Forget sugar plums. Apples are dancing through the heads of West Virginia University Extension staff this holiday season.
Over the last month, WVU Extension has distributed hundreds of thousands of free apples in 13 counties. The boxes of fruit went to schools, food pantries and families. WVU Extension Family Nutrition Program educators taught recipients on ways to prepare, process and preserve those apples so their families can enjoy it for months to come.
“The Family Nutrition Program is always striving to connect people in West Virginia’s food deserts with sources of fresh fruits and vegetables. Throughout that work, we have built lots of connections all over the state, so we were ready when the opportunity arose to distribute these apples,” Kristin McCartney, Extension specialist and SNAP-Ed coordinator with the WVU Extension Family Nutrition Program, said. “Then, when the boxes actually arrived, our whole Extension family pulled together to make sure the food got where it needed to go.”
The apple giveaway is the result of a partnership between the WVU Extension and the West Virginia Department of Agriculture, born from a giant problem facing West Virginia apple growers.
Big processing companies stopped buying apples because they filled their warehouses with cheap fruit after a 2022 bumper crop and started importing apple concentrate from other countries. In fall 2023, West Virginia apple orchards had fruit ripening on the trees, but no one was interested in buying it.
“They were left with hundreds of thousands of bushels of apples, and nowhere to go with them,” West Virginia Department of Agriculture assistant commissioner Amie Minor said.
So, the state agriculture scrambled to help. The agency received $10 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and another $3.4 million in state funding to purchase apples from the growers.
“It's not just the grower. It’s the hauler; it’s the person who sells gas; it’s the shop that sells fertilizer. It's a trickle-down effect on how many people’s lives are affected,” Minor said.
A truck driver prepares to unload pallet loads of surplus apples in a giveaway in Duck, WV. AINE SLABAUGH / WVU EXTENSION
But buyin g all those apples created another problem. The state now owned tractor trailer loads of apples but had nowhere to send them. A chance meeting solved this issue. West Virginia Agriculture Commissioner Kent Leonhardt was at a meeting in Wyoming and found himself talking to staffers with The Farmlink Project — a national nonprofit that specializes in getting surplus fruits and vegetables into the hands of people who need them. A new partnership was born.
“It really was a godsend. Everything fell into place after that, and we were able to efficiently move those apples,” Minor said. “They would’ve literally fallen on the ground and rotted. That’s the only thing they could’ve done.”
The Farmlink Project — which charges no fees for its services — acquired bins and other shipping materials for farms to transport apples. They made arrangements with trucking companies to pick up the apples and coordinated with charities across the state to receive them.
WVU Extension got into the apple business in late 2024, as Farmlink was running out of places to send the surplus fruit.
“WVU Extension is such a valuable partner as, strangely enough at this time of year, many of the charities close down and it’s difficult for us to get healthy food into these communities,” Mike Myer, head of advocacy for The Farmlink Project, said. “But WVU Extension is open.”
WVU Extension staff in Barbour, Braxton, Cabell, Calhoun, Clay, Greenbrier, Jackson, Lincoln, Randolph, Roane, Tucker, Upshur and Wood counties organized apple giveaways in their communities.
In Calhoun County, volunteers distributed 1,008 bushels in just over an hour.
“I knew they were going to go fast, but I didn’t know how fast,” Donna Schoolcraft, the nutrition outreach instructor who organized the Calhoun event, said.
Schoolcraft heard from families who planned to can the fruit and others who planned to make it into juice, sauce and pies. A local dentist plans to use the scraps for apple cider vinegar.
WVU Extension Family Nutrition Program nutrition outreach instructor Donna Calhoun and EFNEP coordinator Gina Wood load apples boxes into a truck.
Health educator Barb Wolfe distributed 500 bushels of Red Delicious, Golden Delicious and Fuji apples in Tucker County. They went to families, six schools in the county, a low-income housing development and local food pantries.
“There’s been a lot of really happy people getting these apples,” Wolfe said.
One woman cradled a bag of Stayman apples like a babydoll.
"I haven’t had this apple since my grandmother passed,” the woman told Wolfe.
Family Nutrition Program educators distributed recipe cards for healthy recipes like apple muffins and apple crisp. But many apples never made it that far.
“We had a lot of people who would open the box, rub it off on their shirt and take a bite,” Wolfe said.
4-H member Clay Knotts moves apples with a pallet jack. BARB WOLFE / WVU EXTENSION
Wolfe said distributing them has been a great way to get in the holiday spirit. When she needed help delivering apples to local senior centers, she enlisted WVU Extension Agent Jody Carpenter — who couldn’t get over how excited people were to receive the fruit.
“I feel like Santa Claus,” he told Wolfe.
WVU Extension Family Nutrition Program’s work is supported by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) from the USDA Food and Nutrition Service.
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CONTACT:
Zackary Harold
Multimedia Specialist
WVU Extension Family Nutrition Program
304.550.2186; zackary.harold@mail.wvu.edu
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