T-L Photo/ROBERT A. DEFRANK Food trucks such as that of John Shreffler, owner of Shref’s Hometown Barbecue, are doing more local business in Powhatan Point since the loss of the convenient mart and due to the lack of a grocery store in town, but he and many are concerned about difficulties for people without ready transportation to grocery stores in Shadyside or Moundsville.

POWHATAN POINT — Going to the grocery store to pick up fresh produce has not been a quick and easy prospect in Powhatan Point since August, when the village lost its convenience store, and with no grocery stores for miles.

The Rev. William Coker of the Powhatan Point Church of the Nazarene said this is a common issue raised by members of his flock.

“Powhatan is a food desert. A food desert is an area where there’s not a grocery store within three miles,” he said. “The nearest grocery store is 10 miles away.”

The United States Department of Agriculture defines a food desert as a low-income area without access to fresh foodstuffs.

“There’s no grocery store of any kind here in Powhatan. We’ve got to go to Shadyside or Riesbeck’s to go to the grocery story. You want to buy a stick of butter or a loaf of bread or some spices, you’ve got to go 10 miles away. If people don’t have transportation, … the Belmont County bus stops at Shadyside, it doesn’t come to Powhatan. People that are low income or don’t have those opportunities in Powhatan, they don’t have that transportation access.”

Coker said this means trips to the grocery store are not easy spur-of-the-moment prospects.

“It’s frustrating,” he said. “You can’t just run out and get something. You’ve got to plan ahead. It creates a lot of difficulties. People have to borrow a ride, get a ride from someone else.”

He said his church and others have been helping when possible.

“We use our church van. I drive people to the doctors, I drive people to the grocery store. I’ve got some people, we’ll make a monthly trip to Walmart. I’ve got some others in the congregation, they’ve got some regular shut-in people they’ll take to a grocery store with them and do some of their monthly shopping because there’s nothing here.”

He said the ever-present food trucks are getting more local business as well as from drivers passing through.

“We’ve become kind of a food truck area with the lack of riverside restaurants,” he said. “People go down and buy some lunch. Pick up some ribs for dinner for the night.”

Coker said this can costly in the long term compared to buying foodstuffs and preparing meals.

“That’s part of the problem when you have a lot of people with fixed incomes. People without transportation, they end up using up their money on higher food-cost items.

“Even when we had the little convenience mart … those things tend to be a little higher (priced) than a full-fledged grocery store.

“People have missed that. There’s not a meat counter or (a selection of) fresh vegetables. Not a place to go and get fruit and fresh vegetables,” he said.

Visitor’s to Powhatan Point’s senior center agreed.

“It does make it inconvenient because we have nowhere to get fresh meat or produce or fresh fruit or anything,” Priscilla Jeffers of Powhatan Point, treasurer of the senior center association, said.

“We do need a grocery store,” Alice Brown of Powhatan Point said. “Moundsville’s the closest. … Then Shadyside. That’s the closest and a lot of … older people don’t have transportation.”

“If you’re fixing something, and you run out of milk, or it’s a holiday and the milk’s low, if you don’t go up the river and buy your potatoes and meat and all that at one shopping, then you run out and you’ve got to run back again. It’s very inconvenient, Mary Lou Kovach of Powhatan Point said.”

“You gotta go out of town now,” Robert Petho of Powhatan Point said. “We used to get all our meat here. … I miss it.”

John Shreffler, owner of Shref’s Hometown Barbecue – seeing more local business but worries it may not be good for the elderly.

Powhatan Point Mayor Jeff Haught spoke about the situation.

“I know there has been a lot of backlash,” he said. “The (convenience store) was convenient for anybody in town, especially (for) the elderly to be able to go and get the things they needed. If you’re cooking and you needed an onion or a green pepper, you can go and pick one up there. Now you’ve got to go all the way over to Moundsville.”

“We’re a small village that is probably more retirees in town,” he said. “I can understand some of the concerns from some of the residents. Route 7’s your primary source of transportation, so trying to find something on Route 7 would be ideal, but there’s not a lot of property. We’ve got a few people that have bought a couple places that are going to possibly look into maybe doing something to try and bring that back, but it takes somebody willing to do it,” he said.

He hopes a potential ethane cracker plant in the Shadyside area may raise demands if it becomes a reality.

“This impending cracker plant… My opinion is, it’s going to be here eventually, and we’ll just hope that brings business into town. Hopefully it brings some business in and continues to help the village grow that way.”