Submitted photo From left are Mountaineer Food Bank Chief Operating Officer Eric Peyatt, Chief Information Officer Kayla Wright, Chief Executive Office Chad Morrison, Chief Development Officer Breanna George and Elkins Rotary Club President Kenny George.

ELKINS — Mountaineer Food Bank Chief Executive Officer Chad Morrison and his development team joined the Rotary Club of Elkins for their regular Monday meeting.

Morrison has been a member of the Food Bank staff since 2008.

Mountaineer Food Bank (MFB), a member of Feeding America, is the largest emergency food provider in West Virginia, serving 48 of 55 counties.

During 2023, 18 million meals were provided to over 104,000 households. Of those, approximately 554,000 meals were provided to veterans and their pets.

Mountaineer Food Bank is centered in Gassaway with four additional locations throughout the state. The additional counties not served by MFB (in the southwestern part of the state) are served by another food bank.

MFB has facilities and staff members throughout the state. The main warehouse and most of the staff are located in Gassaway. There is a facility in Weston, a volunteer center in Sutton, an office complex in Flatwoods and a second warehouse in Poca.

“We have about 200,000 people in West Virginia who struggle with hunger. That’s one people in West Virginia, out of eight people you see when you go to an event, a school, or at the grocery store who are struggling with hunger. That means a lot of different things. It may not mean that they never have food on their plate, they just don’t know where they’re getting their next meal,” said Morrison.

“Is it a parent who’s giving their food to their children to make sure they can eat while the parent goes without? Is it a veteran who’s taking care of his best friend that may happen to be a service dog so he’s feeding him instead of eating the nutrition he needs?”

To help meet this need, MFB has 465 feeding program partners including food pantries, hot meal programs, backpack programs, senior centers and community organizations. Several of these programs are located in Randolph County. Summit Charities, Salvation Army, Catholic Charities and other community and faith-based organizations are among the local programs that benefit from MFB operations.

The MFB has a three-pronged distribution network. Federally provided commodities, donated foods and purchased items are all a part of that network. “There are a lot of different avenues that the food is channeled through to the feeding programs,” commented Morrison.

Food is distributed all year round. Some programs are only available in the summer or on the weekend but many are operating on a daily basis. “Hunger doesn’t stop. You don’t just struggle with hunger on Thanksgiving or Christmas, it’s twelve months out of the year,” concluded Morrison.

The programs operated by MFB focus on areas that don’t have a strong food pantry operation. Some areas have small pantries without adequate capacity, refrigeration or necessary storage. One of the largest MFB programs is the mobile food pantry.

“We do about 250 mobile pantries every year. We take a refrigerated box truck with a great supply of fresh produce, dairy, frozen proteins, milk, eggs and shelf stable items,” he said.

“Those will feed anywhere from 200 to 400 households. The biggest [mobile pantry] we have right now is in Preston County, serving about 1600 individuals, over 900 families,” said Morrison. “We’re doing those almost every single day.”

The Veterans Table Program serves about 1400 veterans in West Virginia.

“We’re trying to continually grow that. Our cap for this year was 1400,” he said. “It’s a privately funded program.

“We built this program from the ground up through partnerships with the Beckley VA, the Clarksburg VA and, at the time, the Martinsburg VA. We also work with the smaller veterans’ clinics,” stated Morrison. “We also distribute pet food at our veterans’ distribution because we’ve seen veterans who would pull off the side of the road, open their box and feed their dog right there.”

MFB has a wide array of children’s and senior-focused programs. One of those programs is the Extra Mile Program, that targets children and families with children. A partnership was formed with the Mercer County Board of Education as well as with DoorDash.

“Part of the struggle was getting the food to the families and getting to families with children, reducing the stigma. We were able to build this relationship where we employ DoorDash workers to deliver the food to children’s homes and they receive customized food selections. Some families have allergy issues, such as a peanut allergy. If we give them peanut butter, they can’t use it so those deliveries can be customized,” added Morrison.

“I’m really proud of the work that they’ve done with the Extra Mile Program. I hope you continue to hear about it, I hope you see it in the news, I hope you hear people talking about it. I would love to see us have it in all 48 of our counties.”

The largest program that MFB operates for senior citizens is the Senior Food Box Program, which serves about 5,000 seniors each year. If funding was available from state and federal sources, Morrison estimates that MFB could serve approximately 30,000 seniors.

There are many sources of funding for MFB. The State of West Virginia administers the commodities program and individual and corporate gifts are also integral to MFB’s operations.

“The donors we have in West Virginia really support the organization. We apply for grants; we apply for about $1 million in grants each year and we have our partnership with Feeding America,” he said. “As a Feeding America food bank, we get national dollars that come in to us from corporate headquarters like Walmart and Kroger. All that mixes together to allow us to do what we need to do.

“I always say that individual gifts are the driver for what we’re able to do. They’ve been the rock that’s kept us going the last 10 years,” concluded Morrison.

Non-profit 501(c)(3) organizations can apply to become a member of the MFB member agency. The application can be found at the MFB website, www.mountaineerfoodbank.org.

For more information about Mountaineer Food Bank, or to make a gift to support the work of the food bank, visit the organization’s website or call 304-564-5518.

Rotary is a global network of 1.4 million neighbors, friends, leaders and problem-solvers who see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change – across the globe, in their communities, and in themselves.

Visit www.Rotary.org to learn more about Rotary International, visit the club’s Facebook page — Rotary Club of Elkins — or contact club president Kenny George at kenneth.george@blueridgeriskpartners.com for more information about the Rotary Club of Elkins.