The Vision of PPM is to INSPIRE, ENGAGE, and LEAD our community in ending hunger and to give every child an equal opportunity to succeed in learning – education is the great equalizer in life.
Our Mission is two-fold
To eliminate hunger and other needs for children by operating in-school pantries stocked with food, hygiene products, school supplies, backpacks and clothing. This allows children to choose the resources they need to learn, grow, and develop. Children can access all items in the school pantries in an anonymous manner, maintaining their dignity.
- PPM holds annual Back to School Bashes, where schoolchildren in Monongalia County can access free food, clothing, school supplies, hygiene products, haircuts, dental and eye exams, preparing children for the new school year!
- During the pandemic, PPM has provided weekly free food ‘drive throughs’ and delivering food to families who cannot attend the ‘drive throughs’. More than 300 families in Monongalia County are benefitting from this effort.
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To partner with organizations that are also committed to ending hunger in Monongalia
County. This expands our reach to different areas and helps provide sustenance
and more to families.
- PPM formed a partnership with the Mountaineer Food Bank to hold monthly free food giveaways for any West Virginians.
- PPM partnered with WVU in various ways, including recruiting volunteers via iServe and working with different student groups, including Public Health, Business & Economics and Social Work. With these students and grant support, free cookbooks with nutritious and delicious recipes, based on non-perishable food, were created for our clients. These recipes are available on our website (https://www.pantryplusmore.org/recipes/); additional recipes can be added to the cookbooks as they are developed.
Our Goal is to minimize hunger and malnutrition and ultimately build the trust and self-esteem of children who will be able to focus on learning instead of worrying about hunger and other issues.
History
Roark Sizemore was a Morgantown High School senior when he and his advisor, Tom Bloom, started the Pantry Plus More. At that time, Roark worked with a community group providing free meals to people in need on weekends. Roark was shocked to see some of his high school colleagues and younger children receiving those meals. He found that elementary school children happily receive weekend food “back packs”, but older students often prefer going hungry rather than being identified by their peers as “poor.” With additional research, Roark learned about in-school pantries in another state, where food is discretely housed in a counselor’s office or other on-site location. Roark used this idea to launch the Pantry Plus More. Roark and Tom established a Board of Directors, and PPM became a 501(c)(3) in 2016.
Roark is now PPM’s President and a WVU senior; Tom is PPM’s Executive Director and a Monongalia County Commissioner. PPM has pantries in 12 Monongalia County schools and is planning to establish additional school pantries. Listen to Roark’s commitment when he was a sophomore at WVU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq-PXu54mPM .
Artist Roberta Newlon bio
“I find myself seeking light and sound. Oddly, I associate the two as one; perhaps it’s a lifetime of country living and as dawn breaks with filtered sunlight and songbirds I know it’s time to start my day. I go outside with my camera, a pen and paper and wander through my garden of flowers and vegetables. I watch light and shadow slowly travel across my meadow, bringing definition and contrast to the flora growing wild and those I planted. Inspiration often comes with an image or a poem but at times, inspiration is fickle, even in this sanctuary; however, I am never disappointed with the journey.
I have lived in my home state of West Virginia since birth and have not wanted to live anywhere else. I’ve had fantasies of living in New York City, Havana, Paris, and a few other beautiful places I’ve traveled, but my heart and soul always bring me back home, always, and how could it not? It’s Almost Heaven, after all.”