Hunger is an issue that many Kentuckians face on a daily basis, and is one The Kentucky Hunger Dialogue is hoping to bring more awareness to.
The Kentucky Hunger Dialogue is an annual event which takes place on a collage campus in the Commonwealth. This year it is being hosted at Ashland Community and Technical College in collaboration with the Kentucky Campus Compact, with Kentucky Commissioner of Agriculture Ryan Quarles as the keynote speaker.
Mindy Wilson, an AmeriCorps program manager for KCC, said that hunger and food insecurity exists in every county in Kentucky.
“Hunger is actually quite serious in the state of Kentucky, almost 600,000 Kentuckians struggle with food insecurity, and that’s about one-in-eight. Hunger affects children at a higher rate in our state, about one-in-seven children face hunger,” said Wilson.
Wilson said The Kentucky Hunger Dialogue exists to be a forum for open communication around hunger. It was created by college students who wanted to share ideas regarding hunger and food insecurity in communities across the state.
“Everybody will come to Eastern Kentucky to Ashland Community and Technical College to come together and learn and hopefully come away with ideas that they can bring back to their campuses and their communities,” said Wilson.
The event is to be held at ACTC’s Technology Drive campus on October 6, 2023 and according to Wilson is open to community stakeholders and the public. People can register to attend by September 28 at kyhungerdialouge.org/khd-2023/.