CHARLESTON, W.Va.— Charleston’s mobile food service Manna Meal will now have a place to do all of their food preparation.
Amy Wolfe, CEO of Manna Meal
Manna Meal is a non-profit organization providing 550 to 700 meals daily and was given a building through an agreement between them and WV Health Right. WV Health Right serves over 45,000 uninsured or underinsured adults in 34 different counties. They provide services such as medical, dental, vision, behavioral health, substance use disorder ad health education.
This building was the former Shape Shop Cafe, owned by Millie Snyder. Snyder recently announced that she was closing the doors to the shop and gave the building to WV Health Right in order for them to do something with it for the community.
Once WV Health Right got a hold of the building, they then decided to form a partnership to allow Manna Meal to use the building as a food prep facility.
CEO of Manna Meal Amy Wolfe says that this agreement gives Manna Meal the capabilities to maximize their mobile units.
“With two trucks dedicated to meal distribution and a third serving as a mobile pantry, this arrangement allows us to maximize the capabilities of our mobile community kitchen model,” Wolfe stated. “We are now better positioned to reach even more people. None of this would be possible without West Virginia Health Right and the generosity of Millie Snyder.”
CEO of WV Health Right, Dr. Angie Settle says that donating the building lets the clinic continue their mission to serve.
“We kind of envisioned doing some partnerships with people in the community and we knew that Manna Meal had a need for a prep kitchen, somewhere to just cook their food,” Settle said.
Since the building will only be used for preparation, Settle said that Manna Meal will still be utilizing everything else they had in motion.
“I know they have well established routes in place, and they have multiple mobile units, so they’ll continue utilizing that,” she said.
Dr. Angie Settle, CEO of WV Health Right
The building allows Manna Meal to prepare their food, for their 22-foot-long mobile units which allows Manna Meal to deliver food to those who can’t get around very well, their food truck and there in-person dining services at their building on Dickinson Street.
Settle said that this isn’t the first time they’ve partnered with one another.
“We feel like it’s a natural partnership with us and we look forward to working with them in the future,” she said. “We do a lot of things with Manna Meal in terms of HIV outreach, Hepatitis C testing, so that’s something we’ve done for many, many years, so this is just a continuation of that.”
The agreement begins at the beginning of the year.