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Third WV COVID-19 death
retired AP psychology teacher and MHS assistant principal Richard Vidulich of county Board of Education President Ron Lytle as both packed drinks for students. WVU contributed stacks of boxes for transporting packaged meals, PACE Enterprises was on hand to take used cartons away for shredding, and so many other people and businesses pitched in. Byers had twice as many meals to coordinate the second week as the first,
order, while they’re cutting back.” In preparation for the second weekly distribution, scheduled for April 2, Kiehl managed to source a heartier five breakfasts and five lunches, plus drinks, for 3,000, foods like bowls of cereal, fruit cups and applesauce, pepperoni calzones—almost all of it, to his credit, individually wrapped. When volunteers showed up at the tennis club Wednesday morning to pack, sign-ups had already hit 2,700. “It’s so much better this week,” Byers said. “We’ve got 60 volunteers packing in shifts, 9 to noon, noon to 3, 3 to 6. We’ve got someone coming in to feed them lunch. Last week feedmonkids.com was just a sign-up form; now it’s a website where you can also see the menu or you can volunteer.” Forty people had volunteered to deliver on Thursday, and a new system would get the delivery vans loaded and off more smoothly. And Morgantown Printing and Binding was printing signs for the distribution sites to let families know they should pull up in their cars rather than parking and standing in line. Most of the restaurants in town that initially offered student lunches stopped during the second week—some switching to feeding health care workers—because student lunch distribution was now centralized and under control. Yet, their owners stayed involved. “All the restaurants have called and said, ‘What can we do?’” Byers said as the second weekly distribution was in preparation. “Polly at Oliverio’s came and packed last week. Bron from Crab Shack has been there, Brendan from Tropics, others— all the restaurants are really good about helping if we need anything.” Similarly, school system personnel are volunteering generously. “Ron posts on Facebook, and people come out,” said
and more than twice the volume. But if anything, the outpouring of support in the community energized him for the task. “The volunteers and the contributions have just been amazing,” he said. “Next week, I think we might be moving this over to Chuck’s Furniture or Mylan Park—Pantry Plus More and United Way of Mon and Preston Counties are adding 1,000 family boxes.” He beamed. “We’re going to feed even more people.”
Bartini Prime owner Justin Byers (left) and chef Zachary Smith videotaped suggestions for cooking delicious meals from food pantry items. Families gave each other distance at the first weekly meal distribution at Granville Park.
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