Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, there has been noticeable shortages or difficulties obtaining important goods including, in at least one instance, a favorite food.

For Ryan Medina, 15, of Leesport, that favorite is Hostess Blueberry Mini Muffins but thanks to a sweet relationship with the bakery, he is well-stocked with tasty treats for the future.

Ryan has been known as the “Muffin Man” since he was 2 years old, according to his mother Melissa Medina, who spoke with The Press.

“Ever since then, he has been the muffin guy. Everything we have ever tried to get him to do in therapy; every time we needed to motivate Ryan, it was with the muffins,” Medina said.

Medina said Ryan, who has autism, is highly food selective and only likes a limited number of foods - Goldfish crackers, chicken nuggets, smiley-face potatoes, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and yogurt.

But, his love for blueberry mini muffins has endured since childhood.

“We just bought them one day when he was little,” Medina said. “We were going through feeding trials to get him to try anything new, and blueberry muffins, boy did they stick. It just became his favorite food for forever.

“We took him off gluten for a few years … I tried every recipe of blueberry muffin. I used to put them in the Hostess bags but he always knew,” she said. “You can’t sneak a different muffin on him, he knows.”

The mini muffins also became an important tool in getting young Ryan to speak.

“When he first was diagnosed with autism, he didn’t speak. He was nonverbal until he was about 4,” Medina explained.

“Because he loved mini muffins so much, and he’s very, very loyal to Hostess - and it has to be blueberry, we taught him to talk with the Picture Exchange Communication System.

“It was a little sentence that started, ‘I want (blank).’ He had to pick out a picture with Velcro and stick it on, and every time it was muffins.”

Ryan’s first verbalization was not a single word but the sentence, “I want muffins,” and he has been “Muffin Man” ever since.

With the coronavirus pandemic it became difficult to get the mini muffins for her son.

Medina said before COVID-19 the family had been receiving a biweekly delivery from Target but as the coronavirus spread, the deliveries stopped.

“We would order a case every other week, but Target couldn’t send them because of the pandemic, so it was sheer panic in our house,” Medina said.

She first contacted the Hostess warehouse and distribution center to arrange a delivery for Ryan but was unsuccessful.

“They told me no and said, ‘We can’t send you any direct cases. You will have to find a vendor in your area, but we don’t know who that is.’

“I was sort of defeated at that point,” Medina said, noting since recipe or brand substitutions were out of the question, the family was in a dilemma.

Family friends had been on the hunt for muffins, including one person who sent six boxes of the blueberry mini muffins from Florida.

The supply issue was resolved after Medina contacted the Hostess Public Relations Department, with which the family has a special relationship, and spoke with Public Relations Manager Katie Lewis.

“She said, ‘We will absolutely help you,’ and she just took it from there,” Medina said.

Lewis told The Press obtaining the blueberry muffins for Ryan was a “team effort” of members in Hostess communications.

Hostess organized a delivery of four cases of muffins, 20 per case, for Ryan at home, shipped another four cases to Redner’s Market, Leesport, and ensured the grocery started regularly carrying the treats.

“They were so nice,” Medina said. “It was wonderful. We have a regular hookup for muffins now.”

Medina is also grateful Redner’s began carrying the mini muffins, noting that on previous occasions she was unable to find them in the store because the muffins were vendor-supplied.

“But, they came through,” she said. “The grocery store was really nice, too, because when they got them in they called and said, ‘We’re going to keep these four cases behind the counter for you, so you can come and get them,’ and after that they would start putting them on the shelves.”

Medina noted this was not the first time the family had received a muffin resupply from Hostess.

She said about two or three years ago, before the family could order them from Target, no nearby stores sold the mini muffins, adding she used to drive to Walmart in Allentown to pick up the baked goods for Ryan.

“We would buy out all the muffins at the Walmart there, but still it was not enough.”

Medina said she and her father, Gerry Gavin, reached out to Hostess Public Relations Department, which is how she came into contact with Lewis.

“It was actually my dad who found Katie the first time, and she said, ‘I heard about Ryan, let me see if I can help you,’” Medina said. “She was nice enough to send us, I think it was two cases then, and right after that I was able to get them from Target, so we were OK for a while.”

Ryan was asked his favorite food.

“Blueberry Hostess! “It tastes nice,” he responded enthusiastically. “The blueberry tastes like the color blue.”

Medina also said Ryan is very specific and selective about packaging, noting Hostess changed the look of the blueberry mini muffins box several years ago, but the changes gained Ryan’s approval because the company’s design included something he loves - hot-air balloons.

“They changed the packaging but because they put a hot-air balloon on it, Ryan accepted it.

Now that Ryan has an adequate muffin stockpile at home and an accessible supply nearby, Medina said her son is ready to wait out the current situation with his favorite food by his side.

“We ended up with eight cases within a few days. It was like heaven for him,” Medina said.

She also thanked Hostess for its help with the supply issue, and for the sweet relationship shared with their family.

“They’re just as nice as can be,” she said. “I think Ryan will forever be the Hostess Muffin Man, and we will forever be a Hostess family.

“We just can’t thank them enough for helping us out in this difficult time.”