The Bobby Bones Show - Episode #4: Five Loaves & Two Fishes: Filling the Hunger Gap

Episode Date: May 30, 2019

Linda McKinney is an Italian woman in McDowell, West Virginia who runs the Five Loaves & Two Fishes food bank with her husband. In a down-and-out coal town, she is single-handedly responsible for feeding 150 families each week. An interesting and eccentric character, Linda McKinney is a wonderful example of the goodness of humanity against all odds. Linda does her job with humility and without a need for thanks – because she does it for the people she knows and cares about. Where you come from and what’s happening around you drives you to do the job you need to do. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Make every day feel epic in the all-new Hyundai Palisade hybrid. The Palisade hybrid is packed full of features, cutting-edge tech, and up to an EPA estimated 619 miles of range on select trims and class-leading interior space. Seating configurations for 7-8 passengers,

available H-track all-wheel drive, so you can be ready to go anywhere in style. Learn more about the Hyundai Palisade at HyundaiUSA.com. Call 562-3-1-4. 4603 for complete details. All right, if you have ever dealt with a traditional home security company, you know the drill. Expensive monthly fees, contracts that lock you in for years, and waiting around for a technician to set everything up. It's a lot.

Well, now they're Simply Safe. They have completely changed the game. Simply Safe has no long-term contracts, no hidden fees, no being trapped. They earn your business by actually keeping you safe, not by locking you in. Setting up is so easy. You customize your system at simplysafe.com. It ships to your door in a few days. And with the app guided setup, you can have everything installed and armed in under an hour. No technician needed. And it's not just a camera. It's a full ecosystem of sensors, cameras for inside and outside and 24-7 professional monitoring. If there's ever a break-in, a fire, or a flood, Simply Safe's agents are on it immediately. They were also named America's best customer service by Newsweek, which honestly tracks. Right now, you can get 50% off your new system by visiting simplysafe.com slash bones.

That's half off at simplysafe.com slash bones. There's no safe like SimplySafe. Taking care of your yard can feel weirdly overwhelming. Sunday is a yard care company that builds a custom plan based on your soil and climate then sends you exactly what your yard needs. No harsh chemicals. Just nutrient dense ingredients. You apply with a hose.

It's designed to make yard care feel doable. Go to get sunday.com to get your free custom yard analysis. That's get sunday.com. We're back for a second voyage with the top shelf country cruise. Enjoy seven days of entertainment, including live performances from Riley Green, Chris Young, Lauren Elena, Randy Hauser, plus catch performances by Jackson Dean and Travis Denning.

The ultimate country music experience at sea, set to sell March 2027 on the Celebrity Summit, departing from Tampa with stops in Key West, Bimini, and Cozumel. Open booking is finally here for Topshelf Country Cruise. So go to Topshelfcountrycruise.com. Now to book your cabin. On the Job is brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. Express Employment Professionals is a leading staffing provider

that employs nearly 600,000 people annually across more than 800 franchise locations in the U.S., Canada, and South Africa. Our long-term goal is at the heart of our company's mission. To help as many people as possible find good jobs by helping as many clients as possible find good people. It takes more than just online searches to land a job. It takes real people who will identify your talents,

a person invested in your success. Express Employment Professionals understands what it takes to land a new position at a top employer, or start a new career in today's job market. Express knows jobs. Get to know Express. Go to Expressprose.com. Welcome to On the Job.

This season, we're bringing you stories about people finding their professional stride by virtue of who they know, whether it's breathing new life into an age-old profession, taking the reins in a family business, forging your own path with a new idea, or landing the perfect job doing something you'd never before even considered.

In the deep hills of Appalachia, Linda McKinney has a very important job. She feeds people. In McDowell County, West Virginia, the community has seen its share of hardship and food shortages in the wake of the coal industry drying up over the last 30 years. In the aftermath, Linda works day in and day out to make sure that the people of McDowell are fed while the community perseveres. Producer Otis Gray brings us the story. This is a beautiful potato.

You want a slice? Yeah. I love me some raw potatoes. It's a chilly, overcast day, and I am in McDowell County, West Virginia, peeling potatoes with Linda McKinney. L-I-N-D-A, MC-K-I-N-E-Y. We're in the warehouse of her food bank, called Five Loaves and Two Fishes. Linda just got this huge shipment donated to them, which is pallets and pallets of potatoes

for a food give-out that they have this coming weekend. They're beautiful. Look at this. And there was actually one I picked up. heart, so that tells you that's meant for me. Absolutely. And that all gets donated here. Yes.

