Huntington Area Food Bank Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Ex-Huntington Food Bank Head Admits Embezzlement

The former head of a Huntington-based regional food bank has pleaded guilty to embezzling from the charity.

Fifty-seven-year-old Leigh Anne Zappin of Huntington admitted to taking more than $32,000 from the former Huntington Area Food Bank in 2012.

Zappin pleaded guilty Monday in Cabell County Circuit Court to one felony embezzlement count.

Sentencing is scheduled for June 19.

Zappin resigned her position as the food bank’s executive director in September 2012.

The food bank changed its name earlier this year to Facing Hunger Foodbank. It serves the needy in 17 counties in Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia.

Huntington Area Food Bank Changes Name

Officials at the Food Bank in Huntington hope a new name will make all the difference in helping those in need.

Leaders at the Huntington Area Food Bank think the name change holds the key to better representing their coverage area. Tiffany Tatum is the Executive Director at the food bank.

“I hope that it opens people’s eyes, we can have this warehouse stocked full of food and I can give it out in a day, I know that I could,” Tatum said. “I hope that it hopes up a lot of opportunities for food resources.”

The food bank which is now named Facing Hunger Foodbank covers 17 counties including Putnam and Mason which aren’t in the Huntington area. When the food bank started in 1983 it only served Cabell and Wayne counties. Tatum said many are unaware the service area has expanded and have asked why an organization outside of the Huntington area should donate food or money.

“Community centers in Putnam County they flat out told me, we had no idea, we never even considered that we could access your resources because you’re in Huntington and we’re in Putnam county,” Tatum said.

The Facing Hunger Foodbank serves more than 100,000 in 17 counties in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio.

WV: Cabell, Wayne, Putnam, Mason, Lincoln, Logan, Mingo, Boone, Wyoming and McDowell.

KY: Boyd, Greenup, Lawrence and Martin

OH: Lawrence County.

Tatum said the name change should allow the organization to better help people they’ve not been able to help before.

“When you take that barrier away, you don’t even have to have that conversation, we’re Facing Hunger Foodbank, and these are the resources that we can provide to you period,” Tatum said.

The Facing Hunger Foodbank had help from the Barnes Agency in the rebranding process. Tatum said they talked with other food banks around the country through their affiliation with Feeding America.

Marshall Opens Food Pantry for Students

College students are not part of the group that most would think about needing help from a food pantry. Marshall University officials say the need is definitely there for that little extra support for students to get by and are doing something about it.

Marshall University and the Huntington Area Food Bank have teamed up to develop a food pantry on campus for students. The idea for the pantry began two years ago.

Marshall isn’t the first college in the area to provide it’s students with a pantry, West Virginia State has a pantry that will be one-year-old in March. And West Virginia University has a pantry that opened in the fall of 2010.

The pantry is open from 10 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon Tuesdays and Fridays. In order to obtain food students need their I.D. and have to sign in.

Donations of both non-perishable food and money for the pantry are welcome.

Groups around campus like the Marshall University Alumni Association are holding food drives to help support the pantry.

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.