TAYLOR COUNTY—Putting food on the table can be hard for some families in need, but an organization with the mission of helping to relieve hunger will be making a stop in Taylor County to help out.
According to Taylor County Project HOP2E Executive Director Bryan Smith, Mountaineer Food Bank (MFB) will be holding a special distribution at Anna Jarvis Elementary School on Thursday, August 1, from 11:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m.
“Mountaineer Food Bank is who we work alongside with for our distributions,” share Smith. “It is their goal to ensure people in West Virginia don’t go hungry.”
According to Smith, the organization travels throughout the state’s 55 counties to provide food to those in need.
“Thursday, they will be holding a mobile food bank to help those in our area,” he noted. “Anyone is welcome to attend the event. Participants do not need to bring any kind of documentation or anything with them.”
During the event, participants will pull into the parking lot and then volunteers from the food bank will deliver items right to their car.
Mountaineer Food Bank is located in Gassaway, WV. The organization’s mission is clear, to help solve hunger across the Mountain State.
To accomplish this, the organization provides food and other household items to food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, backpack programs, senior programs and mobile pantries, in 48 counties, with a network consisting of over 440 feeding programs.
MFB works with the West Virginia Department of Agriculture to distribute USDA commodities in 43 counties in West Virginia, almost 3.5 million pounds annually. The products are generally staple items such as green beans, corn, canned fruit, juices and proteins such as meat or peanut butter.
The organization is part of Feeding America and is able to bring in donations from donors across the country by the truckload to distribute into West Virginia. MFB’s fleet of three trucks are on the road daily distributing between 30,000-40,000 pounds to a different area each day.
Through their mobile pantries, the organization is able to provide food to “food deserts” where food accessibility is limited and/or scarce. They can provide a variety of fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy products and baked goods to between 100 and 1,000 households with each distribution.
For more information on the mobile food pantry being held at Anna Jarvis Elementary School, please contact Smith at 304-709-0164.
