Lancaster, KY (April 16, 2020) - At 12:28 p.m. on Monday the Garrard County Food Pantry posted on Facebook that they had a shipment of apples, mixed fruit, milk, ice cream, portioned meals and peppers. All eligible families were invited to drive in. 

By 1 p.m. the entire rear lot of the pantry was lined with vehicles stretching back to Buckeye Road. By 5 p.m. the volunteers had loaded 225 vehicles with fresh produce.

Families can come in monthly -- the last Thursday and Friday of the month specifically -- for food boxes. But when it comes to fresh produce: “When we get it in we post on the pantry’s Facebook page what we have and say, ‘come and get it,’ ” explained pantry director Gregory Cash.

Here lately there have been a lot more Garrard Countians heeding that call.

In December of 2019 -- a busy month for any pantry due to the holidays -- Gregory Cash and his volunteers handed out over 89 thousand pounds of food. Compare that to the span between March 5 (just prior to the business closures and coronavirus economic chaos) andTuesday? 190,502 pounds had been placed in needing homes. Do the math and that’s a daily increase of nearly 66 percent -- or two-thirds more food being taken in and going out to homes that otherwise may have gone hungry.

“Before this our numbers were still slowly increasing,” Gregory Cash explained. “We had almost 800 families and it was a struggle. People were hurting before this pandemic and this has made it worse. When you’re living check-to-check, something like this is catastrophic.”

Serving around 750 Garrard County families was a struggle to begin with, and the situation at the pantry was dire.

“Before all of this happened we didn’t know if we were going to make it past the next month,” Gregory said with a defeated tone. “Monetary donations had pretty much stopped. Our electric bill was almost $500 a month in the winter. I had put on Facebook, ‘Look, we’ve got 200-something dollars left in our account and we’re going to have to close if we don’t get donations.’ That was just before this pandemic.”

Since that point the number of eligible families that have filed has spiked to 1,176, -- more than a 50 percent increase -- in the matter of a few weeks. One would think the added demand on the struggling non-profit would crush it, but actually the opposite happened.

“Because of this -- and I hate to say it like this -- we are getting more food coming in,” Gregory Cash said. “It’s a blessing in a way because we’re able to get more out to the families. There’s more awareness now than there ever was. We’re having people driving by here and seeing the line of cars and they stop and give donations.”

The Garrard County Food Pantry is an affiliate of God’s Pantry based out of Lexington. When the unemployment situation began to turn south, the business partners and benefactors of God’s Pantry immediately stepped in, donating record numbers of goods, services and cash to support the network of food pantries and food banks across the Commonwealth.

Garrard’s pantry immediately began being able to increase their product runs. It went from barely being able to keep up with the demand for the normal needs of the county to now adequately serving a sudden swell of in-need citizens.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shined a bright light on the issue of hunger being just one paycheck, one event, one tragedy away -- “a blessing” in an odd way as Cash put it -- but the hope is that the awareness doesn’t fade as this unprecedented emergency begins to fade as well.

The current situation was compared to acts of compassion during the holiday seasons, when the desire to be charitable increases, though suffering exists outside of just Thanksgiving and Christmas.

“This is all year long,” Angie Cash, Gregory’s wife and the pantry’s chief operating officer, reminded. 

A dropoff of generosity to the status quo as everyone’s lives return to normalcy would be detrimental for the pantry and the people they serve, leaving them with the same grim situation they were in just a couple months ago.

Changes have taken place rapidly from the process of pickups to even the qualification guidelines themselves. The Kentucky Department of Agriculture announced that through at least April 30, the percentage of income compared to the national poverty rate needed to be eligible for food dispensary benefit has been enlarged from 130 to 185 percent. Previously, for example, a household of three would have to bring in less than $2,353 per month to qualify. That limit is now $3,349.

Applying for relief is a simple process. The pantry is open Monday through Friday from 10-5 and Saturday 12-2 (though lately those hours are usually extended). Identification, proof of residence and proof of income (such as a recent pay stub) is all you need. Any questions can also be directed through the pantry’s Facebook page.

When citizens come through the pickup line they are instructed to stay in their car while volunteers load, in order to maintain social distancing. 

“It’s tough because we have a lot of huggers,” Angie grinned. She handles the filing and maintenance of records for each household that qualifies for services and has seen several new faces (about 20 to 30 more a day) with the same glazed-over expression of insecurity.

“We’ve had a bunch come through who have had steady work for the last 20 years and now they have nothing,” Angie explained.

Fear and uncertainty seem to be a common theme in the caravans that commonly encircle the building on 209 Richmond Street.

“This pandemic is just scary for everyone,” Gregory said. “We’ve got so many people trying to get unemployment - confused by what they qualify for and don’t. A backed up system leaving people in the dark about their future.

“They’re very appreciative but you also see a lot of fear of the unknown. ‘How long is this going to last? What’s next? How do we get caught up from here?’ If they do get their jobs back, how are they going to make up on bills they’ve had to skip?”

Even having to keep people in their vehicle gives the Cashes concern.

“The social isolation worries me a lot,” Gregory explained. “For a lot of the seniors, coming up here or going to McDonalds was all they had as far as getting out person-to-person.”

When Bluegrass Community Action let the Commodity Supplemental Food Program go the pantry picked it up. The program supplements the diets of senior citizens, a particularly vulnerable group right now.

“We’ve gone out and delivered to some of the seniors that can’t get out -- dialysis patients, stroke,” Gregory explained. “Me and Wanda (Hammonds) will fill up my truck and trailer and drive through the apartment complexes going door-to-door.”

Several seniors can’t risk getting around others at stores and have been asking for items like toilet paper and cleaning supplies.

“Julia Diaz and her husband went out and bought these big containers of laundry and dish detergent so seniors can come in, clean out the old bottle and fill them up,” Gregory said. “Just the basic necessities that they can’t get out and get.”

But still no TP.

While things like food drives are certainly appreciated, anyone wanting to help now and down the road will get the most bang for their buck by literally donating bucks -- cash. Because of the connections God’s Pantry has built they can take a single dollar and turn it into 10 pounds of food -- or about eight meals. One dollar! If anyone else goes to the store they’d be lucky to get two cans of Vienna Sausage for less than a dollar after tax.

All positions, including the Cashes’ are 100 percent volunteer and much of the economic burden, such as vehicle wear-and-tear and fuel, falls on the volunteers' shoulders. Odd jobs like mowing and wood chopping are done to supplement day-to-day costs. 

Gregory Cash couldn’t be more complimentary of the group of people who give so much to serve their community.

“Will (Hocker) and Wanda will do anything, like help us go and cut grass so we can get fuel to make pickup runs,” he said. “Tommy and Karla Robison have been doing pickups while my truck has been dead lately, so Tommy’s been taking his truck, using his fuel. Lisa Lear, Robin Adams and Beth Reagan will work their fingers to the bone. It’s a struggle and people have no idea. But they’re here six days a week without complaint… well, okay… with a lot of complaint. But hey, they’re here!”

As is the case with several supplemental programs, there can be an unfair stigma attached to accepting help. But Gregory Cash knows these people well, some since he became director in 2013, and he wouldn’t fight as hard for them as he does if he thought they didn’t deserve the aid.

As he put it: “They’re not looking for a hand out -- they’re just looking for a hand up.”