— An economically depressed, rural village in western New York State, Belmont is the location of ACCORD Corporation, a community action agency that distributes Family-to-Family’s food boxes. The receiving families live in Belmont, Wellsville and Friendship, all in Allegany County – a county that ranked 61st out of 62 New York counties in average per capita income in 1999.

• The 2000 Census found 7,066 people in Allegany County living below the poverty level, including 705 families with annual incomes of less than $10,000.
• Over 25% of the county’s children lived in poverty in 1998.
• Many families can’t afford to heat their homes with gas or oil, and use wood stoves instead, a labor-intensive alternative that doesn’t heat the whole house.

Outreach workers report that extended families often live together in overcrowded conditions in small homes, and that many houses have poor plumbing, and old and dangerous electrical wiring. Many are located on unpaved roads.

Tami Hamilton is the outreach worker for ACCORD who coordinates food pick-up with the families. Some boxes are picked up by the receiving families at ACCORD’s office, and others are sent to nearby Head Start centers, and are picked up from there.