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Speaker 1: On the Job is brought to you by Express Employment Professionals.

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Speaker 1: today's job market. Express Noose Jobs, Get to no Express,

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Speaker 1: Go to expresspros dot com. Welcome to on the Job.

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Speaker 1: This season, we're bringing you stories about people finding their

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Speaker 1: professional stride by virtue of who they know, whether it's

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Speaker 1: breathing new life into an age old profession, taking the

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Speaker 1: reins in a family business, forging your own path with

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Speaker 1: a new idea, or landing the perfect job doing something

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Speaker 1: you'd never before even considered. In the deep hills of Appalachia.

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Speaker 1: Linda McKinney has a very important job. She feeds people

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Speaker 1: in McDowell County, West Virginia. The community has seen its

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Speaker 1: share of hardship and flood shortages in the wake of

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Speaker 1: the coal industry drying up over the last thirty years.

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Speaker 1: In the aftermath, Linda works day in and day out

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Speaker 1: to make sure that the people of McDowell are fed

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Speaker 1: while the community perseveres. Producer Otis Gray brings us the

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Speaker 1: story as a beautiful potato you want to fly? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a chilly, overcast day and I am in McDowell County,

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Speaker 1: West Virginia peeling potatoes with Linda McKinney. L I n

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Speaker 1: da mc k I n n E. Why we're in

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Speaker 1: the warehouse of her food bank called Five Loaves and

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Speaker 1: two Fishes. Linda just got this huge shipment donated to them,

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Speaker 1: which is palettes and palettes of potatoes for a food

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Speaker 1: give out that they have this coming weekend. That's are beautiful.

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Speaker 1: Look at this and it was actually one I'll picked up.

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Speaker 1: Its shaped like a heart, So that tellsion that's meant

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Speaker 1: for me. About all gets donated here? Yes? And do

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Speaker 1: you give it away from free. Yes, this is all free.

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Speaker 1: We don't sell anything here. Linda is a character. She's

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Speaker 1: a short Italian woman with her hair dyed of fiery

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Speaker 1: crimson red, and she runs his food bank with her husband, Bob,

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Speaker 1: in the southernmost part of the state, right in the

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Speaker 1: heart of Appalachia. Bob is still a mind safety and

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Speaker 1: training instructor for the state Mining Department. His income supports

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Speaker 1: the two of them. Linda's full time job is to

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Speaker 1: run the food bank and feed as many people as

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Speaker 1: she possibly can here with whatever donations she receives from

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Speaker 1: nonprofits and religious organizations. So you actually don't know all

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Speaker 1: the time what you're gonna go. No, no, you don't.

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Speaker 1: You know we can't buy food. We don't buy food.

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Speaker 1: We barely keep enough in our budget for overhead, and

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Speaker 1: no one's paid here. No one's paid here. Like many

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Speaker 1: places around here, McDowell has always been a coal town,

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Speaker 1: but in the last few decades more coal has been

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Speaker 1: imported from overseas, devastating economies like this and leaving them

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Speaker 1: with a high unemployment rate, poverty and everything that comes

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Speaker 1: with that. So sometimes people will show up and Linda

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Speaker 1: doesn't have enough that happened last month. We just didn't

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Speaker 1: have the food. The third Saturday of every month, Linda

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Speaker 1: and a group of volunteers do this food give out,

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Speaker 1: and even in the coldest of weather, people in mcdowells

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Speaker 1: show up as early as two am to wait in

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Speaker 1: line for the noonday distribution because, for better or worse,

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Speaker 1: let's first come, first served. You can only feed so many,

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Speaker 1: you know, and we at one time we fed anyone

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Speaker 1: that came. But the food got short. And it scares

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Speaker 1: you when you don't see food, and you say, God,

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Speaker 1: what am I going to feed these people? There's no

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Speaker 1: food here. This Saturday is the next food give out

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Speaker 1: in McDowell, a rural place where for many the choices

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Speaker 1: can be to leave or to starve. Well, today we

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Speaker 1: followed Lenna McKinney as she stands her ground and prepares

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Speaker 1: to feed whoever she can. I'm a storyteller. I never

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Speaker 1: had anybody played with when I was little, so I

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Speaker 1: just made up stories and lies and played by myself

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Speaker 1: and eat mud and grass and dirt, had a good

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Speaker 1: old time by myself. Didn't have any cousins around that

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Speaker 1: I could play with, and I was raised basically by adults.

