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How do Food Banks Survive Slow Donation Periods?

The first few months of the new year always prove to be tough when it comes to gathering donations for non-profits like the Huntington Area Food Bank. So the food bank is thinking outside the box.

In conjunction with the Junior League of Huntington and other organizations the Huntington Area Food Bank is hosting a month long soup and food drive in the Huntington area. The hope is to offset the increased need for donations that become hard to come by just after the holidays. The event kicked off last weekend with a can drive at a local Wal-Mart. The weekend event brought in nearly a thousand pounds of food that the food bank can give to pantries throughout the state and region. Erin Highlander is director of development. She said drives like these are crucial.

“They’re lifelines, to get a thousand pounds of food in a single weekend, especially soup, soup and peanut butter are number 1 and 2 and it usually kind of varies from month-to-month, agencies love them, the folks that go to our pantries love them and so it’s a hot commodity, so we like to have a lot of it on hand and so this is a great way to do that,” Highlander said.

Food can be donated at locations all across the tri-state ranging from grocery stores, churches and hospital, to the Cabell County Courthouse. The Huntington Area Food Bank services an area that covers 12 counties in West Virginia, 4 in Kentucky and one in Ohio.

Highlander said the new management of the Huntington Area Food Bank took over a year ago, November, and after a tough winter last year where donations were slim, they looked for ideas like the month-long drive to create more inventory at a time when it’s tougher for the program.

"The soup drive was actually what came out of learning from last winter, we didn't have a lot of donations and we really needed the help," Highlander said.

“The soup drive was actually what came out of learning from last winter, we didn’t have a lot of donations and we really needed the help and we really needed a way to get in front of people and we all have to go to the grocery store so it really helped to combine those elements,” Highlander said.

Highlander says the holidays, combined with the recent bad weather, tends to increase the need at pantries and soup kitchens. She says facilities like the Huntington City Mission have likely had more visitors in the last week because of temperatures and will need additional food quicker than usual.

The next event in the month long drive is Sunday when Huntington Prep’s basketball team will meet with those donating at the Route 60 Wal-Mart in Huntington.

Homeless Coalition Welcomes Donation of Heating-Air Units

Some residents in apartments at the Cabell-Huntington Coalition for the Homeless got an early Christmas present this week.

Nine of the 54 efficiency style apartments at the Vanity Fair space at the Coalition received heating and air units this week. The units that were picked were ones with heating and air units that currently have to be held together with a mix of different parts.

The units came from Honeywell, a corporation specializing in technologies that include heating and air conditioning units. Bob Hansen is Executive Director of the homeless coalition.

“This complex was built and renovated in 1992 and just maintaining it through the years has been difficult,” Hansen said.

“We’re a small non-profit so we’re living day-to-day so this is just a big boost for us because the people that live here deserve the best living conditions and that’s what we’re striving for.”

Volunteers from Honeywell from all over the region came together to put in the 9 units. They installed the new single heating and air units in each of the 9 residents that were deemed to be the worst at the facility.

Alexis Jewell is a resident at the facility.

“My air conditioner and heater has not been working, so I have had cold air in the winter and hot air in the summer, so it’s greatly appreciate,” Jewell said.

“It is very nice because I’m from South Mississippi so it’s always colder than what I’m use to.”

Hansen said the nine apartments were in desperate need of new units.

“What we’ve been doing is just maintaining our old units, really they’re very inefficient, what we’ve been doing is kind of taking units apart and moving parts and trying to keep things going, kind of like using band aids to keep everything functional,” Hansen said.

Hansen said it’s important to provide a caring atmosphere year-round, not just around the holidays.

Researcher Shows Elderly Struggle During Power Outages

A professor of geriatrics at the Marshall University School of Medicine recently published an article that shows the elderly struggle when the power is out.

Dr. Shirley M. Neitch is a professor of geriatrics in the department of internal medicine at the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine. She, along with a team of researchers, just published an article on the effects of prolonged power outages on the health care of elderly patients. The study was published last month in the peer-reviewed journal Clinical Geriatrics. Neitch said although the premise seems obvious, many times elderly and especially bedridden elderly aren’t ready for the outages.

“If you ask specific questions, do you have a week’s worth of your medications, would you evacuate if you were told to do so, would you know where to go if asked to evacuate? You find out it’s not 100%, they are not really ready,” Neitch said.