And you give it away for free? Yes. This is all free. We don't sell anything here. Linda is a character. She's a short Italian woman with her hair dyed of fiery crimson red. And she runs his food bank with her husband Bob in the southernmost part of the state, right in the heart of Appalachia.

Bob is still a mine safety and training instructor for the state mining department. His income supports the two of them. Linda's full-time job is to run the food bank. and feed as many people as she possibly can here, with whatever donations she receives from nonprofits and religious organizations. So you actually don't know all the time what you're going to get? No. No, you don't. You know, we can't buy food.

We don't buy food. We barely keep enough in our budget for overhead. And no one's paid here. No one's paid here. Like many places around here, McDowell has always been a coal town. But in the last few decades, more coal has been imported from overseas, devastating economies like this.

and leaving them with a high unemployment rate, poverty, and everything that comes with that. So sometimes people will show up and Linda doesn't have enough. That happened last month. We just didn't have the food. The third Saturday of every month, Linda and a group of volunteers do this food give out. And even in the coldest of weather, people in McDowell show up as early as 2 a.m. to wait in line for the noon distribution. Because for better or worse, it's first come, first serve.

You can only feed so many, you know, And at one time we fed anyone that came. But the food got short. And it scares you when you don't see food. And you say, God, what am I going to feed these people? There's no food here. This Saturday is the next food give out in McDowell, a rural place where, for many, the choices can be to leave or to starve.

Today, we follow Linda McKinney as she stands her ground and prepares to feed whoever she can. I'm a storyteller. I never had anybody to play with when I was little. So I just made up stories and lies and played by myself and eat mud and grass and dirt. Had a good old time, by myself. I didn't have any cousins around that I could play with. And I was raised basically by adults.

And so you learn. I'm a storyteller. I've always been. I laugh all the time and never shut up. You know, I'm in the building when you hear me. I cackle. I'm sorry. I cackle.

Linda's a good talker. She was even a pastor for three years here in the same church she was born in. She loves the story of five loaves and two fishes, which is the story the food bank is named after. It's the Bible passage in which Jesus takes five loaves of bread and a couple small fish and breaks them to feed thousands, despite his disciples not thinking they have enough to give. I can just see him pulling that bread and slinging that fish. That's what I would do, you know? Being Italian, we throw a lot of things, so I'd just sling it everywhere.

But, you know, the disciples were just all in a tissy because there wasn't any food. But he showed him, didn't he? He showed him. Linda was raised an only child, and like a lot of immigrants, her Italian father came to West Virginia to work in the coal fields back in the 50s, and they both lived in a house with her grandmother. My dad was the man of the house. He went to work every day at the mines, and my nona, and I had an aunt, a widowed aunt that raised me. Well, the first thing they taught me to do, they pulled me up to a cook stove and taught me how to cook.

She was born and raised to be a caretaker of sorts. So when the man who used to run this food bank was falling ill and asked Linda and her husband to take it over, she eventually accepted. We call a buggy, you guys call a shopping cart. In the warehouse, she pulls out a shopping cart to show me how they load up food for the families every month. First, we look at our food and we count, and we're going to be able to figure up how many families we're going to be able to figure. This looks to me like we will be able to do anywhere from 135, maybe 150 families. So what we'll do, we'll come down through here and we'll start right here.

So in the warehouse, there's pallets and boxes neatly, packed against the walls. And most everything here comes from a humanitarian organization called Operation Blessing. If it was not for Operation Blessing, we would not have food each month. They send us a tractor-trailer of food, and that came in this Thursday. Still, when there are disasters in other parts of the world, like the recent floods in Puerto Rico, that means that Operation Blessing might send more there and less to McDowell. Right now, they're the pallets of potatoes.

There's a lot of canned goods like soups and vegetables and noodles. There's syrup on top of a big palette of pancake mix. Little Debbie's cakes is actually a really big donor. And next to that, there are boxes and boxes of ho-hoes. Yeah, we got ho-hows. And somewhere here, I think someone cracked the case. They say these are delicious. Tell me what these are.

