Editor’s Notes: Not just food for thought
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With any luck at all, most of you are reading this while I'm making my way as quickly as my legs will allow up Fort Boreman Hill. Or perhaps flailing my arms like a muppet aaallllllll the way back down it and Marrtown Road to West Virginia 95. (I watched someone do that once during a nighttime trail race as we were nearing the end -- except that person was also yelling Wheeeeee!!! in a way that made me think maybe the race had gotten the better of him.)
But as I'm writing it, I'm deep in "OK, how many ounces of water have I had? Better not eat any more of the jalapeno chips. How much longer till the pasta dinner?" mode.
Food -- and consuming food in a way that's good for me -- is on my mind, and it has never once crossed my mind that I might not be able to afford to fuel properly.
As so often happens, the universe reminded me how much I was taking for granted by slapping me in the face with a Yahoo News story about the food insecurity crisis in West Virginia. The example used by reporter Leigh Cook was a woman whose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program support went from approximately $400 a month to $24 after changes to the rules. The report also noted approximately 9,000 fewer Mountain State families are receiving any SNAP benefits "since Gov. Patrick Morrisey took office, due to GOP-backed revisions to SNAP rules that expanded work reporting requirements and tightened exemptions."
I wonder how many of those same families were dealt another blow by the absolute mess that's been made of distributing federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families clothing vouchers before school starts.
I'll save my lecture about lawmakers seeking significant consequences for those found to have mishandled that situation for another day.
Like I said, today my mind is on food.
Yahoo News reported SNAP has been developed on a scale that SHOULD mean it can provide approximately nine meals for every one that can be provided by a food bank, according to Feeding America.
As that balance has changed, food banks and pantries find themselves serving more working families, grandparents raising grandchildren on fixed incomes and older adults or those with disabilities who are perhaps less likely to be able to navigate bureaucratic changes and requirements.
That's in addition to those many of us are used to thinking of as food banks' traditional clients.
If you've never had to consider the possibility of feeding yourself or your family with the help of a food bank or pantry, understand you are fortunate.
More and more people are finding themselves less so.
"This is why I'm speaking out," said the woman who spoke with Cook. "I've never been so low in my life."
Something has shifted in West Virginia -- a place where communities could always count on those able to offer a hand up to do so. Now, maybe there are fewer of those people; maybe enough of them have also started to feel the pinch and it isn't as easy to give.
It is understandable that as the need grows, the number of people able to do something about it dwindles.
But even if you can do a little -- if you take a look at your grocery cart and decide you've got plenty, with room to do something small for someone else -- do it.
The News and Sentinel and Marietta Times will provide a couple of opportunities this fall with our annual food drives in partnership with local veterans groups who are STILL serving the rest of us.
We'll be at Walmart in Marietta Sept. 26 and here in the News and Sentinel parking lot in Parkersburg Oct. 10. Bring us what you can, but don't wait.
More people than you think are hungry, now.
Christina Myer is executive editor of The Parkersburg News and Sentinel. She can be reached via e-mail at cmyer@newsandsentinel.com.