Food Boxes Are Donated to Marshall County Families in Need
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McMECHEN -- More than a hundred families received boxes of food Thursday as the Marshall County Family Resource Network and Mountaineer Food Bank came together to distribute both fresh and shelf-stable food to anyone who wanted it.
FRN Executive Director Stacie Dei said families were lined up ahead of time to participate in the food distribution, which took place between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Workers packed up food ranging from fresh fruit, juice and milk to frozen or canned food and dropped off a box to everyone who drove past where they were set up just in front of the McMechen City Building.
By the end of the two-hour food drive, they had delivered 151 boxes to families in need.
"It's a balance of shelf stable things they can store for a while, but also fresh fruit and vegetables, which is nice because you don't always get that," Dei said. "COVID-19 has really been a game-changer for some people, in terms of losing jobs, with people who have never needed any help. This isn't going to last them forever, but this is stuff they would need to buy they could use the money on something else.
"This is just a way for us to help, and we're just so grateful for the Mountaineer Food Bank. This was really them calling and saying, 'Hey, we want to come up. We have all these fresh items.' Because they couldn't deliver this to a food pantry, they don't have the freezer space for two pallets of pork."
Dei said the workers also spent part of their day walking the food boxes to homebound residents who were unable to come to the distribution.
Residents who came to collect food drove up and were greeted by masked workers, who loaded the packaged food into their trunks. If children were present in the cars, they also received a book and a stuffed animal.
"People are so grateful, everyone's saying 'thank you,' and we're able to do the books and stuffed animals for the kids, just to do something extra," Dei said. "We hope that this is something we could do more frequently, and it's open to anyone in Marshall County."