Winter Is Coming: Helping In Lexington, KY

*This post is has been compensated by Social Fabric and Inmar Intelligence as part of the October 2021 Ideas That Matter Campaign. All information and opinions are mine. #InmarIdeasThatMatter

We’re into cooler weather and the full swing of fall. I don’t want to rush it, but that means winter is approaching us pretty fast. While winter means fun in the snow, pretty landscapes, and the holidays for most of us, for some people in our community it is the worst time of the year. While being without housing and a stable food source is most definitely difficult all year round, the cold winter months are often the worst time for this. On that note, I wanted to highlight some of the ways that local non-profits are offering help to those this year, and how you can help as well. *Note that COVID-19 may affect some of these opportunities. Check individual non-profits to be sure.

The most well known place here in Lexington is God’s Pantry Food Bank, and that is for a reason. This year, they distributed over 10 million pounds of food in just the 3 summer months. One of their biggest drives are the Thanksgiving and Christmas meal boxes. God’s Pantry often welcomes many volunteers in different programs including making and distributing the holiday boxes, warehouse volunteering, working at outposts, and delivering food. All of these opportunities are found here on their site. In addition, you can also host your own food drive, advocate in your local government, and donate monetarily. Their site also lists other current opportunities, like restaurant sales that are currently benefiting them, or Amazon Smile donations.

But God’s Pantry thankfully isn’t the only non-profit helping the shelter and food insecure of Lexington. Here are some other non-profits and their volunteering opportunities:

-Arbor Youth Services works to ensure all youth are safe and their needs are met. You can do a number of things to help at Arbor like mentoring youth, yardwork, and maintaining safe sites. They also take a number of physical donations, all found on this page here.

-Lexington Rescue Mission helps those in need of food, clothing, and financial assistance. You can apply here to various volunteering positions including serving meals, delivering furniture, helping job seekers, or just being a friend to many of the people the mission benefits.

-The Catholic Action Center works to help those who are disenfranchised, hopeless, and left out of social service systems. They offer meal services, help with second chance landlords and moving teams, and even help with pet care. The page to reach out and help is found here.

-The Community Action Council works to help create a pathway out of poverty. They have several areas to volunteer in, including help with senior and child development centers, help with fundraising projects, and help during special events, found here.

-Glean KY works to take extra food that may be wasted and delivers it to food insecure areas where it can be distributed. The volunteer opportunities here include signing up to help these food waste opportunities at farms and groceries, being on the rapid response team to respond to these immediately when needed, or even to dedicate part or your garden to Glean. Page for volunteer instructions is here.

-Meals on Wheels helps provide food to those who cannot make their meals themselves. You can help pack and prepare, or deliver and provide these meals any weekday. Information on volunteering is found here.

-Mission Health Lexington provides charitable healthcare to those in need around Lexington. This one is a bit more specific so there are less general volunteer opportunities, but they do have yearly events that they probably need volunteers for, in addition to accepting physical donations such as vision care and dental items. Information is found here.

-The Nest helps individuals and families in crisis, facing adversity, or with unexpected needs. Volunteering can include sorting and putting together care kits, reading to children’s groups, or helping out with specific sponsored events throughout the year. Their volunteer page is found here, but they also have a more ways to help page that I thought was informative found here.

-Lighthouse Ministries specifically works to help feed the homeless throughout Lexington. Here, you can donate your time to cooking and serving meals or donate your resources through items to help meals such as food and dishware.

-Habitat for Humanity helps provide safe and affordable housing for families. They offer volunteer service such as house building, house repairing, disaster-corps, and restore work. Here is the Lexington page.

-Room In The Inn is a winter shelter program for homeless men here in Lexington through local churches. Most of their volunteer work comes through congregations at the churches that open their doors, but they also take monetary donations here.

-The Salvation Army aims to help people however and whenever they can, wherever they can. They’ve got endless volunteer opportunities, including food pantry work all the way to running music programs. You can also donate your old items and clothes here. The Central Kentucky page is found here.