Kentucky Bank Donated Funds to God's Pantry for Purchase of FEMA Meal Kits

FRANKFORT (January 16, 2018) — Commissioner of Agriculture Ryan Quarles praised Community Trust Bank for fighting hunger during the winter holiday season by donating $25,000 to God’s Pantry Food Bank in Lexington for the purchase of surplus meal kits from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in December.

“In Kentucky, we are blessed to have businesses that are good corporate neighbors and understand the hunger crisis that our state faces,” Commissioner Quarles said. “In Community Trust Bank, Kentucky has a corporate citizen that steps up time and time again to feed hungry Kentuckians.”

The federal General Services Administration (GSA) informed all state surplus programs in late November that FEMA would be transferring the surplus meal kits, and the Division of Surplus Property in the Finance and Administration Cabinet informed Bill Wickliffe, director of the KDA’s Food Distribution Division. KDA staff contacted leaders of God’s Pantry in Lexington and Feeding America Kentucky’s Heartland in Elizabethtown to ask if they would be interested in the surplus food. Commissioner Quarles wrote a letter to the GSA asking the agency to give Kentucky’s food banks priority to receive the meal kits.

KDA and Finance and Administration Cabinet employees helped the food banks complete the required paperwork. The food banks began placing orders with the Division of Surplus Property on Dec. 6. Commissioner Quarles held a news conference on Dec. 20 in Winchester to announce that the food banks were receiving 314,496 meal kits at a cost to the food banks of $65,000, a fraction of the original $1.88 million cost.

After learning of the opportunity, Community Trust Bank acted to support God’s Pantry, which serves 50 of Kentucky’s 120 counties.

“We’re humbled and honored to be able to assist God’s Pantry and the Kentucky Department of Agriculture to serve those in need,” said Mark A. Gooch, President and CEO of Community Trust Bank.

“True to our name, Community Trust Bank strives to make a positive impact on the communities that we serve,” said Assistant Vice President John Senter of Frankfort. “We are grateful to Commissioner Quarles and his team for making this happen, and we are pleased to lend a hand to our fellow Kentuckians.”

Map the Meal Gap 2017, an annual study by Feeding America, revealed that one in every six Kentuckians – including one in five children – was food insecure in 2015, meaning that consistent access to adequate food is limited by a lack of money and other resources at times during the year.

For more information about the Hunger Initiative, go to kyagr.com/hunger.