Helping Hand of Hope has announced that beginning September 1 proof of income will be required for all services including food boxes, personal hygiene bags, and the pet food pantry.
Helping Hand of Hope Executive Director Hope Burke says the policy is not a new one, but rather a return to pre-pandemic standards.
“When COVID started, we know that there were so many people losing jobs, and there were so many people going on unemployment and different things like that, and food stamp offices were getting backed up, so we had lowered our guidelines to where people didn’t have to bring anything when it came to our food boxes,” Burke said.
Burke says the policy change is necessary in order to serve as many people as possible in good faith, as demand at the organization has boomed.
“We’re starting to see such a huge increase of food, pet, hygiene, all of these things that where we were used to doing 400 to 500 food boxes a month we’re hitting almost 1,000,” Burke said.
As demand increases, anybody wanting to support Helping Hand of Hope’s mission is welcome to reach out.
“They can go to our website, www.helpinghandofhope.org, or they can always call us at 270-769-3092 and ask to speak to me,” Burke said. “I am always willing to show someone around, show them the moving parts of what we do, how it looks, how our numbers are increasing, and what all of that looks like.”
The policy change does not apply to USDA food bags, which are available regardless of income level.
