LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The United States Department of Agriculture reports that prices for all food are predicted to increase by 2% next year. The recent trend in high prices is one factor behind the decision for the Louisville Pride Center to open a food pantry.

“We’ve got peanuts, oatmeal packs. We had more candy. It’s been cleared out,” said Sydni Hampton, program manager at the Louisville Pride Center.

She’s a trans woman and helped effort in creating the new food pantry.

“I am 32 years old. I’m learning how to cook now and I’ve been food insecure my whole life. Like from childhood, getting out on my own — I didn’t have anything. My pantry would have spaghetti noodles, macaroni noodles and ketchup in the fridge, and I would combine what little ingredients I had that I could afford from the little pick pack down the road, and I would try to make something,” Hampton said.

Now as an adult, she experiments in her kitchen making high-protein dishes.

“But I didn’t have the education that’s needed to know how to make a nutritious meal, so I was eating garbage all the time,” Hampton said. 

In late August, the Louisville Pride Center partnered with Dare to Care to open this new choice-centered food pantry. They say it’s the first and only secular food pantry in the area.

“I would be a beneficiary of a food pantry if there was one that was secular. And until now, there’s not really been a place for someone like me to go safely, securely, confidently go in and feel like I’m going to get gendered correctly, like I’m going to be listened to, valued, respected. Because most time they’re in churches and a lot of people in the community don’t feel comfortable going in the spaces,” Hampton said.

It’s something executive director Ebony Cross says has been a project for a couple of years in the making.

“One of my main thing was, what was I missing as a young adult or a young teenager that I felt like I wanted to see for the next generation. And that one was the space that we have right now,” Cross said.

While it’s open to the community, they said it’s designed as a safe space for people who identify as LGBTQ+.

“With prices going up, I mean, a head of lettuce used to be $0.69, and now we’re almost looking at $2 a head. And that’s where a place like the food pantry comes in because we can also help those families that may be working families and still can’t afford or are still food insecure with the groceries that they have at home,” Cross said.

The Louisville Pride Center said they usually let people stock up on a week’s worth of food. They also offer harm reduction supplies and vaccine clinics.

“I’m a drag queen and I work at the Pride Center, so I’m like, I’m not I’m not well off by any means. So this to me is a godsend,” Hampton said.