A load of apples sits in a refrigerated room at the Mountaineer Food Bank in March. Food bank officials say the agency is rebounding after financial struggles earlier this year.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Despite financial struggles that nearly crippled its program earlier in the year, folks at West Virginia’s largest food bank say it is recovering, and has distributed more than five million pounds of food between then and the end of June.
The Mountaineer Food Bank in Gassaway has distributed 5,028,275 pounds of food to its network of more than 600 feeding programs around the state between January and the end of June, according to Chad Morrison, executive director. Morrison became executive director of the food bank in May, just two months after then-interim director Dave Karr declared the agency “in crisis management” and said it had enough cash on hand to operate for another month.
“We are in a much better position now than we were three or four months ago,” Morrison said. “We’re past the stage where we’re afraid of closure, and we’re now in the stage where we’re looking at our operation and how we do things and trying to find the best fit for this place. We want to make sure we’re doing our job, and we’re kind of in a redefining stage right now…