We attended a business after hours on Thursday, February 12, 2025 at St. Paul's UCC, where our one of our Monroe County food pantries is located in the basement. Partner agencies in the county are Lewisville Food Pantry & Produce Market, Woodsfield SOMA Pantry is the name of the food pantry in the basement of the St. Paul's UCC, Jerusalem, Sardis Manna, MC Senior Center, and a Mobile Unit that goes to Beallsville.
According to the presenter, there was 436,908 LBs distributed in Monroe County in 2024, 55% of that was fresh, such as, meat, dairy, eggs, fruits, vegetables, bread, & perishable items.
71% of households served in the county was either a senior or children in the household.
The current barriers in our county is volunteer led, limited inventory, service numbers are up and budgets are sparce.
Our County SOMA Thrift store in Woodsfield, sells nice items and those monies help fund the food pantries. So when you are doing your spring cleaning this year, consider donating nice used clothes, shoes, toys or dishes to SOMA instead of Good will or Salvation Army, so we can continue to support our local food pantries.