The Lexington Fayette County Parking Authority is once again accepting canned food as payment for parking citations. The Food for Fines period runs through December 16.
During this time, people can bring in ten cans of food to reduce their fine by $15. There’s no limit to the number of cans people can bring and past due citations are eligible.
LPA Executive Director Gary Means said in a typical season, they collect 3,000 to 4,000 cans.
“If you hit about kind of in the range of 4,000 cans, that’s about two tons of food. We, altogether, have brought in in the eight previous seasons over 28 tons of food. Which is pretty, pretty impressive, I think,” said Means.
Means said that while people don’t like paying parking citations and fines, this program takes out some of the sting.
“It does bring a lot of smiles to faces and even our staff are enjoying the interaction because most people are pretty happy about what they’re getting to do as they come in the door with their load of cans. And we’ve even had at least one person brought in cans who didn’t even have a citation,” said Means.
In the first two weeks of the program, more than 1,000 cans were donated and $1,800 worth of fines were wiped out.
The collected food will be donated to God’s Pantry Food Bank.
In a sea of partisan news, WEKU is your source for public service, fact-based journalism. Monthly sustaining donors are the top source of funding for this growing nonprofit news organization. Please join others in your community who support WEKU by making your donation.
