Ben Reynolds, a sophomore from Boyle County High School, has been awarded a $500 Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation Youth Grant through Youth Service America (YSA). The grant will support Reynolds in leading a community service project that addresses the issue of childhood hunger.

In 2019, 34 million people lived in poverty in America. As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, 1 in 6 people (more than 50 million people), including 1 in 4 children (approximately 17 million children) in the United States are experiencing food insecurity in 2021. Youth-led activities will take place on Global Youth Service Day, April 25, 2021, to address this issue. Reynolds will utilize the grant money to build and install three blessing boxes in Harrodsburg.

Reynolds is one of 106 young leaders across the country awarded this prestigious and competitive grant to organize projects to help end childhood hunger. Grantees will educate and mobilize their peers around the issue to help end childhood hunger through awareness, service, advocacy, and philanthropic activities. They join millions of other young people around the world as part of Global Youth Service Day, April 25, 2021. Celebrating 33 years of youth changing the world, Global Youth Service Day (GYSD) is the largest youth service and civic action event in the world.

“The Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation is committed to identifying, investing in, and scaling innovative, youth-designed and youth-led solutions to childhood hunger,” explained Joan Rector McGlockton, Chairperson, Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation and Associate General Counsel, Corporate Affairs & Litigation. “I am humbled by the quality and volume of applications we receive each year,” said Roxanne Moore, executive director, Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation. “Helping and supporting these youth grantees – ordinary people that make themselves extraordinary – brings the Stop Hunger Foundation closer to its objective of working toward zero hunger in the U.S. By investing in their efforts on GYSD, we hope to ignite the passion in other young people to join the fight against child hunger.”

Reynolds is a member of the Boyle County High School National Honor Society. He is the son of Allyson and Brian Reynolds of Danville.