I don't know. I don't eat sweets. Okay. Strawberry shortcake rolls. Yes. They taste like a strawberry shortcake, I'm told. A lot of sodas get donated here, too. McDowell has landed in the spotlight before, kind of as a poster child for a down-and-out

coal town, what it looks like when Appalachian communities can only afford things like sugary foods. They were even featured on PBS a decade back for what journalists called Mountain Dewmouth, where kids had their teeth rotting away from so much sugar. While a lot of this coverage was very graphic and highly polarized poverty porn, the health issues that come with the poverty here are very real. Life expectancy in McDowell is just 64 years, the same lifespan as a lot of third world countries. So Linda goes out of her way to procure the healthiest stuff that she can get.

You know, you really need to take the good food. You've got beans. I mean, I'm going to show, if you don't know how to cook beans, some of the younger generation does not know how to cook beans. I'll show you how to cook the beans. I'll bring a pot of beans and let them taste it. The next thing Linda does is she takes me over to the show. shelf with these clear plastic bags on it. She calls them school break bags.

And what we do when we get food in, anything that is small, child size, we put them in these bags. Anytime there's no school, but any children that come here, we'll get a school break bag. For most of the kids around here, the school feeds breakfast when they come in early, they feed school lunch and an after-school snack. But on long breaks, like Christmas, those three meals aren't there anymore. And the kids go back to homes with pretty empty pantries. I want to try to give a protein.

You want to try to give a cereal, something they can eat for breakfast. This is all snacks. You've got you some applesauce. You've got you some juice. So, you know, I may even throw some of those strawberry cakes we got. I think we've got...

I'll see some cheeses over there. So, I mean, I know you, like, you kind of get what you get in terms of donations. Do you ever, like, worry about does a lot of this stuff have like tons and tons of sugar in it? Well, you know, in my world, some, a food is better than no food. It's really hard to understand McDowell and the gravity of hunger here, unless you've seen it up close.

I'm from a rural place, too, in Vermont, where a lot of people depend on food stamps and even hunting to get by. But this just, it felt so different. There are some fast food places here, but even then, there's no jobs. There's no money to buy that food. This is a place in a country of abundance where for a lot of people, there is no food available, period. When did the food get short? Food got short when Walmart closed. That was our perishables.

So that's why you would see the refrigerators and you see the freezers. They're empty. They've been empty since Walmart left. Completely empty? I can turn the light on and show. She walks me to the back of the warehouse to this long row of about 10 full-sized freezers and fridges. She says these were full of meats, fruits, eggs, yogurt, produce, anything Walmart would

give them. Now each one is completely empty. These were full of meat when Walmart was here. Full of meat, any kind of meat that Walmart had, we had it. Each family got approximately three, sometimes five big packages of meat. And then the fruits and the vegetables, we would put them in this trays, and we would put them outside, and the people were allowed to take what fruits and vegetables they needed. You could pretty much fill these up more or less for free every week.

Oh, yes. And a lot of times, if they would redo their meat cases, we would have to open up and give out the meat then because we had too much for the freezers. You had an excess of food. 90,000 pounds is what we lost when they left us a year. 90,000 pounds. We'll get back to the story in a second. First, a word from Express Employment Professionals. A strong work ethic takes pride in a job well done, sweats over the details. This is you. But to get an honest day's work, you need a response. You need a callback. You need a job. Express employment professionals can help because we understand what it takes to get a job. It takes more than just online searches to land a job. It takes someone who

will identify your talents, a person invested in your success. At Express, we can even complete your application with you over the phone. We'll prepare you for interviews and we'll connect you to the right company. Plus, we'll never charge a fee to find you a job. At Express, we can put you to work with companies of all sizes and industries, from the production floor to the front office. Express knows jobs. Get to No Express. Find your location at expresspros.com or on the Express Jobs app. And now back to our story.

The local Walmart here was the only source of fresh food within driving distance, but no one here had jobs. So Walmart was not generating revenue. And in January of 2016, they closed. The day that I heard that Walmart was closing, I didn't believe it. And when they closed, they closed. They shut down and got out of town. After the demise of the mining industry here, Walmart was also the biggest employer.

Now, the building is just this empty, concrete block, with weeds growing through the parking lot pavement outside, adding to this feeling you get when you drive through McDowell, like you're in a ghost town. At one time, we were 100,000, we may hit 19,000 right now. When were you 100,000? When the coal mines was booming in the 50s and the 60s. when I was little and my dad got paid every Friday.

