CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The John 6 CommUNITY Food Center opened Thursday at the West Virginia Health Right’s CommUNITY Wellness on the West Side.
A More Excellent Way Life Center Church will run the food distribution center, which has outgrown the church’s facilities, currently feeding around 400 families monthly.
“We’re just very excited, we are big into partnerships, and we believe in not replicating services Bishop Haley, and A More Excellent Way of Life Center Church has a done a great job serving the community with their food distribution center,” Angie Settle, West Virginia Health Right’s chief executive officer said. “The only place they didn’t have was a good place for it. They’ve been trying to put it in their sanctuary for years.”
“This is the fourth and final phase of our development of the CommUNITY Wellness Center,” Settle said.”
Aetna Better Health of West Virginia granted $1.3 million for the new food distribution center.
“We’re supporting our community to make sure people are not only eating but eating in a healthy way,” Bishop Haley of A More Excellent Way Life Center Church said. “This is a great example of what we can do when we all work together.”
On June 1, 2021, West Virginia Health Right’s CommUNITY Wellness Center launched its West Side clinic to offer low-income, uninsured, and underinsured people free medical care, which was already offered at the organization’s primary clinic on Charleston’s East End. The CommUNITY Wellness Center’s Learning Hub, which debuted on March 17, 2022, housed offices for behavioral health, health instruction, community training, childcare, a teaching kitchen, and an on-site gym. A large activity room fit for ballet, line dancing, yoga, kickboxing, and Zumba classes, as well as rent-free office space for nonprofit organizations, a conference room, and a career-building office to assist jobseekers are all features of the CommUNITY Wellness Center’s Partner Hub, which officially opened on November 3, 2022.
Story by Chayce Matheny