“Every little bit helps,”
said Jake Krack, program coordinator for Vista and Americorp
volunteers in southern West Virginia.
Krack and a small crew
manned two food drop-off stations in Beckley Monday – one at Big
Lots, the other at Kroger’s.
He called
it a grassroots effort to help replenish depleted area food banks.
“Everybody
was hit by this storm but we’re just asking those who may have gotten their
power a little bit earlier than others to reach out and help others who still
are struggling without power,” said Krack.
Make-shift
tents provided some relief from the sun, sheltering boxes of donated goods from
a steady stream of people who weathered the storms themselves.
Emily
Butcher of Beckley dropped off a large bag of canned
fruits and vegetables. She and her family were out of power for 3 days.
“You know
anything that helps, just a few cans of food helps,” said Butcher. “You know
there are still a lot of people without power, three days was hard enough I
can’t imagine 10 or more.”
Evelyn
Moses of Crab Orchard pulled into the Big Lots parking lot with a trunk-full of
food. She and her family, including her 88-year-old mother, were also out of
power 3 days.
“I have
stuff from 2 different neighbors, and my daughter lives in Beckley and we just all pulled everything
together, I called them and told them I’m going, so we just loaded it up.”
“It’s scary,”
said Moses. “Thank God I have really great neighbors. I’ve got family all
around me. I’ve got a great ex-son-in-law who made me coffee every morning on
his grill.”
“So you
know I was extremely lucky, compared to many others.”
Krack said
he and the Americorp and VISTA volunteers had been touched by the generosity they saw in
individuals that stopped throughout the day to donate.
“We’ve had a
lot of donations that just came in and it’s been steady all day and people are
donating money, and we’re just going right into Big Lots, purchasing the food
and putting them right into the boxes,” said Krack.
“Even
though people have been hit really hard themselves, they’re still willing to
give to others.”
Collections
continued through early evening Monday. The donations were headed to food
pantries in Raleigh, Summers, Fayette and Nicholas counties.