OAK HILL, WV (WOAY) – Students at the Fayette Institute of Technology have been giving back to the community around this time every year for the past decade.
Just before Christmas each year, they partner up with the Fayette County Emergency Food Center for an annual holiday food drive.
The food that they collect for the center goes to help feed families in need. The assistant director of the food pantry, Terry Sizemore says that the students play a small but important role in helping to feed thousands around the area.
“We have 750 clients on our books, but we usually average about 200 to 300 families on a Monday and the same on a Friday,” he says. “If you figure each family is an average of four people, we’re taking care of over a thousand people every Monday and every Friday.”
Sizemore has been working with the food center for 15 years.
Food insecurity and hunger are rather commonplace issues for many across the area, especially around the holidays and as inflation continues to affect the local economy.
He says that it’s a crucial effort and one that he’s happy to see getting passed on to younger generations.
“Hopefully we can train them to be volunteers that want to help people and want to serve people in our community,” Sizemore says.
The emergency food center is open 9 a.m. to noon every Monday through Friday.
To find out more about how you can help them out, you can call them at (304)574-3733, or visit them on their Facebook page.