Gov. Justice awards $1 million to food banks

CHARLESTON, W.Va (WDTV) - gov. Jim Justice presented ceremonial checks for $500,000 each to two West Virginia food banks on Tuesday.

Mountaineer Food Bank and Facing Hunger Foodbank are the recipients of the checks.

This is the third year in a row Gov. Justice has awarded $1 million to food banks in West Virginia.

“I promised this money in my State of the State address two years ago and included it in my budget again this year,” Gov. Justice said. “This will be the third year that we’ll be able to donate these funds. As long as I’m here, I’m going to put this in my budget. We may try in every way to increase it. The bottom line to the whole thing is we don’t need people going hungry in West Virginia. I know a lot of people step up and make all kinds of donations and everything, but at the end of the day, we don’t need people hungry in West Virginia. I mean that that is so terrible. It’s off the charts.”

Gov. Justice stressed the importance of this money for the food banks.

“It chokes me up to think about it, but we’ve got to step up. We got to really step up, and make sure that we don’t have people in our state that are going hungry not just this time of year but all times of the year,” Gov. Justice said. “It’s just so, so, so important. But thank you all in every way. God bless you. I salute you in every way and thank you for all the great work you do.”

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