The Mim Hunt Story
Mim Salmon Lunsford Hunt returned to her hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, from New York City as a young World War II widow. Raised in a prominent Kentucky family, Mim moved in influential circles in the “Athens of the West” and wanted for nothing. But after working as a social worker in New York’s settlement houses she saw her hometown with new eyes. Poverty and hunger, invisible to her during her youth, were crystal clear and, in Mim’s mind, demanded instant action.
At first she tried – largely in vain – to convince others to help her address the need in their own community. Finally, Mim decided she could wait no longer. One day, she loaded groceries into the back of her station wagon and drove to a Lexington neighborhood where few of her friends ever ventured. Then it happened. Mim Hunt reached into her car and handed a can of food to one of her neighbors in need.
Soon, neighbors were bringing food donations to the place they were calling “Mim’s Pantry,” located at her home on Lexington’s Parkers Mill Road. But Mim quickly corrected them.
“I don’t fill these shelves,” she said. “God does. This is God’s Pantry.” And with that statement, God’s Pantry Food Bank was created in 1955.
Now, God’s Pantry Food Bank – Mim Hunt’s legacy – distributes more than 40 million pounds of food annually, nourishing 250,000 food insecure children and adults in 50 Central and Eastern Kentucky counties.
As we celebrate the Food Bank’s 65th anniversary, we are inspired by the power of one woman whose lone activism started it all. Mim Hunt’s legacy of fighting hunger and delivering hope lives on every day at God’s Pantry Food Bank.
