization has seven member food pantries that serve all 120 Kentucky counties with partnerships in 800 local food pantries.
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