By Taylor Sisk
Amy Wolfe sees almost every type of person pass through the door of Manna Meal on Charleston’s West Side: young people, middle-aged, retirees, homeowners, families, those derailed by the pandemic. Many are employed full time, coming up a little or more short each paycheck. For most, healthy food is a luxury. For some, Manna’s free meals are literally a lifesaver.
Wolfe is fully on board with efforts to make West Virginians healthier. But when Gov. Patrick Morrisey went to the Eastern Panhandle in late March to announce a new focus on health, she heard nothing to indicate Manna Meal’s clients’ fundamental health needs were being addressed.
Amy Wolfe is director of Manna Meal on Charleston’s West Side. In addition to a hot meal, Manna offers “dignity and respect to anyone that walks through our doors.” Photo by Taylor Sisk/100 Days in Appalachia
Joined at the press conference by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Morrisey announced his Four Pillars of a Healthy West Virginia. The first pillar stipulates that certain food dyes will be banned from public school lunches. The second calls for an expansion of work, training and education requirements for food assistance (what the governor calls Find Purpose, Find Health). The third pillar: a statewide exercise program called the Mountaineer Mile, challenging every West Virginian to walk at least a mile a day. And the fourth is to request a waiver from the federal government to no longer make soft drinks available in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Morrisey says his four pillars directive is modeled on the new federal Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement Kennedy has championed. As part of that, Kennedy has staked claim to some controversial positions, including that “there’s no vaccine that’s safe and effective” and that fluoride is tied to cancer, thyroid disease and IQ loss.
Wolfe is certainly a proponent of exercise. She points out that many, perhaps most, of those who come to Manna for a meal get plenty of physical activity. Many have no home, and spend much of their day in transit, one step ahead of the next rousting. Others must trek from the food desert in which they live to the Kroger grocery store, a mile and a half away.
What’s needed, she and others who advocate for the underserved say, are systemic changes that would allow people to make healthier choices.
West Virginia consistently ranks at or near the bottom among states for health outcomes. But nowhere in Morrisey or Kennedy’s remarks was there mention of addressing the everyday barriers to healthy living.
In attempting to bring attention to those obstacles, Wolfe said, “it seems like we’re running into brick wall after brick wall after brick wall.”
‘More Barriers to Basic Human Needs’
For Kennedy and Morrisey, taking care of oneself is a responsibility, the American thing to do.
“We all need to stand up for ourselves and take care of ourselves,” Kennedy told those assembled at the Martinsburg press conference. “It’s an act of patriotism. If you love this country, you need to start taking care of yourselves.”
Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at a press conference in Martinsburg on March 28, 2025, as West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey looks on. Photo courtesy Governor’s Office.
But as they exhort citizens to take this initiative, the federal government is slashing funding for the agencies designed to attain and maintain healthy living. “The revolution begins today!” Kennedy wrote on social media in April, referencing his planned workforce reductions and restructuring of Health and Human Services.
The administration proposes a roughly one-third cut in HHS discretionary spending and reducing the agency’s workforce from 82,000 to 62,000.
Kennedy announced plans to collapse 28 HHS agencies into 15, combining services into the newly launched Administration for a Healthy America. This new umbrella will include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, among other current agencies.
A lawsuit filed by 20 attorneys general against Kennedy and HHS alleges the cuts have, among other things, led to the closure of programs that monitor cancer and maternal health, restricted laboratories that test for infectious diseases and left early-childhood learning programs unsure of their future. Cuts to CDC funding have thwarted states’ efforts to respond to the largest measles outbreak in 25 years.
The Trump administration has already canceled funding for two federal programs that provided more than $1 billion in food assistance to schools and food banks, and has proposed cutting more than 40 percent of funding for federal housing programs. And a budget reconciliation package in the works in the House and Senate could include proposals to cut safety net programs like Medicaid, SNAP, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Social Services Block Grant.
