Central Aroostook schools give back to food pantries during annual conference

Dixie Shaw, left, hunger and relief services director for Catholic Charities, Scott Harrison, executive director of the Central Aroostook Council on Education, and Jennifer Bourassa, curriculum director for SAD 1 and CACE professional development team member, pose in front of donations made to Catholic Charities during CACE Day on Friday. (Staff photo/Melissa Lizotte)

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — During a busy day of professional development workshops Friday, teachers and administrators from schools across central Aroostook County took time to donate food and money to support Catholic Charities food pantries.

Every year the Central Aroostook Council on Education, an educational collaborative between 22 area K-12 schools and the University of Maine at Presque Isle, comes together for a day-long professional development conference featuring both local and nationally known speakers from education and related fields.

This year’s conference was held at Presque Isle High School. As guests walked through the main lobby they had the option of contributing bags of canned food and/or a money donation to a fundraiser for the Aroostook chapter of Catholic Charities.

Jennifer Bourassa, curriculum director for SAD 1 and a member of CACE’s professional development team, said that the fundraiser is the first of an annual initiative that CACE began this year called “Educators Care About The County.” Each year, CACE will choose a community organization or group to donate funds raised during the conference, also known as CACE Day.

“Food insecurity has become more of an ongoing issue for students and their families. We wanted to choose a project that children in all districts throughout Aroostook County could benefit from,” Bourassa said. 

By mid-morning, the table set up in the PIHS lobby was completely covered with over 20 boxes and bags of canned foods and over 40 individual cans and the donation jar was more than halfway full.

In the end the project produced 224 pounds of food and $364, according to Dixie Shaw, hunger and relief services director for Catholic Charities.

After stopping in to thank teachers and administrators Shaw wasted no time packing up the boxes for delivery to food banks in Caribou and Monticello. Catholic Charities distributes food to 24 pantries throughout Aroostook County.

“It means a lot for us to have their support,” Shaw said, about CACE. “Food insecurity is an ongoing problem for many people in Aroostook County and collections like this help us fill that need.”