Fresh produce giveaway draws steady stream to Monessen
The vehicles poured in through the East Gate Parking Lot in Monessen Wednesday.
At the end of the line were boxes of food being given away as part of Highmark Wholecare’s 2025 Farm-to-Family produce program.
“It’s a steady stream of people, and that’s great,” said Jennifer Miller, CEO of the Westmoreland County Food Bank.
Miller explained that each box contained 20 pounds of fresh produce, with 500 boxes there for the taking.
“It’s a variety,” she said. “It could be a little bit of everything. It’s mostly your hard fruits – apples, oranges. There could be some corn in there. Sometimes, there’s a mix.”
The stop in Monessen was one of 25 in a tour that will bring more than 120,000 pounds of fresh produce to more than 6,000 families across Pennsylvania. No preregistration was required, and no income guidelines were required to receive the food.
“Anyone’s eligible to come,” said Mike Callaghan, connection center supervisor for Highmark Wholecare, as he was directing traffic. “You just have to drive through and get the food. This is the first drive-through that we’ve done for one of our distributions.”
Callaghan stressed the importance of addressing food insecurity.
“It’s such a great issue for people – affordable food – and we’re trying to help people eat healthy,” he explained. “If you’re thinking about being hungry, you’re not thinking about going to the doctor, you’re not thinking about your kids the way you need to. If you can’t think healthy, you can’t be healthy. Food is medicine. The idea of this is to line up and help these people, give them a break.”
Wednesday’s distribution marked the first time the Westmoreland County Food Bank partnered with Highmark Wholecare, based in PIttsburgh.
“So far, so good,” Miller said. “The program is usually a mobile market program where we take our mobile market truck and everybody in the community is invited to come and enjoy the fresh produce. This one’s a little different because we did it in mass quantities. That way people can come down and get the big boxes.”
Highmark Wholecare piloted the approach in 2024, distributing 84,000 pounds of food to 3,500 families. Due to overwhelming demand and community impact, the program increased by 40% in 2025.
There was a formal launch recently at Sto-Rox High School, marking the beginning of a multi-county rollout that will stretch through fall. Future sites include Charleroi, which Callaghan said should take place within the next couple of weeks.
“All over the state, we’ll do 25 free farmers’ markets,” Callaghan said. “The idea is to help people with food insecurity and to help them live a healthier life. We want to give away 120,000 pounds of food and we’re well on our way to doing that. If we give all of it away (Wednesday), we’ll be at 10,000 pounds.”