Feb. 20—A local community leader has not only been nominated to Fox56's Remarkable Women initiative, she is one of four finalists and will be featured on the channel's news program sometime in the month of March.
Brenda Russell, executive director for God's Food Pantry, joins three other women who will be profiled on the Lexington-area station as part of Women's History Month.
The eventual winner will receive a $1,000 grant for their organization, as well as move on to the national competition to be held in Los Angeles.
But before all that, Russell has to be interviewed by the Lexington station, she said.
"They (Fox56) will be doing a featured segment on each woman based on what her contributions are to her community," Russell said.
And when asked whether she is excited to do the television interview, Russell said, "I'm always excited to share the story of what we do. It's not me, I'm just one piece of the puzzle."
She was nominated by God's Food Pantry board member Steve Hall, after Hall saw a segment on the news asking for names.
Russell said Hall asked her if she would be okay with him putting her name in the hat, "And I said, 'sure,'" she said.
"And that was the last time I thought about it, until I got the phone call," she said.
Hall said it was a bit of serendipity that he saw the news report asking for nominations. He realized he knew several women who would be a perfect fit for the contest, and settled on Russell.
"I didn't quite grasp the scope of what they were doing, except that I knew there was a national component to it," he said. He Later found out that Nexstar Media Group, the owners of Fox 56 have around 200 stations across the country, and that each one will be sending their winner to the national level.
"When we found out that she was indeed going to be one of four [finalists] in the Fox56 viewing area, I thought 'That's really cool,'" Hall said. "What that means for us locally is that they are sending a video crew to interview her, let her talk, and see some of the work that's being done, and I'm sure the OakPointe Centre will be included in that."
That center, which is going into the former Palm Beach building, might take several years to come to fruition, but as Hall said, a long-term plan cannot happen unless someone starts planning it now.
The center will aim to expand from God's Food Pantry into a multi-partner gathering of service organizations that could offer services to families in need that range from clothing centers to healthcare to financial planning to shower facilities.
As Russell has said several times, the goal is to provide a "hand up" rather than a "hand out," and to break the cycle of generational poverty.
Hall has been on the God's Food Pantry board for 15 years, and therefore has seen Russell's work during her leadership as executive director, he said.
"I have worked with Brenda the ten-plus years that she has been here, and that's why I felt like I could make a good case for her being selected," he said.
He noted that Russell has been a steady leader during her time there. She has focused "on the primary goal of the pantry, and that is to serve the people of Pulaski County. But on top of that, she is constantly looking for other ways to help people," he said.
One such was was creating Our Place, a multi-county distribution center in which other charitable organizations can purchase clothing and household items for incredibly marked down prices.
The center only serves other organizations — not the public in general — but has managed to send items to places like western Kentucky after the devastating tornadoes that took place in 2021 and the families affected by the flooding in eastern Kentucky in 2022.
"The future is always something that is on her mind," Hall said. "She's an idea person, and sometimes it's a little hard to keep up. This whole thing with OakPointe Centre started out with her thinking and looking for an opportunity to do a wider ministry to our community. The promise of OakPointe Centre is tremendous."
As of yet, neither Russell nor Hall know exactly when Russell's segment will run on Fox56, but Hall said as soon as they find out, they will be getting the word out on social media.
According to Fox56, the broadcast dates in March are the 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th.
The local winner will be announced April 2, an arrangements will be made to send the winner to the national event.
Carla Slavey can be reached at cslavey@somerset-kentucky.com
