LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – A disaster relief organization has been in southern Kentucky all week helping emergency workers with food aid as they search for a manhunt suspect.

Kentucky Baptist Relief fed dozens of police officers and others who were searching for Joseph Couch.

Currently, the same group is on standby for any emergency relief following a hurricane on the Gulf Coast.

Danger is always present because of the disasters that Kentucky Baptist Relief volunteers face, but this week was very different.

“Normally we don’t have helicopters hovering above us, while there are men hanging around with their guns,” said Karen Smith of the aid agency.

Instead of a storm, it is the alleged actions of one person.

“Here I don’t think we’ve ever felt unsafe. We haven’t. We’re so grateful for the police, the state police, the FBI,” she said.

Baptist Relief was called in when local efforts to collect food for relief workers became too great.

“This time it was about feeding them and comforting them. Listening when they wanted to talk.”

Baptist Aid volunteers always wondered: what would happen if Joseph Couch himself came out of the woods? What would they say and how would they react?

“We prayed that would happen,” Smith said.

Smith says we pray he is found alive.

“They put him at a table, and they (the police) did what they had to do, told him we were going to feed him because Jesus loved him,” she said.

They hoped the smell of their food would lure him outside.

“As long as there is breath, there is time for repentance,” she said.

The mission to feed the police has ended and the group is now focusing on possible deployment for hurricane relief, saying they could also be called out to more storms if needed.

According to Smith, the organization runs on donations and encourages people who want to help to give only cash or gift cards.

More information about Kentucky Baptist Relief can be found here: www.kybaptist.org/disaster-relief/

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