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Speaker 1: And so you learn. I'm a storyteller. I've always been.

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Speaker 1: I laugh all the time and never shut up. You

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Speaker 1: know I'm in the building. When you hear him, I cackle.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I cackle. Linda's a good talker. She was

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Speaker 1: even a pastor for three years here in the same

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Speaker 1: church she was born in. She loves the story of

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Speaker 1: Five Loaves and Two Fishes, which is the story the

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Speaker 1: food Bank is named after. It's the Bible passage in

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Speaker 1: which Jesus takes five loaves of bread and a couple

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Speaker 1: of small fish and breaks them to feed thousands, despite

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Speaker 1: his disciples not thinking they have enough to give. I

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Speaker 1: can just see him pulling that bread and slinging a fish.

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Speaker 1: That's what I would do. You know. Being Italian, we

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Speaker 1: throw a lot of things, so I just sling it everywhere.

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Speaker 1: But you know, the disciples, which is all in a

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Speaker 1: tissy because there wasn't any food. But he showed him,

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Speaker 1: didn't he He showed him. Linda was raised an only child,

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Speaker 1: and like a lot of immigrants, her Italian father came

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Speaker 1: to West Virginia to work in the coal fields back

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Speaker 1: in the fifties, and they both lived in a house

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Speaker 1: with her grandmother. My dad was a man of the

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Speaker 1: house who went to work every day at the mines,

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Speaker 1: and my Norna and I had aunt a widow. Don't

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Speaker 1: that raised me well? First thing, they taught me to

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Speaker 1: pull me up to a cook stove and taught me

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Speaker 1: how to cook. She was born and raised to be

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Speaker 1: a caretaker of sorts. So when the man who used

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Speaker 1: to run this food bank was falling ill and asked

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Speaker 1: Linda and her husband to take it over, she eventually accepted.

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Speaker 1: This we call a buggy, you guys call a shopping

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Speaker 1: cart in the warehouse. She pulls out a shopping cart

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Speaker 1: to show me how they load up food for the

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Speaker 1: families every month. First we look at our food and

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Speaker 1: we count, and we're going to be able to figure

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Speaker 1: up how many families were going to be able to food.

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Speaker 1: This looks to me like we will be able to

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Speaker 1: do anywhere from one hundred and thirty five, maybe a hundred,

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Speaker 1: maybe one hundred and fifty families. So what we'll do

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Speaker 1: we'll come down through here and we'll start right here.

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Speaker 1: So in the warehouse there's pallets and boxes neatly packed

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Speaker 1: against the walls and whist everything here comes from a

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Speaker 1: humanitarian organization called Operation Blessing. If it was not for

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Speaker 1: Operation Blessing, we would not have food. Each month they

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Speaker 1: send us a tractor trailer of food, and that came

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Speaker 1: in this Thursday. Still, when there are disasters in other

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Speaker 1: parts of the world, like the recent floods in Puerto Rico,

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Speaker 1: that means that Operation Blessing might send more there and

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Speaker 1: less to McDowell. Right now, there are the pallets of potatoes.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of canned goods like soups and vegetables

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Speaker 1: and noodles. There's syrup on top of a big pallet

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Speaker 1: of pancake mix. Little Debby's Cakes is actually a really

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Speaker 1: big donor. And next to that there are boxes and

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Speaker 1: boxes of ho hoes. Yeah, we got hoes. And somewhere

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Speaker 1: here I thank someone cracked the case. They say these

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Speaker 1: are delicious. Tell me what these are. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I don't eat sweets, okay, strawberry shortcake rolls? Yes? Did

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Speaker 1: they taste like a strawberry shortcake? I'm told a lot

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Speaker 1: of sodas get donated here too. McDowell has landed in

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Speaker 1: the spotlight before, kind of as a poster child for

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Speaker 1: a down and out coal town. What it looks like

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Speaker 1: when Applachian communities can only afford things like sugary foods.