In West Virginia, Morrisey is eyeing the changes to SNAP as the next move in his “four pillars” directive.
Currently, most able-bodied people who have no dependents and are between the ages of 18 and 54 must work or be enrolled in a training program in order to receive SNAP benefits. A bill to raise the age to 59 passed the West Virginia Senate in March but was not voted on by the House of Delegates before the session ended.
Wolfe says she knows well what a work requirement will mean to many her organization serves: It’ll mean erecting “more barriers to basic human needs.”
And Rhonda Rogombé, health and safety net policy analyst at the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, said research has found such a move would be, at best, ineffective, and at worst, counterproductive.
During the pandemic, the state waived work requirements. But when they went back into effect, Rogombe’s team found that 12,000 West Virginians lost their benefits. At the same time, the state unemployment rate was unchanged and the state food economy lost $34 million a month.
“There are lots of reasons that people face barriers to work or barriers to reporting those work requirements,” Rogombé said. She said those reasons might include few jobs in the area, or a lack of transportation or child care.
“I’m glad to see a governor take West Virginians’ health seriously and want to do things to improve health outcomes for our state,” Rogombé said. But she believes that bolstering programs that help address those bigger issues will be much more effective than Morrisey’s current plan.
Reinforce those safety net systems, Rogombé said, and “the individual will follow.”
Community Focused
Throughout West Virginia, such reinforcement has long come from grassroots initiatives.
In addition to serving breakfast and lunch 365 days a year, Manna Meal has both a brick-and-mortar and mobile food pantry and offers free clothing and hygiene items.
Also on Charleston’s West Side, the Keep Your Faith Corporation recently opened Miss Ruby’s Corner Market, providing fresh vegetables and other nutritious foods at affordable prices.
Miss Ruby’s Corner Market supports local farmers and offers their produce to customers on Charleston’s West Side. Photo by Taylor Sisk/100 Days in Appalachia
In seven rural counties, the Center for Rural Health Development’s Wild, Wonderful & Healthy program is meeting locally identified needs, focusing on the root causes of health issues. The center’s staff works with cross-sector teams to create three-to-five-year plans for sustainable community-health improvements.
Each team “identifies what their priority health issues are going to be, and they also determine all of the strategies that are going to go into those plans,” said the center’s director of programs Elaine Darling. “Some of our communities focus on increasing access to healthy foods, but they may have different strategies to get to that goal.”
In Logan County, for example, the Logan Healthcare Foundation collaborated with a local recovery program to build a greenhouse that provides fresh fruits and vegetables to the local food pantry.
But many organizations advancing such initiatives are learning their state and federal funding is being reduced or eliminated. And Wolfe says that with the uncertainty of the economy, some private donors are giving less.
Darling agrees with Morrisey that action is needed to make West Virginians healthier, and that initiatives should support increasing physical activity, eating healthy and nutritious foods and having meaningful work.
“While it’s incumbent upon us to take these steps, for some it’s easier than for others,” she said, noting that people make decisions based on the options available to them. Access is an ongoing issue in West Virginia, where people may have to rely on dollar stores and convenience stores where fresh fruits and vegetables are scarce. “They may not have places where they feel they can safely walk or exercise, and they may not have reliable transportation to access those things.”
Focusing on the access issues that community members across the state face is “of utmost importance to improving the health of West Virginians,” Darling said.
Rogombé stresses the need to focus on “the structure of poverty and the ways that it impacts not only your day-to-day and your physical life but the psychology of your life.”
Manna Meal’s role in its community, Wolfe said, is about a lot more than feeding people. It’s also about “offering dignity and respect to anyone that walks through our doors.”
She laments a lack of empathy for those who are struggling and a failure to address fundamental needs.
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Previously Published on 100daysinappalachia with Creative Commons License
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Photo credit: Miss Ruby’s Corner Market, on Charleston’s West Side, provides nutritious foods at affordable prices. Photo by Taylor Sisk/100 Days in Appalachia
