Good Hope Mayor Jerry Bartlett speaks to the Good Hope City Council during a May meeting.

GOOD HOPE — In an effort to provide support to local families during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Good Hope City Council voted Monday night to donate $2,000 to the Cullman Caring for Kids Food Bank. 

The donation, which will be coming out of the city’s alcohol fund, was brought to the council by councilwoman Susan Eller, who said the food bank has been seeing more families over the last few months while businesses have been closed.

“They are having a big turnout for people needing food,” she said.

Eller said it would be hard for the city to host a food drive right now with concerns about the virus, but giving a monetary donation will allow Cullman Caring for Kids and its executive director Javon Daniel to go buy more food than the city or its residents would be able to buy on their own. 

“It would actually be a good help for him,” he said. 

Good Hope has its own food pantry in front of city hall, but there isn’t any monitoring of how the food is distributed. 

The Caring for Kids Food Bank makes sure that every family that comes by gets a good mix of foods to meet their needs, and donating to them will help the people of Good Hope and surrounding areas, mayor Jerry Bartlett said. 

“I know we do have a lot of families from this area that go up there,” he said.

Eller also encouraged city residents to continue participating in the 2020 Census, and reminded them that the city is giving away prizes every week to residents who have completed their census and sent their confirmation to city hall. 

To enter into the drawing, Good Hope residents first need to complete their census at my2020census.gov, then screenshot their names and addresses portion of the census and the confirmation page they will see after completing it. Then, they should email those screenshots to admin@goodhopeal.com or by send by Facebook Messenger to the City of Good Hope Facebook page.

Anyone who lives in the Good Hope city limits is welcome to enter, and those who have already completed their census can still enter the drawing by filling out their census again and getting the confirmation number again.

Without a good participation rate for the census, Good Hope will see a decrease in federal funding for things like school meal programs, social services and roads, and the state could lose a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, Eller said. 

She said Good Hope’s current participation rate of 64.4 percent is the highest in Cullman County and is above the state and national averages, but there needs to be a participation rate of at least 80 percent to make sure the city and state don’t lose federal funding. 

“We’re excited about that, but we can’t stop,” she said. “Just because we’re there, we can’t stop, we’ve got to keep going.”