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Speaker 1: They were even featured on PBS a decade back for

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Speaker 1: what journalists called Mountain due Mouth, where kids had their

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Speaker 1: teeth rotting away from so much sugar. While a lot

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Speaker 1: of this coverage was very graphic and highly polarized poverty porn,

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Speaker 1: the health issues that come with the poverty here are

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Speaker 1: very real. Life expectancy in McDowell is just sixty four years,

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Speaker 1: the same lifespan is a lot of Third World countries.

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Speaker 1: So Linda goes out of her way to procure the

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Speaker 1: healthiest stuff that she can get. You know, you really

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Speaker 1: need to take the good food you've got. Beans. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I've come to show if you don't know how to

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Speaker 1: cook beans. Some of the younger generation does not know

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Speaker 1: how to cook bean. I'll show you how to cook

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Speaker 1: the beans. I'll bring a pot of beans and item

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Speaker 1: tasting six or seven. Okay, let me bring it over here.

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Speaker 1: The next thing Linda does is she takes me over

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Speaker 1: to the shelf with these clear plastic bags on it.

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Speaker 1: She calls them school break bags. And what we do

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Speaker 1: when we get food in anything that is small child size.

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Speaker 1: We put them in these bags. Anytime there's no school,

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Speaker 1: any children that come here, we'll get a school break bag.

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Speaker 1: For most of the kids around here, the school feeds

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Speaker 1: breakfast when they come in early. They feed school lunch

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Speaker 1: and an after school snack. But on long breaks like Christmas,

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Speaker 1: those three meals aren't there anymore, and the kids go

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Speaker 1: back to homes with pretty empty pantries. I want to

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Speaker 1: try to give a protein. You want to try to

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Speaker 1: give a cereal something they can eat for breakfast. This

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Speaker 1: is all snacks. You've got you some apple sauce, You've

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Speaker 1: got you some juice, so you know, I may even

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Speaker 1: throw some of those strawberry cakes we got I think

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Speaker 1: we've got I'll see some cheese. It's over there, So

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Speaker 1: I mean, I know you like you kind of get

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Speaker 1: what you get in terms of donations. Do you ever

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Speaker 1: worry about it? Does a lot of this stuff have

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Speaker 1: like tons and tons of sugar in it? Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: in my world, some food is better than no food.

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Speaker 1: It's really hard to understand McDowell and the gravity of

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Speaker 1: hunger here unless you've seen it up close. I'm from

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Speaker 1: a rural place too, in Vermont, where a lot of

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Speaker 1: people depend on food stamps and even hunting to get by,

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Speaker 1: but this just it felt so different. There are some

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Speaker 1: fast food places here, but even then there's no jobs,

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Speaker 1: there's no money to buy that food. This is a

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Speaker 1: place in a country of abundance where for a lot

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Speaker 1: of people there is no food available. Period. When did

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Speaker 1: the food get short? Food got short into and when

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Speaker 1: Walmart closed, that was our perishables. So that's why you

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Speaker 1: would see You see the refrigerators, and you see the freezers.

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Speaker 1: They're empty. They've been empty since Walmart left, completely empty.

