Photo by Madeline Scarborough Representatives from various services offered throughout Parkersburg pose around the rainbow meters on the second floor of the Parkersburg City Building to collect change donations that will be distributed evenly among the service programs in the city.

PARKERSBURG — “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be,” Martin Luther King Jr. had said.

This was one of the many messages expressed at the Neighbors Helping Neighbors event on Thursday evening in Parkersburg.

Service agencies attended to raise awareness on what services Parkersburg can offer those in need, such as food pantries, clothing closets and shelters.

“Not only is this event to let people in need know they have options, but let those in the community who are fortunate enough to not need their services that there is still a need and ways to help,” said Parkersburg Mayor Tom Joyce.

According to Michele VanMatre, development director with Latrobe Street Mission and Community Resources, the shelter sees many fragmented families. There are now 65 people in the shelter, six of whom are children.

Representatives from Old Man Rivers set up a booth explaining the need for food donations.

The Old Man Rivers organization provides 104 weekend food backpacks to two elementary schools each week; meals to the elderly, disabled and homebound; as well as runs a food pantry three days a week.

North Parkersburg Baptist Church was present, advocating for the four organizations it runs: the food pantry, Friendship Kitchen, clothing closet and Maternity House.

The Maternity House is a home for up to three females at a time who have found themselves pregnant with nowhere to go.

“This is a safe place for homeless mothers during their pregnancy as they build a better life for themselves and their children,” said Susie Meredith, of Pastoral Care.

Guest speaker Mark Powers, 56, who in December will be sober from alcohol for five years, wanted attendees to know “there is hope.”

His story includes being homeless for five years.

“My journey was five years, six cities and seven shelters,” said Powers.

For 30 years while he was drinking, alcohol consumed his life and his money. He would get a paycheck, but it was spent on booze, leaving little if anything for food, rent and even bus fare to go to work, he said.

The low point was reached, Powers said.

“It just got old,” he said.

“The main thing I was always broke,” Powers said. “I couldn’t afford the bus passes. I relied on food from the church. I was broke all the time.”

Then on Dec. 13, 2013, Powers said, he took his last drink. He became involved at Westbrook, participated in its counseling and housing program, then its peer support program for about two years before it closed in 2017.

Powers, the last person in the peer support program, was apprehensive about leaving, fearing he would go back to drinking without the support.

“I was apprehensive about going out in the community, being alone,” he said.

What he feared hasn’t happened. This has been the longest stretch in sobriety, said the four-year Navy veteran and avid West Virginia University fan. He now has confidence in himself and attributes that to the counselors at Westbrook, Downtown Bethel Church, of which he is a member, where he is aided by spiritual mentor Vicki Hall, and his job at Little Caesar’s.

The evening’s event concluded with a moment of silence for the homeless and all those lost due to addictions.