“The Peanut Butter Lady” collects PB for kids in Haiti

MOUNT STERLING, Ky. (WTVQ)-Prayers and donations from those at Journey Church in Winchester have put nurse Tara Young over the top with her goal to be able to feed 300 kids most of them orphans in Haiti every month.

She says, “1,200 pounds of peanut butter a month gives one child one jar per week.”

Over Memorial Day weekend she helped care for them with the local “Hugs From God Mission.” After seeing the starvation there she was inspired to do more when she got back. She says she felt guilty about the left-overs on her plate.

Young says, “A lot of my patients would ask me about my trip to Haiti and I would nearly be in tears so I cried for a week and then I decided let’s do something to help.”

Pastor Garrick Williams with Journey Church says, “It has come from just all over. Some people have gotten peanut butter from their co-workers, just from our congregation, family members and so-forth, and also one of the local grocers put it on sale. So we were able to collect quite a bit that way.”

And everyday more and more peanut butter keeps rolling in.

Pointing to boxes of peanut butter sitting outside her garage she says, “This is the peanut butter that arrived last night that was dropped off in my garage. This is 200 pounds of peanut butter.”

In less than a month Tara has collected about 1,500 pounds of peanut butter after word of her peanut butter project caught fire on social media.

Pointing to the Facebook Group on her iPad she says, “I started with 171 members which was just my friends that I added. Overnight I literally woke up the next morning I had over a thousand. Today the member total is 2,651 members.”

It’s a sticky sweet donation

She says the first shipment will cover, “so basically seven sandwiches and that’s their protein for the day.”

She’s hoping to continue to support for months to come.

“A lot of kids aren’t eating anything at all.”

Tara says besides collecting the peanut butter the big challenge is being able to fund the monthly shipments to Haiti by boat, which will cost about $2,000 per month. If you’d like to donate peanut butter you can organize pick-ups with Tara by joining her Facebook Group. You can also make donations online and become a sponsor with “Hugs From God Missions.”