By Jody Brumage
On May 29, 1961, Mr. and Mrs. Alderson Muncy became the first recipients of food stamps in the United States. McDowell County, located along West Virginia’s border with Kentucky in the south-eastern part of the state, was the first designated location for a pilot food stamp program established by an executive order signed by President John F. Kennedy. While the first program for providing assistance to lower-income families for purchasing food was launched at the end of the Great Depression, the program of which the Muncy’s became the first recipients was the precedent for our nation’s current program, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The existence of great need among many West Virginia families was clearly witnessed by Senators Randolph and Byrd, and more senators who, at their invitation, toured parts of the state and held community hearings in the spring of 1959. A year later, the need for expanding aid programs became a talking point for candidates in the upcoming presidential election. While campaigning in West Virginia in 1960, then Senator John F. Kennedy promised that if elected he would take steps to create a federal program for food assistance. On February 2, 1961, President Kennedy made good on this promise when he signed his first executive order, creating a pilot program to expand food distribution. The first region to be incorporated in the new pilot program was West Virginia's southern coalfields, with the first official sale to the Muncy’s taking place in McDowell County.
During the three years following the passage of the 1964 Food Stamp bill, Senator Byrd made it his goal to expand the program's coverage to all West Virginians. Residents of four of the state's counties (McDowell, Logan, Mingo, and Wayne) were able to apply for assistance through the original pilot program. Senators Byrd and Randolph worked with state officials and the program's leaders in the Department of Agriculture to make more counties eligible for coverage. By late 1967, forty-eight counties were included and Senator Byrd wrote to the Secretary of Agriculture asking that the remaining seven counties be added so that their residents could be eligible for assistance. In 1968, Food Stamp coverage was finally extended to all fifty-five counties of the state, making it the first to be completely included in the program.
Throughout his career, Senator Byrd remained a strong supporter of the Food Stamp program, once saying “I cannot speak too highly of the Food Stamp Program and what it has meant to many West Virginians and other Americans in need of food assistance. The need to eliminate hunger and severe malnutrition is clear and consistent with the national interest and our standard of value.”