{"id":1954,"date":"2015-09-15T17:58:54","date_gmt":"2015-09-15T21:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=1954"},"modified":"2015-09-15T17:58:54","modified_gmt":"2015-09-15T21:58:54","slug":"starting-points-serving-those-in-need-in-morgan-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=1954","title":{"rendered":"Starting Points Serving Those in Need in Morgan County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, there is one organization that serves hot meals to those in need.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s called the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.starting-points.org\/\">Morgan County Starting Points Family Resource Center.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hsXq4uXdLDc\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This past Friday, the group and its community volunteers served over 178 hot meals to those in need.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The hot meal program is called the Meal Time Community Kitchen. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And it\u2019s open Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 3:30 to 5:30 pm. (187 South Green Street, Berkeley Springs, West Virginia).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No questions asked.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Starting Points director Audrey Morris says that most people pick up their meals and take them home &#8212; although a few come in and eat their meals at Starting Points.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIn 2014, we served over 21,000 hot meals,\u201d Morris told <em>This Week in Morgan County with Russell Mokhiber.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Starting Points also has a backpack program that delivers a bag of food every Friday to 350 students.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dIb18kUkspo\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe try and put the food bags put into the child\u2019s backpack while they are out on the playground or at lunch or someplace else,\u201d Morris said. \u201cIt should work that the students receiving it are not identified by their peers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How serious is the poverty in Morgan County?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe do know that the poverty rate in schools is over 60 percent,\u201d Morris said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most of the food is donated or purchased with money donated from the community.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe get donations every Sunday from farmers market vendors,\u201d Morris said. \u201cFood Lion has been amazing in the last year and a half. On weekends, we receive food from the bakery.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During the week, the bakery items go to the Senior Center but on weekends, we get them.. We\u2019re getting fresh produce also.\u201d<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Starting Points also has a literacy program.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThrough our literacy program, we are sending brand new books home with pre-school kids,\u201d Morris said. \u201cWith those free books, we are also sending information to parents &#8212; information on how important it is to read to kids.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Morris said that she doesn\u2019t consider her work charity. It\u2019s more helping families help themselves, she says.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While families might come in during times of crisis, in a few cases, Starting Points has been successful in breaking the cycle of poverty &#8212; by helping people get jobs &#8212; including one woman who worked with Starting Points to land a $14 an hour job.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But Morris says that Morgan County is the third most expensive county in the state when it comes to housing costs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you living in Morgan County, you would need $15.75 to be able to afford a two bedroom rental,&#8221; Morris said. &#8220;And the theory is not more than 30 percent of your income should be going to housing expenses &#8212; not just the rent, but all of the costs of living there &#8212; electric and all of your services &#8212; should not be more than 30 percent. And a lot of people are paying over 50 percent of their income to live somewhere &#8212; and that&#8217;s not a mansion, it&#8217;s just someplace that&#8217;s safe &#8212; then where are you getting food, how can you afford to have a car? In Morgan County, we have no public transportation. And we see people walking all over the place. And we are the only county in the eight county region that does not have public transportation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, there is one organization that serves hot meals to those in need. It\u2019s called the Morgan County Starting Points Family Resource Center. This past Friday, the group and its community volunteers served over 178 hot &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=1954\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}