Press Releases
We're Home! Food Pantry Back Up and Running
Posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2025
A Fresh Start: Lead volunteer Lula Finch had the help of students on
summer break Tuesday when the Hospital Food Pantry reopened at
1100 Memorial Drive. Adriana Galano, 20, and Cutter Crosthwait, 13,
have parents who are hospital employees.
The hospital food pantry is home! A Marietta location owned by the hospital opened at 1100 Memorial Drive on July 22. The building, a former car dealership, is roomy enough for clients to drive through and stay in their cars while pantry volunteers put food packages in the trunk.
Cars enter from Memorial Drive and exit the building onto Wanda St. “I am very pleased with how the process went today,” said Lula Finch, head volunteer, who has been with the food pantry from the beginning in 2001. The pantry’s former permanent building on the hospital’s east side was destroyed in last year’s tornado.
The pantry is licensed by the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma. It receives truckloads of fresh, packaged, canned, and frozen foods several days per month. The mission of the pantry is to assist the hungry and food insecure of Love County.
Clients register with the pantry on their first visit. About 400 families, mostly elderly or having young children, are served each month.
Pantry volunteers besides Finch are Jim Ahern, Anthony Brown, Jed Brown, Jim and Joanne Coble, Debra Gaines, Rosann Kelly, Naomi Lornes, Diana Morrison, Cathy Redding and Jessica Smith.
Hospital Projects Move Closer To Completion
Posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2025
Live-In Help: Dustin Michael, Manager of Love County EMS/Fire Brigade, stands in the “living room” of Station 1 on Legacy Park Lane on July 15, prior to the arrival of furnishings. Medics of the 24-hour ambulance crews are ready to move into the new station, with ambulances to be parked in a covered garage beyond the Exit door in the photo above.
Four projects at Mercy Health Love County Hospital were closer to being finished on July 15.
Ambulance Station 1: The former Farmers Market on Legacy Park Lane has been remodeled to create sleeping quarters, kitchen and dining room, living room, offices, and storage closets. Occupants of the space will be the medics and ambulances of the former Station 1 north of the hospital, which was destroyed by a tornado on April 27, 2024.
Temporary Emergency Room: The elusive Automatic Generator Transfer Switch, on back order for weeks, finally arrived July 14 and was installed the next day by Lynn Boyer Electric’s Casey Key and crew members J.D. Hartman, Matt Wyatt, and Dale Gunter. The ER could not open until a back-up generator could be made functional.
Radiation Department: Painters and electricians were working July 15 in the suite of x-ray rooms that was constructed in a repurposed Community Room of the Therapy Building. New x-ray equipment is on hand to be installed.
Hospital Food Pantry: The permanent home for the pantry was close to ready on July 15 in the former Ford building at 1100 Memorial Drive, across from...
Food Pantry Re-Opening Delayed to July 15
Posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2025
Food Pantry Moving Back to Hospital Grounds July 8
Posted on Friday, June 20th, 2025
Food Pantry Moving Back to Hospital Grounds July 8
Clients of the Mercy Health Love County food pantry received extra food boxes Tuesday to help tide them over until the pantry reopens in a new location on July 8.
Jessica Crosthwait, executive assistant to the director of the hospital, announced that the food pantry will be closed on June 24 and July 1 to vacate the former Greenville School site and return to hospital grounds.
“We are moving back to Marietta. We will be in the former Ford dealership at 1300 Memorial Drive, across from McDonald's Restaurant, where we are setting up a drive-through pantry,” Crosthwait said.
The original pantry building of the hospital was destroyed by a tornado that struck Marietta on April 27, 2024. Love County Commissioners offered the Greenville School cafeteria as a temporary location. The school had permanently closed that year. It is being converted to a community center.
The Ford building, owned by the hospital, has been temporarily occupied the past 14 months by the Love County EMS/Fire Brigade Station 1, which also lost its headquarters in the tornado.
Workers have been busy converting the former Growers Market on Legacy Park Lane to a new home for Station 1 medics and ambulances.
The food pantry has been serving clients with quantities of fresh, canned, and frozen food items since 2000.
"We apologize for the inconvenience caused by the relocation but look forward to helping clients again,"...