Don’t hold the mayo at Pantry Plus More.
Pantry Plus More is the food bank in Westover that got to spread out, as it were, with some surprise national TV time, the previous evening in Charlotte, N.C.
That was after WVU outmuscled North Carolina 30-10 in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl.
As far as postgame traditions go, this one has one of the goofiest, and, some might say, the grossest – even if it is always for a good cause.
It comes by way of a 4.5 gallon bucket of the sponsor’s signature product.
Forget the Gatorade bath.
If you’re the winning coach, and you agree to it, you’ll get the above condiment allotment dunked on your head for $10,000, which Duke’s then awards to a charity of choice.
Wednesday night, that was Mountaineers coach Neal Brown who consented to the mayo bath for Pantry Plus More.
“I’m gonna take it like a champ,” he told the ESPN announcers.
Meanwhile, Pantry Plus More took the payoff like a happily surprised benefactor.
Tom Bloom, a Monongalia County Commissioner and the pantry’s co-founder, was watching the game at Gene’s Beer Garden, when the calls started coming in like a blindside blitz.
“My phone was blowing up,” the commissioner said.
“I had no idea this was going to happen. People were calling and texting all over the place.”
Liz Vitullo, who writes grants for the pantry, helped organize the deal, Bloom said, which was kept secret until game time.
For him, it was akin to hitting the community service lottery.
“We’re gonna be able to do so much with this,” he said.
That’s because the pantry already does a lot, said Julie Woolwine, a volunteer and board member who is readying to embark on a term as its president next month.
“We’re all-volunteer,” she said.
That means out and shopping for the pantry, she said, and looking for coupons and in-store specials.
“Did you know you can get 572 cartons of eggs into a Jeep Cherokee?” she asked. “I know you can because I’ve done it twice.”
The pantry, she said, is known for its weekly distribution of nutritional foods themed for mealtime.
In fact, she added, more than 300 boxes went out earlier this month – containing ham and all the sides for a holiday dinner.
“That’s critical for our needy families,” she said.
Monongalia County has its share of such households, she said, even if the county does fare better fiscally than a lot of its neighbors.
“Everybody thinks were in this economic bubble up here,” she said, “but we really aren’t. We had food insecurity, too.”
To be food insecure means you’re simply not getting enough food to sustain yourself, nutritionally.
In Mon County, around 15% of school-age children are food insecure, according Feeding America, a national watchdog group.
Across West Virginia, it’s 1 in every 7 children who are going to bed with grumbling bellies, the organization reports.
“We can’t let kids go hungry,” Woolwine said.
Pantry Plus More is already getting platefuls of community and emotional support from the Mountaineers football team, Bloom said.
Neal Brown is a proponent, he said.
And Garrett Greene, the WVU quarterback and the Most Valuable Player of the Duke’s Mayo Bowl Wednesday night, volunteers, too.
“It shows you the kind of coach and the kind of team we have,” the commissioner said.
“Wednesday night was a win for the team and a win for the community.”
That said, would Bloom, who is known for his spirit of fun and his sense of adventure, submit himself to a Duke’s Mayo dunk as well?
“For that kind of money for Pantry Plus More,” he said, “I’d take a bath in mayonnaise any day.”