And she said that’s the scary part for those providing care to geriatric patients.

The study highlighted two cases following the 2012 derecho that left millions of people without electricity for days across much of the mid-Atlantic United States. The excessive high humidity and sweating led to an increase in moisture on the patients’ skin. Without power it was difficult for caregivers to keep them clean and dry because of the lack of air conditioning and heated water. Both patients later died and their situations during the power outage were believed to have played a role.

Neitch and her team of researchers say their studies show the need for continuous power service for bedridden patients and overall awareness of opportunities for elderly when outages occur. Neitch said most power companies offer a high-priority restoration status, but documentation must be completed with the assistance of health care providers. She says even then, depending on the situation, having a high-priority restoration status is not a guarantee that the power will be back on anytime soon. Neitch says more elderly need to make use of the 211 Call Center System and the Vulnerable Needs Registry. The 211 system will allow the elderly and their caregivers to locate services that are needed. Neitch said it comes down to a need for better coordination of services.

"There is no need to reinvent wheels," Neitch said.

“My hope for the larger community is that people that are doing some really good and really hard work out there trying to make us all better prepared for this can start talking to each other because there is no need to reinvent wheels,” Neitch said.

The Vulnerable Needs Registry, available in 9 WV counties, requires a survey be completed for the patient, and makes sure there is a record of what the patient needs when an emergency occurs. Neitch said she just hopes this brings more attention to something that is near and dear to the hearts of many. As part of the study Neitch and her team produced a Patient Tip Sheet as well.

The study notes that the Vulnerable Needs Registry is only available in Cabell, Boone, Jackson, Lincoln, Logan, Mason, Mingo, Putnam and Wayne counties, unlike the 211 Call Center System, which is available nationwide.

WVU Medical School cooking up lessons in nutrition

Students at the West Virginia University School of Medicine Martinsburg, W.Va., campus are getting a side dish of cooking lessons along with their regular medical training.

The WVU Medical School’s Eastern Division is trying to fill a void in doctor education through a new class called Med Chef.

The 14 students who are currently earning degrees in the Eastern Panhandle are taking the class. Dr. Rosemarie Cannarella Lorenzetti, associate dean for student services, says medical students have not traditionally learned about nutrition

“In bio chemistry in their second year they’re taught a little bit about how glucose is taken by the cell and how the muscles utilize glucose or stored sugars like glycogen, those kinds of things,” Lorenzetti said. “But when you ask a typical third year student what kind of diet advice they give to the patient they say ‘oh we’re not supposed to do that that’s supposed to come from dieticians.’”

“And certainly in my over 30 years of practice as a family doctor patients ask me all the time for advice about eating,” she added.

Dr. Mark Cucuzzella, family medicine professor, said the goal is to arm future doctors with information they can pass along to patients when necessary.

“I don’t see in a 15 minute clinic a doctor’s going to break out a fry pan and start chopping vegetables, but what we’d like to do is connect the dots,” Cucuzzella said.

According to Cucuzzella those dots can include information about nutrition, what foods are healthy, or even what cooking classes are available in the community. He said eating right is the first step to maintaining a healthy weight, and those who are not overweight can often avoid diseases like diabetes or heart attacks.

“We have all this awesome new technology to take care of all these really bad things people are getting now,” Cucuzzella said. “But I think part of our mission is let’s not have to send people for all of these things too and not have to send them for the cardiac bypass and stents, let’s prevent it,”

The students and their professors took a cooking class at Blue Ridge Community and Technical College where they learned how to make dishes like California rolls and chocolate brownies with healthier ingredients. Lorenzetti said another lesson focused on how to ask about a patient’s eating habits in a nonjudgmental way.

“One time we took the whole afternoon and we were just working with the students on how do you take a nutrition history from a patient?,” she said. “I challenge all you to think about the last time you went for a checkup for the doctor and they asked what do you eat?”

Students Rob Ciancaglini from Annapolis, Md., and Wayde Gilmore from Elkins, W.Va., said the information they’re learning will help them be better doctors.

“You can’t have somebody walk into your office and you explain to them 10 recipes,” Ciancaglini said. “There’s no time for that in a clinic setting.”

But Ciancaglini said doctors can help patients make good decisions.

“So something like telling them to stay on the perimeter of the grocery store where all the fresher foods and ingredients are. If you give them simple rules like that then generally you’re going to kind of just eat healthier anyway,” he said.

