By Rayla Claypool, Jazmine Hawes, Alison Kaiser, Aishina Shaffer

Wealth, prosperity and security are not terms that describe McDowell County, W.Va…

Where there is hunger

By Rayla Claypool, Alison Kaiser, Aishina Shaffer, Jazmine Hawes

No one is immune to a bad month, six months or even a bad year.

“No one should ever feel ashamed because they’re in need,” says Caleah Wells, a graduate assistant at The Rack at West Virginia University. 
The Rack is a food pantry for WVU students. The food at The Rack is free to any student in need. After filling out a one-time intake form, students are free to come to The Rack whenever they like. 
Three of the…

Chef Curtis catches catfish

Sabraton is a small, unincorporated community in Monongalia County, W.Va. Just a 15-minute drive out of Morgantown, the coal town has very few grocery store options.

A Save-A-Lot offers many popular food brands at discount prices. A Shop ‘n Save, about 10…

Everybody knows the trope of the broke college student. That’s why university campuses are littered with opportunities for free stuff: t-shirts, pizza, other memorabilia. Brands giving out cheap trinkets with their logos and slogans plastered on them. I’ve even seen temperature-activated color-change plastic cups.

My Food System Reflection

It’s very easy to generalize, as well as make assumptions about, the government assisted food programs. But once you actually take an investigative approach to find out how cooperations are trying to solve hunger in America, you will find that it’s not a simple as you may think.

The Case Manager

By Rayla Claypool, Alison Kaiser, Aishina Shaffer, Jazmine Hawes

Learning from Doing

For weeks, we’ve been studying this concept of food justice. How the food systems in our country work, whom they include and exclude, what happens from farm to table, and everything in between. We could spend many more weeks talking about food justice, but some things are better learned by…

Feeding her people

In an interview a few weeks ago, WVU Professor of Social Work Carol Amendola spoke with me about an experiential learning class that she taught over the summer. Her section was the only one to actually go out in the field, and she said that “[they] could sit in class and talk about it all day,”…