Tom Bloom can tell you all about the spread offense.
After all, the Monongalia County commissioner hails from gridiron-rich Pennsylvania and the football-crazed city of Philadelphia, in particular – whose Eagles, unfortunately for him, spiraled out in their wild-card run to the Super Bowl last week.
It was another football game last month, though, when Bloom, who is also a founding board member of Pantry Plus More, took the offensive on a decidedly different spread.
Or dunk, or bath, whatever you want to call it.
That was after WVU outmuscled North Carolina 30-10, in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl.
Said bowl has one of the goofiest – or most gross, some might say – postgame traditions in all of college football.
The one where, the winning coach, if he agrees to it, gets a 4.5-gallon bucket of the sponsor’s signature condiment poured over his head for $10,000, an outlay going to a charity of choice.
Said coach was Neal Brown, and said charity was a certain food bank in Westover.
“I’m gonna take it like a champ,” WVU’s top football boss said, as he drew in deep for the Duke’s.
Which, prompted a response from Bloom, who famously observed, “For that kind of money for Pantry Plus More, I’d take a bath in mayonnaise any day.”
As it turned out, the board took him up on it, immediately launching a like-minded campaign of its own, that, as of 5 p.m. Wednesday, beckoned 19 people to the cause, who have kicked in $1,234 toward another in-tandem $10,000 goal.
Don’t hold the mayo on this one, the pantry’s board president, Julie Woolwine said.
“We’re gonna keep it going until we make that goal,” she said.
“It’s for a good cause, and besides, it’s Tom getting dunked in mayonnaise.”
Amanda Bolyard, who chairs the pantry’s annual Back to School Bash, among other events, said in all seriousness, that it’s really more about the former – than it is the latter.
“It’s about getting the word out to more people about what we do,” Bolyard said.
“We have an all-volunteer staff, and we’re working to make sure no kid goes hungry in Monongalia County.”
Motivating mayo
Even in relatively prosperous Mon, which economically fares better than a lot of its Mountain State neighbors, that’s a tall order.
Food insecurity – that is, the clinical state of simply not getting enough food to sustain one’s self nutritionally – is ever-present here, across West Virginia and within the confines of Mon County.
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.
“How can you expect a kid to focus in class on Monday,” Bolyard asked, “when he never really had anything to eat over the weekend?”
She appreciates all the people who contribute to Pantry Plus More and all the volunteers who make the place go, she said.
That includes Bloom, she said, who is willing take a Duke’s dive for the good of the order.
“If I get to do this, I’m gonna make it into a huge public event,” Bloom said, “because it’s for Pantry Plus More.”
Ideally, he said, Mountaineer football stars Garrett Greene and Nick Malone would do the dunking honors – “Because they volunteer a lot with us. The whole team does, really. Coach Brown has been great for our community.”
Visit Pantry Plus More’s Facebook page to find out more about the organization, and how you can volunteer while contributing to the Bloom/Duke’s campaign, Bolyard said.
People with specific questions, she said, are encouraged to send a private message to the page, for a response from her or another board member.
“I keep hoping that Duke’s Mayo will pick up on what we’re attempting here,” Bolyard said. “That’s a great thing they’re doing.”
Huddling up, for The Food-on-Ice Bowl
She’s been repeatedly tagging the “New Heights” podcast hosted by NFL siblings Travis Kelce of the Kansas Chiefs and Jason Kelce, who is on the team of Bloom’s Eagles, to keep the drive alive, as it were.
“We’re trying to get some matching sponsors, too,” she said, “because we want to see this happen.”
Meanwhile, what will happen Saturday at Pantry Plus More’s Westover headquarters at 9 Rousch Drive, Bloom said, is right in the offensive scheme of things.
Just like an NFL playoff game with Mother Nature showing blitz, a truck from the Mountaineer Food Bank Mobile Food Pantry in Gassaway, Braxton County, is scheduled to roll into the lot – in defiance of those 18-degree temperatures and snow forecasters are predicting for the day.
The giveaway, while supplies last, is set for 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Bloom said.
“Our volunteers will be out there no matter what,” he said, “because if they aren’t, people don’t eat.”
