WUKY Partners With God's Pantry, Lexington Businesses to Fight Child Hunger

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 28, 2018) — WUKY is once again partnering with God’s Pantry to fill take-home backpacks for food insecure children in Fayette County during the holiday season. WUKY, Lexington's NPR station and a community-supported service of the University of Kentucky, is partnering with God's Pantry Food Bank and other Lexington businesses to fight child hunger.

For every donation made to WUKY until Dec. 31, Stewart Perry State Farm Insurance, Stoll Keenon Ogden PLLC, Mr. Sparkle Car Wash and UK Federal Credit Union will fill five backpacks of food for children in need through God’s Pantry Food Bank’s backpack program. The sponsors will fill up to 2,500 backpacks for at-risk children with the support of WUKY listeners. This is 1,000 more backpacks than were filled during the program last year.

This program of one gift benefiting two nonprofit organizations began in 2016 when WUKY partnered with God's Pantry and Stewart Perry State Farm. It was so successful, that more businesses have joined allowing for more backpacks to be filled and more children to be fed.

According to Feed America's Mapping the Meal Gap, the child food insecurity rate in Fayette County is 17.1 percent — 10,490 children.

God’s Pantry Food Bank distributes up to 860 bags of food weekly. Each bag contains seven to 10 kid-friendly items of food such as a protein-rich main dish (macaroni and cheese or chicken and rice), shelf-stable milk, fruit cups, granola bars and other items chosen by a registered dietitian.

For more information visit www.wuky.org or contact Robert T. Hansel at 859-257-3272 or robert.hansel@uky.edu.