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Speaker 1: I can turn the light on and show you, Jorge

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Speaker 1: the camp. She walks me to the back of the

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Speaker 1: warehouse to this long row of about ten full sized

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Speaker 1: freezers and fridges. She says, these were full of meats, fruits, eggs, yogurt,

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Speaker 1: produce anything Walmart would give them. Now each one is

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Speaker 1: completely empty. These were full of meat when Walmart was here,

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Speaker 1: full of meat, any kind of meat that Walmart had,

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Speaker 1: We had it. Each family got approximately three, sometime five

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Speaker 1: big packages of meat, and in the fruits and the vegetables,

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Speaker 1: we would put them in these trays and we would

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Speaker 1: put them outside, and the people were allowed to take

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Speaker 1: what fruits and vegetables they needed. You could pretty much

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Speaker 1: fill these up more or less for free every week.

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Speaker 1: Oh they well, yes, and a lot of times if

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Speaker 1: they would redo their meat cases, we would have to

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Speaker 1: open up and give out the meat then because we

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Speaker 1: had too much for the freezers. You had an excess

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Speaker 1: of food. Ninety thousand pounds is what we lost when

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Speaker 1: they left us a year, ninety thousand pounds. We'll get

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Speaker 1: back to the story in a second. First, a word

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Speaker 1: from Express Employment Professionals. A strong work ethic takes pride

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Speaker 1: in a job well done, sweats over the details. This

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Speaker 1: is you. But to get an honest day's work, you

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Speaker 1: need a response. You need a callback. You need a job.

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Speaker 1: Express Employment Professionals can help because we understand what it

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Speaker 1: takes to get a job. It takes more than just

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Speaker 1: online searches to land a job. It takes someone who

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Speaker 1: will identify your talents, a person invested in your success.

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Speaker 1: At Express, we can even complete your application with you

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Speaker 1: over the phone, will prepare you for interviews, and will

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Speaker 1: connect you to the right company. Plus, we'll never charge

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Speaker 1: a fee to find you a job. At Express, we

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Speaker 1: could put you to work with companies of all sizes

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Speaker 1: and industries, from the production floor to the front office.

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Speaker 1: Express Nose Jobs get to no Express. Find your location

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Speaker 1: at expresspros dot com or on the Express Jobs app.

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Speaker 1: And now back to our story. The local Walmart here

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Speaker 1: was the only source of fresh food within driving distance,

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Speaker 1: but no one here had jobs, so Walmart was not

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Speaker 1: generating revenue. And in January twenty sixteen they closed. Today

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Speaker 1: that I heard that Walmart was closing, I didn't believe it.

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Speaker 1: And when they closed, they closed, They shut down and

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Speaker 1: got out of town. After the demise of the mining

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Speaker 1: industry here, Walmart was also the biggest employer. Now the

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Speaker 1: building is just this empty concrete block with weeds growing

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Speaker 1: through the parking lot pavement outside, adding to this feeling

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Speaker 1: you get when you drive through McDowell like you're in

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Speaker 1: a ghost town. At one time we were one hundred thousand.

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Speaker 1: We may hit nineteen thousand right now. When were you

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Speaker 1: one hundred thousand? When the coal mines was booming in

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Speaker 1: the fifties and the sixties, when I was little and

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Speaker 1: my dad got paid every Friday, we would go to

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Speaker 1: every store. There were dress stores, there were hardwarees, There

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Speaker 1: was a Kroger, there were grocery stores and restaurants, home cooks.

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Speaker 1: There's nothing, it's nothing. The entire town ran off of

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Speaker 1: the profits from the coal mines for decades. A lot

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Speaker 1: of people didn't even bother thinking about college here because

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Speaker 1: they knew that they could go into the mines and

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Speaker 1: get jobs that might pay up to ninety thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: a year and support their families. When the mines shut down,

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Speaker 1: those jobs ceased to exist and there wasn't really anything

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Speaker 1: to take its place. Mine runoff and compaction also made

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Speaker 1: most of the soil here infertile and the water bad

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Speaker 1: to drink, so falling back on farming was not an option.

