By Stephen Baldwin RealWV, www.therealwv.com
Of the 31,851 residents of Greenbrier County, eight percent currently rely on food pantries regularly.
Gloria Martin, Director of the Lewisburg/Fairlea Food Pantry, recently collaborated with her colleagues who run ten food pantries total across the county to tabulate how many families and individuals they serve monthly.
The results? Combined, they serve 1,321 families and 2,527 people each month on average.
“We haven’t seen a big increase in the number of folks needing food that come to our pantry,” Martin says of the Lewisburg/Fairlea Food Pantry, “but there has been an increase in the number of families who need emergency food.”
Such emergencies clients have shared include loss of jobs, broken down vehicles, medical emergencies, and simply not enough income to pay all the bills.
“We’ve also seen an increase in the number of homeless folks who need food,” Martin said. “They also have challenges in terms of if they can cook the food, can they keep it cold, do they even have a can opener or something to eat out of?”
Food pantries currently operating in Greenbrier County include Alderson, Lewisburg/Fairlea, Quinwood, Rainelle, Renick, Ronceverte, Rupert, White Sulphur Springs (two separate sites), and Williamsburg.
Martin says they are all run by volunteers, which brings challenges for clients. “Because we’re all run by volunteers, we are only open certain days and hours.” She says that makes it tough for people with transportation challenges who experience emergencies more often due to living on the edge of subsistence.
According to Martin, her resources for providing food to those in need are stable but declining over time.
“Both financial and food donations have stayed about the same in the last year. However, the higher cost of food is a concern for us,” she said. “We get USDA foods from the Mountaineer Food Bank – both free and some we purchase. That list has decreased substantially in the last six months or so due to cutbacks the food bank has seen from the federal government. We also purchase food locally. Those costs have also increased.”
It’s a situation which has the possibility of spiraling, she fears. “Due to the increases in food costs, we anticipate that more folks will be coming to us for help.”
Scott Miller, a retired nonprofit director shown above in the garden, began volunteering at Wellspring in Rupert 18 months ago.
“When I first volunteered, Wellspring was serving one hot meal each week to about 40 individuals. In June of this year at their last meal before closing to move to their new location in Rainelle, Wellspring served 220 meals. That’s how dramatic an increase Wellspring has seen in just over one year.”
Those hot meals are in addition to the nearly 1,000 people who are regularly served by food pantries in Rupert and Rainelle each month.
“As food pantries experience growth in the number of people reaching out for food, the studies show so many parts of Greenbrier County as a food dessert,’” Miller added. “So we are doing something about it.”
Miller is part of the Greenbrier County Health Alliance, which is forming a food policy council. “Our goal is to build a collaborative group of individuals who are involved with food.”
Sally Hurst, Director of the Health Alliance, explained the group’s purpose. “Greenbrier County’s agricultural potential is bountiful, yet many of our local people, especially seniors, don’t regularly have access to fresh local produce. Working together with farmers, food distribution programs, and many community partners, our goal is to provide incentives for farmers who contribute to a gleaning program. We plan to engage underutilized local kitchens as aggregation and distribution centers, and create workforce opportunities for people transitioning from recovery programs to be paid stipends for ‘gig work’ while gaining meaningful experience within a countywide food system.”
1 in 5 kids are food insecure
Feeding America, the national network of nonprofit food pantries, says that 1 in 5 children in West Virginia are food insecure.
“Food insecurity” is a term used by the United States Department of Agriculture. It refers to people who don’t know where their next meal will come from.
According to the “Elevating Voices”, a report by Feeding America, “Across the country, people experiencing hunger are navigating an affordability crisis that has pushed food insecurity to its highest level in nearly a decade.”
Participants were food pantry clients from across the country, and their results were reported anonymously.
“Healthy food costs more and I’m forced to buy unhealthy food to be able to fill my stomach,” said one participant.
70% of survey respondents pointed to high food costs and 53% pointed to inflation as the primary drivers of their family’s food insecurity.
More than 80% all pointed to the high cost of food, housing, and health care as being responsible for their inability to make ends meet.
66% skipped meals or ate less frequently to stretch their budgets. 80% bought cheaper, less nutritious food to make their income last longer.
But such information is now under scrutiny, as the Trump USDA announced this week that they would no longer undertake an annual food security survey. As reported by NPR, the move comes in the wake of reduced federal food aid which is expected to cut benefits to more than 2 million Americans.
How you can help
The Greenbrier County Food Alliance’s Food Policy Council will meet again later this fall. They are currently asking for community input via a local food survey. To take the survey, visit https://tinyurl.com/4ez46a7n.
“We are currently conducting a county-wide survey of food producers, food program leaders, and the community to better understand and target our plans,” said Hurst. “We are developing a map of food resources and have formed a Food Policy Council to guide our planning and target policy change initiatives. We believe in working together to find solutions that reduce waste and take better care of each other.”
If you know someone in need of food assistance, contact numbers listed below are for all ten food pantries in Greenbrier County: Alderson, Brian DeRouen, 304-445-5231; Lewisburg/Fairlea, Gloria Martin, 304-645-7842; Quinwood, Eric White, 304-992-6058; Rainelle, Ann Thomas, 304-438-6311; Renick, Debbie Bledstoe, 304-956-0190; Ronceverte, Molly McDade, 304-647-8646; Rupert, Abby and Josiah Spangler, 304-392-2095; White Sulphur Springs, Gene Sizemore, 304-647-8804; White Sulphur Springs, Louise Feury, 304-536-1353; and Williamsburg, Tina Noe, 304-392-5537.
