Vehicles lined up at the Warren County fairgrounds livestock barn Oct. 26 where volunteers loaded food and personal care items into trunks, backseats and truck beds.After about two hours, it was over. Nearly 22,859 pounds of food was given to 130 families as part of the day’s mission, a Food Fair event co-hosted by St. Louis Area Foodbank and Agape Ministry of Warren County.“We distributed a lot of food in a short amount of time,” said Michelle Bernth, Agape executive director.Agape, a food pantry and thrift store that serves the underserved, selected the families based on need. The families received a voucher to pick up items at the Food Fair. Some of the items at the event included apples, canned potatoes and green beans, yogurt, Quik Trip salads and cake mixes.St. Louis Area Foodbank Food Fairs come to Warren County once or twice a year. The event rotates among other areas the Foodbank serves.More than 392,000 people in 26 area counties rely on the St. Louis Area Foodbank for food assistance each year. The Foodbank helps provide more than 30 million meals annually and distributes food to area food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and other nonprofit feeding programs, said Ryan Farmer, director of communications for St. Louis Area Foodbank.“This is the land of plenty. We should not have people going hungry,” Farmer said.About 13 percent of Warren County’s population is struggling to buy all the groceries they need.According to Feeding America, 4,520 people who live in Warren County are food insecure, or lack confident access to nutritious food. Of those people, 1,750 are children.Compared to other counties served by St. Louis Area Foodbank, Warren County has a smaller need for assistance overall. Still, food insecurity here seems to be growing.“In the past 12 months, the St. Louis Area Foodbank distributed 388,868 pounds of food and personal care items in Warren County,” Farmer said. “That total was up from 344,690 pounds distributed in the previous year.”Agape receives some of those donations. They also receive donations from other sources to keep the pantry and thrift store stocked and programs in operation.Bernth said, “We feed 1,200 people each month, but it’s not the same people each month. People’s lives change. Their circumstances change.”Clients are often adults whose lives are in transition from job loss or other big changes. They enter the program long enough to get back on their feet and then move on.But also, “about 48 percent are children and 10 to 12 percent are elderly or disabled,” Bernth said.Agape was formed 20 years ago by area churches to provide a single destination in Warrenton for people in need to access a food pantry and thrift store. Now it operates as an independent nonprofit whose mission is to help the hungry, hurting and homeless of Warren County.To help or to be helped, contact Agape at 636-456-4645 or St. Louis Area Foodbank at http://stlfoodbank.org/.Food Fair