Rather than buy his wife flowers for Valentine’s Day, Keith Norton took a different approach – he donated $1,200 to Feeding America Southwest Virginia.
Norton is a Feeding America board member and the money will be used to purchase food to stock the non-profit’s new mobile food pantry. Feeding America recently purchased a $155,000 refrigerated truck, which will provide food assistance at eight sites in Buchanan, Dickenson, Washington and Grayson counties.
“Our focus has been to reach every individual who lacks a food supply,” said Pamela Irvine, Feeding America Southwest Virginia president and CEO.
The United Company Foundation donated $250,000 to launch the program.
Michelle Stamper, mobile food pantry site coordinator, said Grayson County has 2,431 people who live below the poverty line, many of them children. The county has two food pantries, but the facilities are often inaccessible to those who live in the remote areas of the county.
The mobile food pantry will allow more people in the county to have access to donated food.
“People who really needed access to food assistance can get it now,” Stamper said.
Martha McGlothlin Gayle, United Company Foundation president, said Southwest Virginia has areas with extreme poverty and people need food assistance like the type offered by the mobile food pantry. The donation was an easy decision, Gayle said. The United Company has roots in rural Southwest Virginia and food assistance is a key service for the foundation.
The United Foundation runs a soup kitchen in Bristol, which feeds 1,000 people a day.
“We recognize that so many people can’t get to a food pantry,” Gayle said.
The truck starts operating in March and will distribute approximately 10,000 pounds of food a month at each site, enough for 7,500 meals.
Each person who receives assistance will receive around 55 pounds of food. Feeding America wants to focus on fresh produce and meats because low-income individuals often have a hard time affording high-quality food.
Stamper said she hopes the truck will help alleviate the ongoing cycle of poverty in Southwest Virginia and allow children to focus on learning, not where they will get the next meal.
“Healthy children, that is what I want to see,” Stamper said, adding, “Poverty is like a cancer, once it gets into your community, it can destroy it.”
The organization wants to expand to 15 to 20 distribution sites in the coming months.
jshea@bristolnews.com
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