The Inter-Mountain has added a new daily feature, beginning in last Saturday’s edition. Each day we will publish a graphic offering information on where and when food assistance is available in our local counties, and how and where food can be donated to help feed local people.

Today’s Helping Hands feature is located on Page A9. It includes information for Randolph, Barbour, Pocahontas, Tucker and Upshur counties.

With the federal government continuing to be mired in a shutdown — and pausing the funding on crucial programs like SNAP and Head Start –we feel it is more important than ever to get food assistance information out to the public.

We’re asking our readers to submit more examples of food distribution events, as well as ways to donate. We will continue to add this new information to the Helping Hands feature that will be printed in each edition of The Inter-Mountain. Please email us at bjohnson@theintermountain.com, or call us at 304-636-2121.

Also on Saturday, we printed a front-page article about the “Feed the Kids Initiative” in Randolph County.

Nine restaurants in the Elkins area are offering free meals for kids each day during November, including:

Mondays — Darrens Pizza Shack, on 1313 Harrison Ave.

Tuesdays — El Grand Sabor, at 413 Kerens Ave., and Steer Steak House, at 359 Beverly Pike.

Wednesdays — Las Tranceas, at 25 Randolph Ave.

Thursdays — El Toro Steak House, at 2064 Beverly Pike.

Fridays — K&K’s Cafe at 203 Randolph Ave.

Saturdays — Mona’s Egg Rolls, in the Elkins Walmart parking lot, and the Delmonte Market, at 316 Railroad Ave.

Sundays — Clementine’s Cantina, at 122 Davis Ave.

We applaud the restaurants for helping feed local children, and Emily Watson, co-owner of Clementine’s Cantina, for organizing the “Feed the Kids Initiative” in Randolph County.

Please join in and help out our neighbors during this tough situation. We can’t just sit back and wait for the politicians in D.C. to get to work and end the shutdown — we’re going to have to get involved ourselves and help out our communities now that they really need a helping hand.