‘Bringing hope.’ Woman keeps free daily meal service going during KY flood recovery

At 1 p.m. on weekdays, scores of cars and pickup trucks loop around an office building in downtown Hindman toward a small pop-up shelter in the parking lot, where volunteers hand take-out containers of free food to the people.

Kate Clemons has spearheaded the food giveaway for nearly four months in a place badly damaged by flooding in late July, seeking donations until late at night sometimes in order to pay for the next day’s meal.

Ray Baker, 60, and his wife Matilda, 52, whose home was destroyed in the flood, were in the front of the line one day in their 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix, provided by a friend because their vehicles washed away.

“There’s a lot of days we wouldn’t have had a hot meal without her,” Ray Baker said of Clemons. “It’s been helping a lot of people.”

The flooding last summer caused 43 deaths, with one woman still missing; destroyed hundreds of homes, primarily in Knott, Perry, Breathitt and Letcher counties; and caused hundreds of millions in damage.

Clemons, 35, of Hazard, organized deliveries of donated meals to distribution points in Knott County after the flood, but quickly started seeking donations for her own distribution, which hands out hundreds of meals each day.

“To me it’s about bringing joy and giving them hope,” Clemons said.

Clemons said she has a master’s degree in nutrition and was in the process of pursuing a job at Purina before the flood, but has become consumed with trying to help flood victims.

Clemons seeks donations from people and businesses to pay for the meals, which cost about $1,000 a day.

People can contact her through her Facebook page to donate. Clemons said she is sensitive about being accountable; she has donors send money directly to businesses preparing the food, not to her, then picks up the food to take to Hindman for the daily distribution.

Clemons, who said the food giveaway wouldn’t be possible without people giving donations and volunteering, gave out meals at the tent every day for two months after the flood.

In October, she began taking off weekends in order to work on meeting other needs, but since the flood has had to miss only a couple of days for a friend’s wedding and one day because of bad weather.

The meals have included spaghetti, fried chicken, sub sandwiches and pizza.

Clemons said the manager of the Food City grocery deli in Hazard, Rose Herald, has been a great help, coming up with ways to vary the menu and making sure the food is ready.

Clemons said the people who come for a meal have become like family to her.

“Seeing a familiar face with them each day and giving hope that they are not alone and that we are all in this together is very important as we recover,” Clemons said.

Clemons has turned the food distribution into a sort of unofficial social-services program, talking to people while they they are line about what other needs they have.

She drew up forms for people to provide information on flood damage, food and shelter needs and the status of their disaster claim with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

She uses the information to help provide other aid and connect people with help. That has ranged from handing out heaters to getting a wound-care kit for a woman to treat an infection and putting a team of high-school students in contact with a man who needed help cleaning mud out of his flooded house.

Lately she has been trying to get donated building materials for people repairing their houses.

Pamela Carey, who is executive director of the Kentucky River Child Advocacy Center in Hazard and has provided money for meals, went to the distribution one day in order to meet people who might want free counseling to deal with the trauma of the flood.

Clemons is coordinating with Carey on finding a place in Hindman to provide counseling.

“She has offered hope to these people,” Carey said of Clemons. “It’s a time in their life when they have nothing. She puts a smile on their face.”

Knott County Attorney Tim Bates said Clemons has put people in touch with him who needed help appealing denials for assistance from FEMA.

“It’s so much more than the food,” Bates said. “I can’t express enough what she has done for our community.”

Clemons said some people have suggested there is no longer a need for the food giveaway four months after the flood, but she says the need is still great.

People have told her that their natural-gas service hasn’t been restored so they can’t cook, or live in a travel trailer where it’s not convenient to prepare a meal, or face rebuilding costs at a time when the price of materials has gone up, so the meal frees up money for other things.

The flood knocked out the senior citizen’s center in Hindman, so the food giveaway is helping replace meal service the center once provided.

Officials at organizations that provide food assistance in Kentucky said need for food aid in Knott County and others hit by flooding remains significant.

According to God’s Pantry Food Bank in Lexington, which serves people in 50 counties in Central and Eastern Kentucky, there were 3,340 people in Knott County in the most recent count considered food insecure, meaning they lack reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.

With an estimated population of just over 14,000, that’s almost 28% of the residents.

The level of food insecurity was creeping back up even before the flood because of the end of programs set up to help people during the coronavirus pandemic, said Danielle Bozarth, an official with God’s Pantry Food Bank.

The organization saw its highest-ever distribution in the first full month after the flood. That was 4.7 million pounds of food, a quarter of it to the flooded area, Bozarth said

“It’s going to take families a long time to recover,” she said.

Katrina Thompson, executive director of Feeding Kentucky, which helps with funding and coordination for regional food banks across the state that supply local pantries, said the flood increased the need for food aid.

“I think it is filling a need,” Thompson said of Clemons’ lunchtime giveaway.

Clemons said keeping the money coming in has been a struggle. A few times she has had to place an order for food for the next day without having all the funding in place, but hasn’t had to miss a day for lack of money.

“It’s so stressful coming up with the money,” she said.

Clemons sees what she is doing as a calling, however, and believes God has sent people to encourage her when she gets down.

“It’s like every day I step into God’s will,” she said. “I just feel that God has put this on my heart.”

One woman who has come regularly to get food gave Clemons the only piece of jewelry she was able to salvage from the flood, a bracelet with small gold hearts that she dug out of the mud and cleaned.

Clemons wears it every day.

Clemons is looking at something other than a tent to serve from this winter and is trying to figure out ways to make the food distribution more sustainable, such as setting up a non-profit foundation or applying for a grant to open a soup kitchen.

“I’ll keep doing this as long as I can,” she said.