Funding Grants to Build Network Capacity and Reconstruction efforts in Western KY.

Since December 10, 2021, Feeding America, Kentucky’s Heartland has been aiding in the recovery efforts in Western Kentucky from last year’s devastating tornadoes.

Now we are investing money from our Tornado Relief Fund into the reconstruction and capacity of our partner agencies. Through these grants, we aim to assist our network partners source equipment and materials needed to strengthen their mission and better serve their neighbors facing hunger.

Most organizations that we partner with are small, with few staff, and they operate within a limited budget. Our agencies that were impacted by the tornadoes have faced incredible hardships in the last year. With the cost of equipment and building materials increased, many agencies are struggling to have their losses covered by their insurance claims, affecting their ability to serve communities who need their assistance. 

While our relief efforts have taken many forms over the last eight months – emergency food distributions, expansions of our Backpack Program, rolling credits to agencies for the purchase of food, kitchen restock boxes – our latest efforts will enable our partners to:

• source more nutritious food, including perishables, meats, and dairy products that meet the unique cultural food preferences of guests
• improve operational efficiencies and make distributions easier to manage
• grow and enhance food assistance services to reflect the unique needs of their community
• build strength, resiliency, capability, and capacity to prepare for and weather future economic shocks that increase the demand for food-assistance services

We’ve just wrapped up our review, and are pleased to announce the grantees for this round. We hope that the equipment, tools, and resources provided will allow us to serve our communities stronger together.

Grantee Agencies:

• Calvary Care Center
• First Christian Church Community Grocery Store
• Greenwood Park Church of Christ
• Logan County Good Samaritan
• Ohio County Food Pantry
• MEALS, Inc.
• Pathfinder Pantry at Hopkinsville Community College
• The Salvation Army of Hopkinsville
• SOKY Patriots
• Abundance of the Hart

Director of Development, Stephanie Hester shared, “Through this Capacity Building Grant we were able to award more than $317,000 to our partners, better preparing them for the everyday disaster of hunger.”