BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN

LOVELY – Over 200 households benefited from a mobile food distribution Thursday in Lovely.

Volunteers from the Facing Hunger Foodbank of Huntington and God’s Pantry of Kentucky brought two refrigerated trucks worth of ground beef, produce, canned food, and other items to distribute from the Trinity Freewill Baptist Church parking lot.

Samantha Adams of Facing Hunger Foodbank said her organization loads thousands of pounds of food and comes into underserved communities that don’t have as many food pantries for residents to access.

“This mobile is a little bit different from what we usually do,” Adams said. “We have partnered with God’s Pantry out of Kentucky, and we’re both here today in a collaborative effort to serve this underserved area.”

The foodbank typically plans for about 250 households.

“That’s upward of 1,000 individuals,” said Adams. “And we’ve definitely registered over 200 households.”

Registration for the event began at 10 a.m., and by 10:30 a.m., cars were backed up to Maple Drive.

One volunteer for the event said he was happy to see such a positive response but expressed concerns for the current hard economic times many residents faced, with rising fuel costs driving inflation.

“But it’s good to see that the effort is not in vain,” he said. “There is a need here, and we’re all just happy to be able to help people.”

He noted the day began with a bang as an automobile accident on the way down from Huntington nearly turned violent.

“One of the guys in the accident got out of his vehicle and began jumping up and down, waving a pistol. I have no idea what he was hyped up on. You don’t expect to see such a thing on a day like this,” he said.

Facing Hunger Foodbank will be back in Lovely on June 16.

(J.D. Charles contributed to this article.)