We would go to every store. There were dress stores. There were hardwheres. There was a Kroger. There were grocery stores. Restaurants, home-cooked restaurants. There's nothing. There's nothing.

The entire town ran off of the profits from the coal mines for decades. A lot of people didn't even bother thinking about college here because they knew that they could go into the mines and get jobs. that might pay up to $90,000 a year and support their families. When the mine shut down, those jobs ceased to exist, and there wasn't really anything to take its place. Mine runoff and compaction also made most of the soil here infertile, and the water bad to drink, so falling back on farming was not an option.

Parents have been forced to travel to nearby cities like Charleston to find work, leaving their kids to be raised by the grandparents. And a lot of these families move in together to save money. sometimes five families in one home. So grandma or grandpa's social security or pension is supporting those individuals in the house. That's not a good thing. A dollar only goes so far. These are the folks that will show up to Linda's Food Bank on Saturday, knowing that they might not get what they came for.

So hearing this story, you kind of have to wonder. Why stay? It's just home, and it's like you're going to sleep on somebody's couch or you're going to sleep in the floor on a mattress. You pull your resources, and you do what you have to do to feed your family. As positive as Linda is, you can tell that this work doesn't come without at all. I mean, Lord, sometimes you want to go home and curl up and cry what comes on this porch, especially with the children.

Brace my heart. I mean, they don't have beds to sleep in. Some of them sleep on. on the floor. Some of them sleep on the couch. Right now we've got a sleeping bag drive going. Sleeping bags are awesome for children. They can get down in them and snuggle no matter where. So we've got, we're collecting sleeping bags right now. You know, if I see a need, I try to supply that need. How does it make you feel when you don't have enough? Well, you know, it's not my fault. I know that, but I feel like it's my fault. You know, I can

go back to my days of my nana. Never did anyone leave our house without food. My nunna always made sure that the children were fed. There was never a day. We had a gate, it had a big old cowbell on it. And when I'd come through that gate, my nana knew I was home because that cowbell were boom, boom. And as soon as I'd go up on the porch, my plate was on the table.

I ate every day, every day. I do the best that I can do for my family and the best that I can do here for this county. There's been times that we've been really scared because there's no money in the bank. And then the food, sometimes the food is not what we think we should get, but I always feel that it's not what we want. It's what God knows we need.

And my husband and I are people of faith. We totally believe that when God does not want us here anymore, the lights will go off and the food will dry up. and we'll go somewhere else or we'll wake up dead. It's like that picture of that cat. You're just hanging on. You know, have you ever seen that cat? Just hanging on to the branch.

It's what you do. You hang on. Every day, you hang on, you hang on, you hang on. That Saturday, the give-out was about to start. There were almost 150 families waiting on the lot for food. A group of volunteers showed up to help Linda distribute. And just before noon, she gathered all the volunteers around and started off the day with a prayer. All right, let's go to the Lord in prayer.

And you've got to promise me you're going to do everything orderly today. It makes it go a lot sweeter for all of us, right? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for this group that's come today, Lord. We ask that you just be with us, be among us, Lord. Just take over today and let everything be done in a calm and mannerly way. We ask, Lord, that you spread this food as far as we can spread it

because you know we did go over in our numbers this morning. We ask that you be with us, that you give us peace, Lord, today. Lord, it's in your heavenly, holy name that we pray this morning. Amen. By the end of the day, the food bank served 147 families, almost 500 people, and they even had enough food to spare for the next give-out. Everything's good, and we thank God for what Mr. London and everybody doing for the county on Mackdow. May God bless each and every one of them. May heaven smile upon you.

Since I first started covering Linda's story, she's seen plenty of hardship, but she's also had a lot of wins. There you go, darling. All right, let's keep you straight in up, sir. In 2018, Anthony Bourdain traveled to West Virginia for an episode of his show Parts Unknown. They contacted Linda, who made him a family dinner in her home and shared stories about the wonderful, tough people of McDowell.

It was one of the last shows he recorded before he passed away. All right, ma'am, shop on. In the same year, television personality Mike Rowe organized the entire McDowell community to surprise Linda on his show returning the favor. It's a show that features extraordinary people that make a difference in the community. He organized a massive donation of food

and fixed the food bank's roof, which was in long need of repair. He liked her so much that they saved Linda for the season finale. I didn't ask Scotty, how'd you love life, Scotty? That's too hot he's Scotty in the holler. Even with all the press that the food bank has gotten, Linda still wakes up every day and works tirelessly to secure donations

and to feed the people of McDowell. She's just one of many people here who are using their circumstances and their hunger to make real changes, to choose to stay, and to find creative ways to thrive when many others would throw in the towel. Okay, you don't need this as long as you got this baby, okay?

