HOULTON, Maine — Every year, Houlton Southside School’s After School Program holds a fundraiser, selling Pampered Chef products and holding raffles to raise funds to help buy things like snacks, supplies and field trips for the students.
But thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the program, along with the rest of school, came to an abrupt end this year. The program had raised around $2,000 from its fundraiser, which had been held just before the full impact of the virus hit the United States. So the school decided to use the funds for another purpose.
“We decided to donate that money back to the community,” Sam Hiscoe, the coordinator of the After School Program at Houlton Southside School, said. “The reason being is that the community is always donating to our program. We’ve had LP, Walmart, families and business owners donate over countless years. And so we thought right now, since we can’t be in school, let’s find a way to give back to the community.”
To do so, the After School Program partnered with The Vault Restaurant in downtown Houlton to provide meals for some of the town’s most essential employees.
Using the money raised from its fundraiser, the program paid for and delivered food made by the restaurant to dozens of employees at the Houlton Police Department, Aroostook County Jail, Katahdin Valley Health Center and Houlton Regional Hospital.
“I thought it was a great idea,” said David Wells, who is co-owner of The Vault with his wife Kristen, which had to switch to takeout only after the pandemic hit. “We’re constantly talking about how amazing the support has been for us, but we’re selling more food right now than we ever sold when we were open [to in-house dining]. So when they approached us with this idea, it was kind of a no-brainer.”
Recipients were given a full-course meal made by Wells, whose cooking is influenced by the food culture of his native San Francisco Bay Area. It included a grilled chicken burrito bowl, pasta served with Bolognese sauce and French bread and salted chocolate chip cookies.
The meals were delivered by Hiscoe and Wells, along with fellow after-school program employees Leanne Faulkingham and Becky Reed, as well as Houlton Southside Principal Cindy Peterson.
“They went above and beyond,” Hiscoe said of the prepared meals made at The Vault. “Probably more than what we donated. They probably supplied more food than what we paid for.”
