The Love Kitchen accepted seven barrels filled with canned goods from Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs and his parks staff. The canned goods were collected during the 2022 Holiday Festival of Lights at The Cove at Concord Park.
The 24th annual event sponsored by B97.5, ran the entire month of December. It’s always free for visitors, with an invitation to bring non-perishable goods for the Love Kitchen.
This local non-profit provides meals, clothing, and emergency food packages for home-bound, homeless, and unemployed people in the community.
2022 was the first year that monetary donations were gathered to support Mayor Jacobs’ School Mania event. Knox County is attempting to purchase pre-packaged school supply boxes for distribution at the event in July. The $2,157 donations should help purchase more than 70 supply kits.
“I continue to believe that our Festival of Lights is one of our best events,” said Mayor Jacobs. “The holiday spirit it fosters is made better by the donations made by our visitors. The event has helped provide food to those in need for years, but those attending in 2022 also supported student success for the start of the school year.”
The Love Kitchen’s Executive Director, Martin Riggins says, “This donation is wonderful, our volunteers will sort all of the cans and get them ready for emergency food packages.”
Martin Riggins stepped into the job at the non-profit after the passing of his brother, Patrick Riggins. Patrick was President of the Love Kitchen and a volunteer for twenty years. He passed away suddenly in December, 2021. Patrick was very close to the founders, Helen Ashe and Ellen Turner. The sisters founded The Love Kitchen in East Knoxville on Valentine’s Day, 1986. Their mission was to end hunger for everyone.
Before the sisters passed, Patrick told them that he would keep The Love Kitchen going and he promised them he would do that. Now, it’s something Martin will do. “I see that as my duty to my brother to continue that promise that he made to Helen and Ellen to keep this place going. And I take that as a responsibility that I’m not going to fall down on. And Helen and Ellen were so sweet like somebody’s grandmother. Yeah, I see that as my job to continue this regardless,“ says Martin.
Each and every week, the Love Kitchen delivers more than two thousand meals to those who are home-bound and serves over 200 more in-house. That’s approximately 120,000 times a year when someone that could have gone hungry is fed. Martin says they have a wonderful group of dedicated volunteers, but they could use drivers on occasion, as well as monetary donations to keep the lights on.
