The AMEN House is partnering with local churches and volunteers to deliver meals to children throughout Scott County until Aug. 12, after school has started back, to make sure no child goes hungry during their last leg of summer break.
Since the Scott County School Systems’ summer lunch program came to a close at the end of June, churches like Penn Memorial Baptist Church in Stamping Ground and other organizations, including the AMEN House in Georgetown, have been working to feed children across the county throughout the county July and part of August. Michele Carlisle, the AMEN House’s executive director, said her organization was limited on how they could feed children until recently.
“We picked up in July and started serving meals here, congregate style, because that’s what the rules were. About a week into our meal service, the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) changed the rules for how you could use that food, so they switched it to where you could do a grab-and-go instead of the congregate-meal setting ,” she said.
“With that grab-and-go, it just changed everything. Parents could stop in our location above the AMEN House here and grab food for their kids, but it also gave us that opportunity to apply for a mobile route through the same USDA application process. We have been approved for mobile routes, and we actually started our mobile route on Monday.”
What this means, Carlisle said, is that the AMEN House can expand beyond its own four walls and deliver food to children without them having to make a trip to downtown Georgetown where the organization is based. She added parents were struggling to make the trip due to inflation, more specifically noting the high gas prices that have been a burden on many families.
“A lot of what we received here at the AMEN House were children who were already here with their family picking up their allocation of food for the month, and then they would come upstairs and get the kids’ food while they were here,” she said. “Now, we’re going to be able to literally take it out into the communities. We’ve talked with the school system and the family resource centers across Scott County and asked them where we need to go. They gave us a list, so we have targeted those stops.”
AMEN House volunteers and staff are traveling through Scott County communities on Mondays and Thursdays up until Aug. 12. Carlisle said on their first run, the organization was able to connect with over 200 children. She explains that although 200 is a lot of children, she knows there are many more in need of the lunches.
In an interview with the News-Graphic on Tuesday, Carlisle spoke about what it takes to be a volunteer or to work in a place that goes out of its way to help those in need.
“All of my volunteers who come here, there is something that motivates them to come in here every day and do this hard work. For me, from the very beginning, it’s always been the kids,” she said. “I believe that no one in Scott County should be hungry, but especially not our children. None of our children should go hungry. Having this open up and change into something that can be even more impactful hits me in my sweet spot at work.”
The AMEN House has been working with God’s Pantry in Lexington, Carlisle said, who acts as the AMEN House’s “big brother in the food bank world,” handling the federal grants that pay for the food. She said Georgetown’s organization applied to be part of the program God’s Pantry had applied for.
“My guys are running twice a week to pick up the summer feed distributions on top of all the other things we pick up from God’s Pantry, so we’re burning up the roads between us and their warehouse just trying to make all of this work . We requested 9,000 allocations of food to make this work, and we’ve been approved for it,” she said.
With food pouring in, Carlisle said the distribution center in the upstairs area of the AMEN House is gaining traction as more children are in to pick up food. Carlisle said the AMEN House needs volunteers to pull off the mobile meal program, and though she has drivers and volunteers to drop off the food, she will not turn someone away who would like to lend a helping hand.
“We have partnered with Penn Memorial Baptist Church in Stamping Ground. They’ve become AMEN House volunteers, and we’re funneling resources so the kids in Stamping Ground can go to Penn Memorial and pick up this food. We also have a mobile route that goes all the way out to Sadieville, several routes in Georgetown. It’s exciting, and we need to make sure that we’re reaching the kiddos. They do have to come out and meet us at the locations on our stops,” she said.
Carlisle said the AMEN House could use volunteers to help build the bags of meals that will be loaded into cars and delivered to children across Scott County. Volunteers will be working on Saturdays and Wednesdays to build the bags and ready them for transport.
“Honestly, we need volunteers to help load the cars. We have all of our drivers at this point, but this food is really heavy, so we need some strong people who can help us get this food into the car. If people want to get involved, they just need to reach out,” she said.
The AMEN House website is the best way for those interested in volunteering to reach out, she said. Locals can go to AMENHouse.org, click on ‘Volunteers’ once there and fill out the application.
“Our volunteer coordinator will get in touch with people. I’m very blessed to be in the middle of this, and I’m very thankful it has all come together. We’re going to be getting food to kiddos that need it,” she said.
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