UK program addresses food waste and food access in Jessamine County

Published 9:04 am Tuesday, June 10, 2025

: Waste Not, Want Not (WiN-WiN) program sign at the Nicholasville Methodist Church. (Photo by Gillian Stawiszynski).

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A University of Kentucky program focused on food recovery, providing access to food and nutrition, and offering nutrition education is now live in Jessamine County.

The Waste Not, Want Not (WiN-WiN) program is funded by a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture through its Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program.

The program, in its early phases in Jessamine County, is being coordinated through the University of Kentucky’s Department of Dietetics and Human Nutrition.

According to program research, nearly 40% of all food produced in the United States goes to waste—approximately 133 billion pounds each year. At the same time, 1 in 6 adults and 1 in 5 children in Kentucky experience food insecurity. According to program coordinator Lauren Batey, the goal of WiN-WiN is to address both issues: reducing food waste and increasing access to fresh produce for families facing food insecurity.

Food is provided to people who need it by the program’s food-distributing community partners in Jessamine County, including Nicholasville Methodist Church which serves a free, nutritious, hot “Manna” meal every Saturday and Bethel Harvest Church which provides weekly grocery baskets to more than 100 families every Thursday, The Jessamine County Food Pantry, which provides goods for folks to bring home, and Revive Ministries which provides hot meals for its participants and also teaches its residents to cook.

The food provided to these programs will be sourced from donations by farmers and home gardeners left at drop-off sites around the county. These donations will then be collected by Glean Kentucky volunteers, who will bring them directly to food distributor partners.

In addition to donation crates at the Wilmore Farmer’s Market in Downtown Wilmore on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon and the Nicholasville Farmer’s Market on 210 East Walnut Street on Saturdays from 9 a.m to 1 p.m., drop-off sites for donations are: St. Luke Catholic Church on 304 South Main Street, Jessamine County Food Pantry on 104 South 2nd Street Suite A, Nicholasville Methodist Church on 303 West Maple Street, and Bethel Harvest Church on 3260 Lexington Road.

Program Director Dr. Dawn Brewer said that the program’s purpose is to create and strengthen a web between farmers, gardeners, and food programs in the community so that “food isn’t wasted. Some people think that when you give to the food pantry, everything will be handed out, and that’s not necessarily true. Say the food pantry gets 50 pounds of limes; what do they do with it? They can take it to Bethel Harvest,” Brewer said. By strengthening connections between these programs, WiN-WiN is helping to ensure that nothing goes to waste.

In addition to Brewer and Batey, the WiN-WiN program leadership is completed with Dr. Tammy Stephenson, Chair of the University of Kentucky’s Department of Dietetics and Human Nutrition.

Brewer said that growers have already started leaving donations in collection crates at the Wilmore and Nicholasville Farmers’ Markets. She knows that Jessamine County farms tend not to have much excess. Produce is sold as is or in some sort of can or preserve. “They’re trying to make money from this, and they’re trying to do their best with everything they grow. And they are smaller farms. They are awfully generous,” Brewer said.

Although Brewer encourages all growers to participate and donate what they can, she emphasizes the importance of home gardeners’ participation. She said an organizer of a local farmer’s market told her that home gardeners may have more excess than the farmers. Brewer wants home gardeners who have had to throw out excess produce to find this program to have a way to fight food waste.

Although produce is the primary focus of the program, WiN-WiN also accepts dairy, meat, baked items, shelf-stable foods, and prepared foods. Brewer said people at her church, St. Luke, offered hamburger meat and bread, which she gladly accepted. All of the drop-off sites have freezers and refrigerators available for individuals who wish to donate meat from their farms.

“I’m trying to tell people it’s fine if it’s five tomatoes. I’m not looking for a bushel. If you have a bushel, bring a bushel. If you have too much that’s too much to haul, let us know, and we’ll get some volunteers out there. I mean, I was picking kale this morning from somebody’s garden,” Brewer said.

In addition to produce and food collection, WiN-WiN will provide nutrition education programming and kitchen tools and equipment to Jessamine County’s Revive Ministries and Lexington Foster Home Safe Haven Independent Living.

Revive Ministries is SNAP eligible, so one of the things Brewer did was connect Revive to a Nutrition Education Programming assistant from Garrard County, Lisa Lamb. While learning a lot about these programs, Brewer said they’re learning what these individual locations need from WiN-WiN. “We have wonderful, wonderful partnerships,” Brewer said.

The chef from the University of Kentucky’s Dietetics and Human Nutrition department is also visiting local programs, including Revive, to offer advice and assess the needs of these kitchens.

WiN-WiN has already planned to provide their partners’ kitchens with more thermometers, hot boxes to keep food hot, measuring scoops, and an air fryer. For Safe Haven, residents need tools like cutting boards and mixing bowls.

To get involved,