MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A new partnership involving the City of Morgantown and social service organizations will look to increase the stockpile of donations for local food banks.
LifeBridge AmeriCorps and the United Way of Mon and Preston Counties will partner with volunteers involved in the Morgantown City Ambassadors program to host two separate donation drop-off locations around downtown Morgantown starting on January 1st to help support the Helpful Harvest Program. LifeBridge AmeriCorps members Joe Wakim and Sophia Selvaraj will lead local coordination efforts that will have volunteers on-site at each location until January 31st as part of a month-long service project.
“The idea is it’s going to start January 1st and run through the 31st, so that’s like the project, and that’s when those items are going to be collected,” said Wakim.
Drop-off locations will be hosted at the Morgantown Public Safety Building as well as Morgantown City Hall throughout the month of January. Morgantown City Ambassadors will be on site, both inside City Hall and in the parking lot located behind the Morgantown Public Safety Building, starting at 7:00 a.m. and will help take donations from residents until the sun sets. Volunteers will be at Morgantown City Hall until 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, with the Public Safety Building donations accepted until 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.
“So the Morgantown City Hall, Monday through Thursday for the month, 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and then the downtown public safety building, the lobby hours, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.,” said Wakim on the times donations will be accepted. “And then, obviously, the community ambassadors are going to be helping us out.”
According to Wakim, any type of canned good donations will be accepted with the expectation that the majority of local food banks will be near bare after holiday distributions that have taken place over the past several weeks. Once the month of January ends, LifeBridge Americorps members, along with United Way MPC employees and the Morgantown City Ambassadors, will take the donations to the Morgantown area Helpful Harvest Program that is hosted at Hazel’s House of Hope on Scott Avenue. From there, area food banks will then receive distributions starting in early February.
“We’re going to be going up to the Helpful Harvest program, and then what’s going to be happening is we’re going to be distributing those canned donations to our local food pantries in the area,” said Wakim.
The establishment of the partnership with the City of Morgantown is part of the LifeBridge AmeriCorps Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Month of Service that takes place on an annual basis. Wakim added that the effort to serve the community through the collection of food donations also included conversations with United Way MPC Site Director Courtney Summers and CEO Brandi Helms, as well as City of Morgantown Special Projects Coordinator Shannon Davis, who was the point of contact to create the partnership that involves the Morgantown City Ambassador Program. With two different city-supported locations, Wakim is appreciative of the partnership aimed at serving the local community.
“It’s going to be very, very helpful, and I’m really excited about this partnership,” said Wakim. “I think it’s going to be very beneficial.”
