WellSpan, Geisinger funding expands Lewisburg Food Hub’s reach

In a region where one in eight residents faces food insecurity, the Food Hub at The Miller Center in Lewisburg has become a daily stopgap for people who cannot afford to wait for help. The Central Pennsylvania Food Bank says 12.5% of residents in Snyder, Union and Northumberland counties are food insecure, and more than 22,000 people in the SUN region did not know where their next meal would come from in 2022.

Fresh grant support from WellSpan Health and Geisinger is meant to keep that response steady and widen it. The Food Hub, operated by the Union-Snyder Community Action Agency out of the Miller Center’s Cornerstone Kitchen, already provides emergency food assistance, redistributes donated food through the local charitable network and runs nutrition insecurity initiatives. It supplies shelf-stable goods, fresh food and prepared meals to emergency clients and walk-in customers.

The money also helps maintain the hub’s reach beyond one building in Lewisburg. Its free Pop-Up Produce Stand, open to anyone regardless of income, was set to begin another season at the Miller Center, with Thursday distributions from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., and its Mobile Food Pantry is aimed at residents who face transportation barriers or other access problems. The hub says it supports a network of more than 40 local food programs tied to the Union-Snyder Hunger Coalition, giving the grant an impact that stretches across neighborhood food pantries as well as direct household service.

The scale is growing fast. The hub had already surpassed 130,000 pounds of food by February 2025, and that total has now topped 200,000 pounds since opening in 2021. That growth shows how much demand has deepened across Union County and the surrounding counties, where geography, transportation and low wages continue to shape who gets food and who goes without.

Sue Auman, who became director of The Miller Center on May 5, 2025 after previously leading the Union-Snyder Community Action Agency, said, “I am honored to join The Miller Center and excited to work alongside WellSpan Evangelical and Geisinger.” Her appointment underscored how closely the region’s hospitals, community action agencies and food programs now work together, not just to hand out groceries, but to treat hunger as a public health problem with real consequences for families across Lewisburg, Mifflinburg, Selinsgrove and Danville.