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Food drive benefits Children’s Home Society

From left, Lisa Weaver, Program Coordinator of the Mid Town Family Resource Center; President Andrew Stump of the Parkersburg Area Labor Council AFL-CIO; Denise Hughes, programs manager, Children’s Home Society of West Virginia; Shelley Plauche-Adkins, regional director, Children’s Home Society; Buddy Malone, business manager, Parkersburg-Marietta Building Trades Council; Alex Weaver, program assistant, resource center. (Photo Provided)

PARKERSBURG — A food drive organized by labor groups was held in June to help restock the food pantry at the Children’s Home Society of West Virginia’s Mid-Town Family Resource Center.

The drive was held June 20 by the Parkersburg Area Labor Council, the Parkersburg-Marietta Building Trades Council and several other area labor unions. Hundreds of pounds of food were delivered to the resource center and the agency was presented with financial contributions and gift cards totaling over $4,000.

In addition, the Kroger Co. donated a $500 gift card to be used for shopping for the food pantry.

“The labor movement has a history of taking care of children and families in their time of need and as this pandemic unfolded we wanted to do something to help our community,” Andrew Stump, president of the Parkersburg Area Labor Council AFL-CIO, said.

Smaller food drives have been done in the past, so we came up with the idea of doing a large drive to support the Mid-Town Family Resource Center, he said.

“It was easy for me to want to get involved personally, as I am a child of adoption and was adopted through Children’s Home Society of West Virginia,” Stump said. “It is my hope that we will be able to do more events in the future to help out this great organization.

The Children’s Home Society is appreciative, Lisa Weaver, program coordinator of the Mid-Town Family Resource Center, said.

“We are overwhelmed from the generosity of the labor unions and the Kroger Company,” Weaver said. “The timing was perfect to help us replenish items, as we had served record numbers of clients in March and April. In the last fiscal year ending June 30, we provided food for nearly 1,200 households, representing over 3,400 individuals. We couldn’t do this without the support of our community.”

The Mid-Town Family Resource Center has operated at the Easton Centre at 1717 St. Marys Ave, Parkersburg, since 2013. Among the programs of the Children’s Home Society, the mission of the resource center is to support and strengthen neighborhood families, provide emergency assistance with food, clothing and personal care items and to enable families to learn about other available resources in the area.

Primarily funded by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, the program also is supported by other area foundations including the United Way Alliance of the Mid-Ohio Valley and numerous individuals and organizations. The Family Resource Center is staffed from 8:30-4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday with food pantry hours from 11-3 p.m.

For more information, call 304 485-0650, go to www.childhswv.org or on Facebook at Children’s Home Society of WV-Parkersburg Site.

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