Knox considering a ‘harvest’

Sat, May 17 2008

— By Samantha Swindler / Managing Editor
Organizers hope Tuesday’s chamber of commerce meeting was the beginning of a new “harvest” for Knox County and southeastern Kentucky.
Guest speaker Tim Root, chairman of Kentucky Harvest based in Louisville, spoke about his organization’s efforts to fight hunger across the commonwealth.
He said the average age of a homeless person in the United States is 9 years old.
“We could spend half a day talking about why that is,” Tim Root said, “but it boils down to babies having babies... Hunger has just become a different animal in our nation, and it needs people like us here today to help with that.”
In the U.S. — where food is abundant but not always allocated to those who need it — Kentucky Harvest pairs restaurants, cafeterias and grocery stores that have left-over or unused food with food banks and shelters that can use it.
Knox County leaders hope to start a local chapter of the program.
“We are not a food bank,” Tim Root said. “There are no warehouses with Kentucky Harvest. We are more of a logistics group.”
Kentucky Harvest organizes a volunteer network to pick up and deliver the food to where it’s needed.
Stan Curtis founded Kentucky Harvest in 1987 after being inspired at a Morrison’s Cafeteria in Louisville. He learned that trays of cafeteria food were constantly refilled — and the untouched food was simply thrown away. He envisioned an organization that took that food to the people who needed it.
The first food ever delivered by Kentucky Harvest was 10 gallons of soup transported in the trunk of Curtis’ car.
Since then, Kentucky Harvest has provided 43 million pounds of food to the needy state-wide — but it’s always stayed true to its roots. There is only one paid, full-time employee for Kentucky Harvest, and the organization, Tim said, is interested in “food raising, not fund raising.”
“It’s not a government regulated, bureaucratic, red-tape conglomerate,” he said. That’s partially because the federal “Good Samaritan Law” protects businesses that donate food from being held liable if anyone who receives it becomes ill. The organization also accepts non-perishable food donations, which are given directly to food pantries.
Also, because Kentucky Harvest receives no government funding, it isn’t bound by federal food pantry requirements.
In 1989, U.S. Harvest was formed after syndicated columnist Ann Landers wrote a story on the Louisville organization’s success, and calls flooded the headquarters from communities looking to start similar programs. Since then, the idea has spread to 125 cities, 43 states and seven countries.
Two years ago, Kentucky Harvest held a “Millions in a Month” event seeking to raise 11 million pounds of food across the commonwealth. It garnered 13.2 million pounds — 116,000 of which came from southeastern Kentucky.
Tim’s father Don Root is a Knox County native and currently lives in London. He is the southeastern Kentucky representative for Kentucky Harvest and helped bring attention to the need for a Knox County harvest program to Jim Dorn with L&N Credit Union in Corbin.
L&N Credit Union, which has partnered with Kentucky Harvest in Louisville, sponsored Tuesday’s chamber luncheon and invited the guest speakers. In addition to laying the foundation for a Knox County Kentucky Harvest group, the luncheon also raised 2,435 pounds of canned goods for Barbourville’s Christian Life Ministries. Part of that food was brought in by chamber members, but the majority was donated by L&N Credit Union.
Christian Life Ministries — the only USDA approved food pantry in Knox County — feeds approximately 4,300 local people a month through its pantry, and serves 572 hot meals at its kitchen.
Last week, Kentucky Harvest brought 50,000 frozen White Castle burgers to Christian Life Ministries, and that’s only a portion of what could be accomplished with a locally-based Harvest board.
Dorn said the next step in forming a local Kentucky Harvest group will be organizing a board of directors and finding volunteers who will deliver food. A sign-up sheet was passed among chamber members Tuesday for those who would like to volunteer, and more meetings are planned for the future.
“I hope there’s been a seed planted here that will grow,” Tim Root said.
“You can start with a Sunday school class, you can start with a chamber meeting. Start small, but look at this as a southeastern Kentucky thing when you look five, 10 or 15 years down the road.”

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