Ever since I've known her, Linda keeps telling me that Italians don't get sick. They just wake up dead. And she says that's probably the only thing that will stop her from doing what she does. but anyone who knows or might tell you that that might not be enough to stop Linda McKinney rock on see you next night to see pictures of the food bank and of Linda and to donate to their cause you can go find

them on Facebook under five loaves and two fishes food bank ink we'll have a link on our website expressprose.com slash podcast that's also where you can see her videos with Anthony Bourdain and Mike Rowe as well for on the job I'm Otis Gray Thanks for listening to On The Job. Brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. Find out more at ExpressPros.com. This season of On The Job is produced by Audiation and Red Seat Ventures. Our executive producer is Sandy Smallins.

Our producer is Otis Gray. The show is mixed by Matt Noble at the loft in Bronxville, New York. Find us on IHeart Radio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard, please consider rating or reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. We'll see you next time for more inspiring stories about discovering your life's work. All right, if you have ever dealt with a traditional home security company,

you know the drill. Expensive monthly fees, contracts that lock you in for years, and waiting around for a technician to set everything up. It's a lot. Well, now they're Simply Safe. They have completely changed the game. Simply Safe has no long-term contracts, no hidden fees, no being trapped.

they earn your business by actually keeping you safe, not by locking you in. Setting up is so easy. You customize your system at simplysafe.com. It ships to your door in a few days. And with the app guided setup, you can have everything installed and armed in under an hour. No technician needed. And it's not just a camera. It's a full ecosystem of sensors, cameras for inside and outside, and 24-7 professional monitoring.

If there's ever a break-in, a fire, or a flood, Simply Safe's agents are all on it immediately. They were also named America's best customer service by Newsweek, which honestly tracks. Right now, you can get 50% off your new system by visiting simplysafe.com slash bones. That's half off at simplysafe.com slash bones. There's no safe like Simplysafe. Owning a home comes with a lot of things nobody really prepares you for, including yard care. Sunday is a company trying to make that part easier. They start with a soil test and climate data to build a yard plant tailor to where you live, then ship everything directly to your door.

No guesswork, no dragging bags of fertilizer. And instead of harsh chemicals, Sunday uses simple, nutrient-dense ingredients like seaweed, molasses, and iron. Everything hooks up to a hose, which honestly sounds like my speed. If your yard feels more stressful than satisfying, Sunday's approach makes a lot of sense. Go to get sunday.com to get your free custom yard analysis. That's get sunday.com.

A better help ad. Financial stress affects the majority of Americans, often causing anxiety, sleep disruption, and even depression. It's also one of the leading sources of conflict for couples. When money feels uncertain, it can weigh on your thoughts, your relationships, and your sense of stability, and that emotional weight can be hard to carry alone. Finding the right type of support can help.

Therapy can give you the space to talk through what financial stress brings up for you, and help you build tools to manage uncertainty with more confidence. With BetterHelp, you can connect with a licensed therapist from the comfort of your home on a schedule that works for you. It's flexible, convenient, and designed to make getting started feel simple. If you've been feeling the impact of financial stress, you don't have to navigate it on your own.

See if there are peace for you. Visit BetterHelp.com for 10% off. That's Better, H-E-L-P, We had so much fun this year that the top shelf country cruise is back for a second sailing in 27. It was awesome. Eddie and I had so much fun playing a raging idiot show. Heck, we did two shows on board. Let's do it again. We're back March 27 aboard the luxurious Celebrity Summit, departing from Tampa, heading to beautiful destinations, Key West, Bimini, and Cozumel. Country superstar Riley Green will also be performing live on board along with Chris Young, Lauren

Elena and Randy Houser. It's all brought to you by Signature Cruise Experiences, the Gold Standard and Charter Cruises since 2001. Open booking is live, and you can join us for more shows on board. Reserve any available state room online at top shelfcountrycruise.com, or you can give the Signature Cruise Experience's office a call at 888-381-4420. These spots are going fast. Book now, Topshelf Country Cruise.com, or 8883.3.5.3.5.3.5.3.3.3.3.5.3.3

381, 4420. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.