Food City-Bridgton Crew After Filling 80 Healthy Food Bags for Rotary
Lakes Region: Food City of Bridgton partnered with the Bridgton-Lake Region Rotary Club in the delivery of 80 bags of healthy food for the Southwest Oxford County Nutrition program, formerly the Brownfield Food Pantry.
Previously Food City had been instrumental in the Rotary Club being able to deliver 800 3.12 quarts of laundry detergent, enough for each of the food pantries’ clients in our immediate district, including Bridgton, St. Joseph’s, Naples, Sweden and Harrison food pantries. Food City ordered more than their normal delivery spaced out over a month so that we would have product to deliver in time for pantry days, explained Rotarian Carol Madsen who oversees the Rotary Club’s work with food pantries. “We have a grant from the Rotary District that we’re part of, made up of Clubs in southern Maine and coastal NH”, she said, “which provides support for distribution of Health & Wellness packets to local food pantries. The Brownfield pantry, which is part of our district because of its service area, doesn’t accept non-food items. But we were committed to helping them in some way. That’s why we went back to Food City.”
Food City manager Jen Morin was able to identify, price at cost or below, from a series of possibilities we identified. Because the food pantry in Brownfield is only open one day a month, timing was critical and we wanted to deliver this year. So identified in the end was a whole winter squash, a bag of apples, a rustic bread, butter, chocolate chip cookie mix, and cranberry sauce. Those items, packed in a handsome reusable shopping bag from Key Bank-Bridgton, a holiday greeting and support on Washing Hands, Wearing Masks, and Watching Distances which Rotary has been sharing with other pantries, made up the Healthy Food bag.
Pantry day was to be Thursday, December 17, but a snow storm ensued and a Snow Day was called, pushing the event off to Friday, December 18. Nonetheless, Food City’s crew had the bags packed and were ready to help Rotarian Mike Daley load his pickup truck at 8:00am on Friday morning. Staff not only assisted but configured the setup so that the 80 bags were safely packed into a truck which more optimally would hold 40 bags.
The Bridgton-Lake Region Rotary Club wants to thank Food City for coming through even when order changes were made and then pickup day changed as well.
Rotarian President Julie Forbes took the opportunity to thank so many who have been supporting our work with the food pantries, our hosting of Community Kettles and our distribution of winter clothes and sleds to area children through Songo Locks and Stevens Brook Elementary Schools and Bridge Crossing in Bridgton. We are so honored to be able to help and frankly couldn’t do it without the support of the community at large, Friends of Rotary, Rotary District 7780 and our fellow Rotarians who have helped with the generous donation of time and money. A huge thank you, thank you. And a Happy Holiday Season.
For more information about Bridgton-Lake Region Rotary Club, visit our website, our Facebook page, or email us at LakeRegionRotary@gmail.com. It’s a great time to be a Rotarian!