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Speaker 1: Parents have been forced to travel to nearby cities like

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Speaker 1: Charleston to fine work, leaving their kids to be raised

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Speaker 1: by the grandparents, and a lot of these families move

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Speaker 1: in together to save money, sometimes five families in one home,

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Speaker 1: so grandma or grandpa's susis security or pension is supporting

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Speaker 1: those individuals in the house. That's not a good thing.

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Speaker 1: A dollar only goes so far. These are the folks

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Speaker 1: that will show up to Linda's food bank on Saturday,

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Speaker 1: knowing that they might not get what they came for.

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Speaker 1: So hearing this story, you kind of have to wonder

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Speaker 1: why stay? It's just home, and it's like you're gonna

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Speaker 1: sleep on somebody's couch or you're gonna sleep in the

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Speaker 1: floor on a mattress. You you pull your resources and

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Speaker 1: you do what you have to do to feed your family.

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Speaker 1: As positive as Linda is, you can tell that this

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Speaker 1: work doesn't come without at all. I mean, Lord, sometimes

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Speaker 1: you want to go home and curl up and cry.

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Speaker 1: What comes on this? Especially with the children, brace my heart.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they don't have beds to sleep in. They

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Speaker 1: have some of them sleep on the floor, some of

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Speaker 1: them sleep on the couch. Right now, we've got a

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Speaker 1: sleeping bag drive going. Sleeping bags are awesome for children.

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Speaker 1: They can get down in them and snuggle nowhere, no

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Speaker 1: matter where. So we've got we're collecting sleeping bags right now.

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Speaker 1: You know, if I see a need, I try to

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Speaker 1: supply that need. How does it make you feel when

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Speaker 1: you don't have enough? Well, you know, it's it's not

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Speaker 1: my fault. I know that, but I feel like it's

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Speaker 1: my fault. You know, I can go back to my

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Speaker 1: days off my nanna. Never did anyone leave our house

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Speaker 1: without food. My Nanna always made sure that the children

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Speaker 1: were fed. There was never a day. We had a

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Speaker 1: gate and had a big old cow bill on it,

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Speaker 1: and when I'd come through that gate, my Nanna knew

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Speaker 1: I was home because that cow bell, we're boom boom,

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Speaker 1: And soon as I go up on the porch, my

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Speaker 1: plate was on the table. I've ate every day. Every day.

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Speaker 1: I do the best that I can do for my

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Speaker 1: family and the best that I can do here for

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Speaker 1: this county. There's been times that we've been really scared

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Speaker 1: because there's no money in the bank, and then the food.

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Speaker 1: Sometime the food is not what we think we should get,

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Speaker 1: But I always feel that it's not what we want,

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Speaker 1: it's what God knows we need. And my husband and

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Speaker 1: I are people of faith. We totally believe that when

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Speaker 1: God does not want us here anymore, the lights will

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Speaker 1: go off and the food will dry up and we'll

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Speaker 1: go somewhere else, or we'll wake up dead. It's like

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Speaker 1: that picture of that cat you're just hanging on, you know,

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Speaker 1: have you ever seen that cat just hanging onto the branch.

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Speaker 1: It's what you do. You hang on every day, you

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Speaker 1: hang on, You hang on that Saturday, the givebout was

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Speaker 1: about to start. They were almost one hundred fifty families

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Speaker 1: waiting on the lot for food. A group of volunteers

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Speaker 1: showed up to help Linda distribute, and just before noon

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Speaker 1: she gathered all the volunteers around and started off the

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Speaker 1: day with a prayer. All right, let's go to the

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Speaker 1: Lord in prayer, and you've got to promise me you're

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Speaker 1: gonna do everything orderly today. It makes it go a

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Speaker 1: lot sweeter for all of us. Right, Okay, Heavenly Father,

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Speaker 1: we thank you Lord for this group that's come today. Lord,

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Speaker 1: we ask that you just be with us, be among us. Lord,

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Speaker 1: just take over today and let everything be done in

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Speaker 1: a calm and mannerly way. We asked Lord that you

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Speaker 1: spread this food as far as we can spread it,

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Speaker 1: because you know we did go over in our numbers

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Speaker 1: this morning. We asked that you be with us, that

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Speaker 1: you give us peace Lord today. Lord, it's in your

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Speaker 1: heavenly holy night that we pray this morning. Amy. By

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Speaker 1: the end of the day, the food bank served one

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Speaker 1: hundred forty seven families, almost five hundred people, and they

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Speaker 1: even had enough food to spare for the next give out.