“I think there are a lot of misconceptions about nutrition that are out there so I think as a future doctor I think it’s very important to learn how to be healthy, how to eat healthy, what good nutrition actually means,” Gilmore said.

“In the future when I’m in my clinic I want to be able to know the right types of things to tell my patients to help them lead healthier lives and to eat healthier because nutrition has an absolutely massive impact on the wellbeing of your patients,” Gilmore said.

Inspiring West Virginians: Season 4 featuring John Nash

The fourth series of Inspiring West Virginians features one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, John Forbes Nash, Jr, a 1994 winner of the…

The fourth series of Inspiring West Virginians features one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, John Forbes Nash, Jr, a 1994 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Nash grew up in Bluefield, West Virginia, and the town still holds an importance for him. Now 84, John Nash is currently a Senior Research Mathematician at Princeton University in New Jersey.

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Listen to John Nash's visit with Jean Snedegar.

His life was the subject of the 1998 best-selling biography, A Beautiful Mind, and the 2001 Hollywood film (which won the Best Picture Oscar) of the same name. Other contributors to the Nash profile are Nash’s sister, Martha Nash Legg; Cliff Hawley, Professor of Economics at West Virginia University; Steve Shreve (a native of Greenbrier County) and DejanSlepcev, both mathematicians at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Also in this season:

Diane Lewis, founder and CEO of Action Facilities Management, a security and facilities company based in Morgantown. Her company, which started in 2001 with one employee (her 17-year-old son!) now employs more than 300 people in nine states. Lewis, a native of the Adamston neighborhood in Clarksburg, is currently the Small Business Person of the Year in West Virginia. Lewis also serves on the Board of Governors of West Virginia University and is a leader in the Teaming to Win events for small businesses in West Virginia.

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Diane Lewis shares her journey.

She and her husband Kenny Jackson run a non-profit organization, Members of Diversity, which helps youngsters from minority groups to develop the skills they need to find jobs. Also contributing to the profile are Lewis’ sister, Donna Jean Forge, Brad Calandrelli, Director of Facilities at the High Tech Consortium in Fairmont and James Clements, President of West Virginia University.

Rodney Bartis, Director of the WV Nature Conservancy, stands next to a 500 year old hemlock in 2013

Rodney Bartgis, State Director of The Nature Conservancy in West Virginia and one of the region’s most respected scientists in field biology and ecology. Since he was a child in Berkeley County, Bartgis has discovered dozens of rare plant species in West Virginia, and many naturalists agree that he knows more about the natural history of West Virginia than anyone alive. To help protect the state’s amazing biodiversity, Bartgis, along with colleagues at The Nature Conservancy and others, has helped to conserve some of West Virginia’s most unique wild places – in the New River Gorge, Canaan Valley, the Smoke Hole Canyon, Cranberry Glades, Panther Knob and Pike Knob, among many others.

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Rodney Bartgis gives a tour of wild Pendleton County.

Other contributors to his profile include Bartgis’ father, Bob Bartgis; Elizabeth Byers, plant ecologist with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, and the team of men who have been hiking the Mountain State with Bartgis for more than 35 years.

Inspiring West Virginian, bio-engineer Linda Powers

Linda Powers, a bio-engineer at the University of Arizona in Tucson, builds instruments that use light to look for life in extreme environments – from microbes in hospital operating rooms, to microbes in remote deserts to life on Mars. She is considered the top person in the world in this field, with many of her projects funded by the Department of Defense and NASA. She is the Thomas R Brown Distinguished Professor of Bio-Engineering at the University of Arizona, and is also a professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Powers, a native of Beckley, is a former winner of the West Virginia State Science Fair and the national Westinghouse Science Talent Search (now funded by Intel) sometimes referred to as “the nation’s oldest and most prestigious” science competition. Powers placed among the top five science students in the nation.

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Linda Powers describes the work in her lab.

Other contributors to her profile include colleague and bio-engineer Walter Ellis; scientist and engineer Lois Wardell, and former Woodrow Wilson High School classmate, Kathy Smith Simmons.

Inspiring West Virginians,the West Virginia Public Radio series which profiles leading scientists, engineers and business people from the Mountain State, is produced and presented by Jean Snedegar, an independent producer based in Elkins. Suzanne Higgins is the Senior Producer for West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Press Room Photos Available Here

The series is made possible by the generous support of the Myles Family Foundation – inspiring West Virginians to soar.

