Along the back wall of the Open Cupboard Food Pantry in Wilton, there is a line of boxes waiting to be filled with turkeys and all the Thanksgiving Day trimmings.
On a holiday that celebrates bounty, area food pantries are ensuring that everyone is able to celebrate – even those who are food insecure.
“We try to bridge the gap,” said Roger LaDouceur, co-director of the Open Cupboard Food Pantry, which serves Wilton, Lyndeborough, Temple and Greenville.
“Someone once said to me, ‘A food pantry in Wilton seems silly.’” said his wife and co-director, Linda LaDouceur. “But you would be surprised. You have no idea how many single moms there out not getting the child support they should be, families where the bread winner has lost their job, seniors.”
Across the region, each of the local food pantries tell the same story of serving 30 or 40 families per week, and distributing tons of food per year. Most of them will be providing specially put together baskets to provide food for the Thanksgiving meal, which will be distributed this weekend in anticipation of the holiday.
And there is plenty of need, according to those that distribute food pantry donations across the region.
“As of today, we have orders for 126 baskets, and I expect that to increase by at least another 20,” said Maureen Stenuis, director of the St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry in Greenville.
And the Rindge Food Pantry said they have plans to distribute 32 baskets of Thanksgiving goods this year, according to director Kathy Isakson of Rindge.
“My prayer has always been that we get to the point that we don’t need food pantries anymore,” said Dawne Hugron, coordinator for the Antrim and Bennington Food Pantry at the Antrim Baptist Church. “I want people to have what they need. That’s what it’s all about, helping those folks. I’ve had people say they don’t want to come, because they don’t want to take from someone else. I always say, ‘If you don’t come, I know where you live. I’ll come to you.’”
The approaching holiday season is prime time for food donations at local pantries – efforts like Scouting for Food, organized by the Boy Scouts across the region, send thousands of cans of food into the pantries’ larders.
For the most part, said food pantry coordinators, they do well on community support.
“We had a meatball supper [fundraiser] the first year we started,” recalled Linda LaDouceur, of the first year that she and Deb Ducharme ran the Open Cupboard pantry. “I don’t think that we’ve needed one since.
That said, continued donations are always needed. Run by mainly by volunteers and under charitable organizations, the need to replace a freezer can take a giant chunk out of what remains a small budget.
Most pantries are constantly in need of the staples – canned goods like soups, tuna fish, peanut butter and paper and personal products – and can also use cash donations to purchase food from wholesalers, commercial stores like Market Basket, and the New Hampshire Food Bank.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.