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Speaker 1: Everything's good and we thank off the Women's London. Everybody

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Speaker 1: doing for a county on mac coal. May God please

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Speaker 1: you and every one of them. May Heaven smiled upon me.

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Speaker 1: Since I first started covering Linda's story, she's seen plenty

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Speaker 1: of hardship, but she's also had a lot of wins.

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Speaker 1: There you go, Darlin, all right, let's keep you straight.

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Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, Anthony Bourdain traveled to West Virginia for

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Speaker 1: an episode of his show Parts Unknown. They contacted Linda,

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Speaker 1: who made him a family dinner in her home and

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Speaker 1: shared stories about the wonderful, tough people of McDowell. It

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Speaker 1: was one of the last shows he recorded before he

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Speaker 1: passed away. All right name Shapa. In the same year,

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Speaker 1: television personality Mike Rowe organized the entire McDowell community to

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Speaker 1: surprise Linda on his show Returning the Favor. It's a

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Speaker 1: show that features extraordinary people that make a difference in

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Speaker 1: the community. He organized a massive donation of food and

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Speaker 1: fixed the food Bank's roof, which was in long need

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Speaker 1: of repair. He liked her so much that they saved

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Speaker 1: Linda for the season finale. Haughty Scottie, how'd you laugh? Laugh, Scotty,

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Speaker 1: that's too haughty Scotty in the Holler. Even with all

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Speaker 1: the press that the Food Bank has gotten, Linda still

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Speaker 1: wakes up every day and works tirelessly to secure donations

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Speaker 1: and to feed the people of McDowell. She's just one

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Speaker 1: of many people here who are using their circumstances and

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Speaker 1: their hunger to make real changes, to choose to stay,

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Speaker 1: to find creative ways to thrive when many others would

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Speaker 1: throw in the towel. Okay, you don't need this. As

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Speaker 1: long as ever since I've known her, Linda keeps telling

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Speaker 1: me that Italians don't get sick, they just wake up dead.

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Speaker 1: And she says that's probably the only thing that will

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Speaker 1: stop her from doing what she does. But anyone who

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Speaker 1: knows or might tell you that that might not be

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Speaker 1: enough to stop Linda McKinney Rocko. To see pictures of

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Speaker 1: the Food Bank and of Linda, and to donate to

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Speaker 1: their cause, you can go find them on Facebook under

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Speaker 1: five Loaves and two Fishes food Bank, Inc. We'll have

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Speaker 1: a link on our website expresspros dot com slash podcast

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Speaker 1: that's also where you can see her videos with Anthony

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Speaker 1: Bourdain and Mike Rowe as well for on the job

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Speaker 1: I'm Otus Gray. Thanks for listening to On the Job,

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Speaker 1: brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. Find out more

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Speaker 1: at expresspros dot com. This season of On the Job

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Speaker 1: is produced by Audiation and dread Seat Ventures. Our executive

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Speaker 1: producer is Sandy Smallens. Our producer is Otis Gray. The

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Speaker 1: show is mixed by Matt Noble at The Loft in Bronxville,

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Speaker 1: New York. Find us on iHeartRadio and Apple Podcasts. If

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Speaker 1: you liked what you heard, please consider rating or reviewing

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Speaker 1: the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. We'll

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Speaker 1: see you next time. For more inspiring stories about discovering

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Speaker 1: your life's work, Audiation