Beckley Native a Bio Engineer and Inspiring West Virginian

Bio-safety-level-2 laboratories in the Bio5 Building at the University of Arizona Medical School is where Linda Powers has designed and built several…

Bio-safety-level-2 laboratories in the Bio5 Building at the University of Arizona Medical School is where Linda Powers has designed and built several impressive and important scientific instruments.

“Here we handle microbes that can make you sick, but generally not kill you,” said Powers on a recent tour.

But the 64-year-old Beckley native, now the Thomas R. Brown Distinguished Professor of Bio-Engineering at the University of Arizona, does handle microbes that can kill you.

“Yes, that’s a BSL-3 Laboratory, and that is highly regulated by the CDC,” she explains.

Powers is a professor of electrical and computer engineering and a professor of bio-medical engineering.

She described one of her technologies, a handheld biosensor small enough to take in a backpack into the wilderness or the desert that can detect microbial contamination in real time.

“The light shines on the surface, like my hand here, and the light comes from these LEDs. And this is the detector, so the light captures the florescence – and you read it out here on this small computer,” said Powers.

“When I was in the Arctic we used a PDA – just a little handheld thing,” she added.

The microbes are visible instantly.

“We can’t tell you what species they are, but I can tell you there are microbes there and the microbial load,” she continued. “The reason that’s important is because microbes are communal, and if you have large communities, you will have pathogens living in there.”

The instruments that Powers has been building for the last 15 years are aimed at looking for life in extreme environments or life in places where it is very difficult to do the standard microbiological or biological testing.

She’s been designing instruments that can measure the tiniest amounts of microbial contamination on surfaces, including food preparation surfaces, the hospital operating theater, hospital surgical instruments, and in air, water, and other fluids.

Powers’ instruments have many applications.

They can test the quality of a city water supply or a well in an African village.

She also designs and builds instruments for the Department of Defense and NASA. Much of that work is secret, but one of her instruments can detect possible bio-terrorism; another, life on Mars.

Powers was a pioneer in the use of something called “synchrotron radiation” as well as “x-ray absorption spectroscopy”.

She says she’s always been a science “geek” and that she’s been interested in light since she was a kid in Beckley.

“That was 3^rd grade. I wanted a telescope for Christmas and I got a telescope, and I was hooked,” Powers said. “Then I got interested in chemistry, and then I got interested in light, and I got interested in explosives and I got interested in rockets.”

“It was there and it was a very strong force in my life.”

When she was in the 8^th grade at Beckley Junior High, Powers won first place at the West Virginia State Science Fair for a project using light.

It was one of many science fair awards.

“My mom in particular didn’t understand half of the things that got me excited but she would sit by the hour and listen to me rant and rave about it,” she recalled.

Powers’ father worked for Eastern Associated Coal and her mother was a stay-at-home mom.

“I came home one day from high school and said, ‘I want to go to college,’ and my father’s eyes got huge, but nobody said ‘no’.”

Up to then, no one in the Powers family had gone to college. To see if she was really interested, her parents suggested she take some courses at Marshall University the summer before her senior year of high school.

“I took courses in chemistry and I did some experiments that turned out far beyond what anybody could have anticipated,” said Powers. “I wrote it all up, and that was what I wrote to the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, which I won in my senior year in high school.”

Powers was among the top five science students in the nation. Westinghouse Science Talent Search awarded her a major academic scholarship.

After graduating from Virginia Tech, she got a PhD in biophysics from Harvard University. From there Powers was recruited to lead her own research group at AT&T Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, which at the time was considered the finest research laboratory in the world.

Powers says throughout her years at Woodrow Wilson High School in Beckley, college and at Bell Labs, she had a series of teachers and mentors who encouraged her to reach for the sky.

“The sky is the limit. And in West Virginia, that sky is even closer!” said Powers. “There’s no reason for you (any student) to have any problem doing what you want to do. If you want it, do it!”

“Somebody will take notice along the way and help you,” she said. “They certainly did me, and this was back when girls didn’t do things like that.”

“Don’t let anybody stand in your way! You’ll be surprised at the people you’ll find who will support you, especially in West Virginia.”

Linda Powers is among those featured in the documentary Inspiring West Virginians, produced by Jean Snedegar with Senior Producer Suzanne Higgins.