Veterans Table program provides boxes of food to former military members in West Virginia

Operation Welcome Home, a local nonprofit whose mission is to help area veterans adjust to civilian life, has teamed up with the Mountaineer Food Bank to make sure no former military man or woman — or their families — go hungry.

Starting immediately, any local veteran — as long as he or she lives in West Virginia — can go monthly to Operation Welcome Home’s Mylan Park location and pick up a box of food from items donated by the Mountaineer Food Bank. Items in the food box, which weighs around 30 pounds, include fresh fruit, as well as milk, cereal and canned goods.

“Our only requirement is that you’re a veteran and live in West Virginia,” said Laura Phillips, director of Community Programs for the Mountaineer Food Bank.

“These people have dedicated their lives to serving,” she said

For the kickoff of the Monongalia County Veterans Table program, the two nonprofit agencies assembled 75 boxes of food to give to veterans. While they don’t expect to give that much food away in a day, Phillips said the extra boxes will be available for pickup from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday at Operation Welcome Home’s office in Mylan Park.

“All you have to do is show your military ID,” she said.

The goal of the Veterans Table is to become a regular program in 48 of West Virginia’s 55 counties now served by Mountaineer Food Bank. Similar programs are underway in Clarksburg, Martinsburg and in Raleigh County in the southern portion of the state, said Phillips, adding the food bank helps around 14,000 veterans on a regular basis.

Becky Conrad, the food bank’s community engagement specialist, said around 216,000 people in north-central West Virginia go hungry. That total includes about 60,000 children.

“That comes to one in seven individuals,” Conrad said.

TWEET @41Suzanne