Editor’s note: This is the first in a five-part philanthropic series profiling nonprofit organizations in Athens County.
With no job and no steady income, Tammy, a 34-year-old mother of three, was running out of options to feed her family.
She lost her nursing job in 2009 because of health problems, and her husband also became unemployed when the mobile-home contracting service he worked for went under.
“It was hard to have to tell the children that the money supply is a little scarce and they’re not going to be able to have everything they had beforehand,” she said. “That was a little rough.”
Tammy’s husband applied for jobs in Parkersburg, Athens and Belpre to no avail.
“There’s absolutely no jobs. None,” Tammy said. “Even McDonald’s. They’re not even hiring, so that means it’s bad.”
Cash assistance and food stamps from the county are not always enough to sustain her family every month, so she turns to Friends and Neighbors, a food pantry where she volunteers near Coolville, to make ends meet.
And she’s not alone.
Attempting to fill the gap left by shrinking government programs, the pantry serves about 300 to 400 clients in Athens County.
“You will go to your mom, to your friends, to everybody that you know before you will break down and come to an organization and … admit that you cannot provide food for yourself and for your family,” said Lisa Roberts, director of Friends and Neighbors Community Choice Food Center.
Roberts, who has five children, knows firsthand what it is like to struggle with hunger. She decided to start the pantry when her husband lost his factory job and she discovered that many of her neighbors were in similar predicaments.
“If you’re hungry, you can’t be anything else,” she said. “All you can do is worry about where you’re going to eat next.”
In 2002, Roberts and her friend John Life each chipped in $50 for the first load of food and never looked back. Shocked at the need of those in their community, they started handing out food at a local church — shoving aside choir books to make way for food on the shelves of a small closet.
Soon after, the pantry moved to its own building in Lottridge, a small town near Coolville. Donations — food, clothes, money, furniture, household goods — keep the pantry going, but the 40-by-40-foot space is not big enough to accommodate the growing need.
“We pretty much outgrew the space 15 minutes after we moved into it,” Roberts said. “It has been a steady increase in clients. We’ve never gone backward.”
Friends and Neighbors needs $80,000 to open a larger location in Coolville. So far, the organization has just $12,000 toward that goal.
The volunteers and clients
John Life, the 75-year-old co-founder of Friends and Neighbors, puts thousands of miles on his pickup truck each month to pick up donations and deliver emergency food boxes to clients.
“When I was younger and had a family, I needed help,” he said. “I’m trying to pass it along.”
About 32 volunteers — many of whom are clients themselves — work almost daily at the nonprofit organization, and others pitch in when needed, Roberts said.
Athens resident Michael Kubach, 61, started volunteering at Friends and Neighbors in 2004. He worked with the organization’s Community Toolbox program, visiting the homes of those who needed help around the house.
“I was low-income to the point that I wasn’t even eating,” he said. “When I volunteered, I got some food.”
Every Wednesday afternoon, Friends and Neighbors volunteers cook a hot meal in the Lottridge Community Center for about 60 to 80 people. For some, as with Kubach, the camaraderie is now more of a draw than the food.
“It’s wonderful to be able to come over here once a week and chat with these folks when you live in the middle of nowhere,” Kubach said. “It brings the crowd together.”
The directors
With her right arm in a sling, Roberts organized food coming off the truck of donations from Kroger last Tuesday. She hasn’t been around as often lately — weakened by stage-three cancer, she has been in and out of the hospital for treatment.
The diagnosis came in July, and Roberts’ aunt, assistant director Tia Benson-Palm, stepped in to help run the pantry the day she found out Roberts was sick.
“I’ve been helping her out while she’s going through this,” Benson-Palm said. “It’s been a really hard battle for her.”
Roberts wasn’t just battling cancer; she also had to fight to receive medical care.
“(My husband and I) don’t have health care, so I don’t go to the doctor very often,” Roberts said. “With health care, we probably would have found this almost immediately, and I’m told that it’s actually a pretty easy cure if you find it right away.”
Roberts has obtained a medical card from the government so she can afford treatment. The prognosis is good, but the cancer might be reoccurring.
“I’m ready one way or the other,” Roberts said. “My whole life has been about doing whatever I have to do until it’s time to go, and then when I get to heaven I am there. As soon as they tell me my room is ready, I am there.”
Smiling and laughing, she imagined what life after death might bring.
“You hear about that big banquet they’re having? I am sitting by Elvis.”
The pantry
The pantry, which services about 50 to 70 clients per week, is not much larger than an average living room. Shelves holding food and personal-care items line the walls from floor to ceiling, and a large table in the middle holds a scale for weighing boxes of food.
The local Kroger store donates food; church groups and other organizations hold food drives; and the pantry uses donated money to purchase food from the Southeast Ohio Regional Food Center for 10 cents to 19 cents per pound.
Clients are allowed to go through the pantry twice a month. To get started, each client fills out paperwork with his or her name, address, and how many people live in his or her household.
Though some pantries hand out pre-packed boxes, Friends and Neighbors allows each client to select his or her own food.
“You know what you have in your cupboards at home … and you know what you or your children are going to eat,” Roberts said. “My kids wouldn’t eat peas for anything.”
Friends and Neighbors costs a few thousand dollars to operate each month, Roberts said. To supplement the donations, Roberts sometimes applies for grants as another source of occasional revenue.
A Dateline NBC special featured the food pantry in July 2010, and people from all throughout the country now donate money regularly.
“The same people every month give to us. That is what’s keeping us afloat,” Benson-Palm said. “The people who are sending to us regularly are not from this community; they are from across the country, from California to Maine.”
The community
More than 30 percent of Athens County’s about 65,000 residents live in poverty, dwarfing the national average of 14.2 percent, according to U.S. census data from 2006 to 2010.
Any family of four that makes $23,050 or less per year is defined as living in poverty, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ website. The poverty level for an individual rests at $11,170.
“The poverty situation has been bad here for a long time, and it’s only gotten worse in the last few years,” said Nick Claussen, spokesman for Athens County Job and Family Services. “There are not enough jobs here for people, not enough good-paying jobs.”
Finding work is a constant stress for Athens County residents living in poverty, Roberts said. Those who are unemployed will scramble to snatch up almost any job they can — even if it doesn’t pay well.
“They want to work. … There’s just not enough work available for the people that need the jobs,” Roberts said. “(They’re) not looking for a handout; they’re looking for a hand up. … Nobody wants to live in poverty.”
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To contribute to Friends and Neighbors, go online to friends-n-neighbors.org or send donations to P.O. Box 26, Coolville, Ohio, 45723. Those who would like to drop off donations can visit the pantry at 2715 Lottridge Road.
