MORGANTOWN — A dozen or so volunteers stood in the rain on a chilly Thursday morning, waiting on a delivery from the Mountaineer Food Bank, in Gassaway.
It was the second such delivery for a new partnership between the Pantry Plus More program, Mon Health Wedgewood Family Clinics and the food bank aimed at addressing food insecurity in Monongalia County.
Roark Sizemore, president of the Pantry Plus More initiative, said the collaborative pilot program is the first of its kind in West Virginia.
He explained that patients of the Wedgewood clinic struggling with nutrition are given vouchers that can be traded for a box of food and fresh produce at 9 Rousch Drive on the second Thursday of every month.
The boxes contain enough food for about a week. At the first giveaway, in September, 40 boxes and 5,000 pounds of produce were distributed.
“There’s also a nutrition education component where we give out recipes for the things in the boxes and information about eating healthy, or different ways to prepare foods or whatever it might be,” Sizemore said. “We want to make sure people have what they need to make nutritious, healthy meals.”
A 60-year Morgantown resident who came to collect a box said she was glad to hear of the new program and grateful for the assistance.
“There are three in my household, and I don’t get much in the way of food stamps. They’re on social security. So this will really help us out a lot,” she said.
Before leaving, she asked about getting her son and a homebound friend signed up as well.
“I really believe that this will be a big help for a lot of people who don’t have much. It’s a good program,” she said.
Sizemore said food insecurity is a bigger problem locally than people realize.
“I think people believe it’s a problem in other parts of West Virginia. It’s not my neighbors or the people around me, and that’s a false notion,” he said, explaining that 2,700 kids go hungry in Monongalia County every day.
Numbers like those were behind the creation of the Pantry Plus More program, which stocks food, hygiene items, clothing and school supplies in schools where it can be accessed anonymously by students. The program, started by Sizemore and retired guidance counselor and current county commissioner Tom Bloom, is currently in 10 Monongalia County schools.
Sizemore said the need is great, but so is the desire to meet it.
“It’s a big problem, but it’s one that we can solve. We have the resources to meet that need.”
