FORT FAIRFIELD, Maine — Teamsters Joint Council 10 New England food truck left Massachusetts last week and made its way from Kittery to Fort Kent collecting food for Catholic Charities with a final “hoorah” in Fort Fairfield during Saturday’s Potato Blossom parade.
The annual statewide food drive to benefit Catholic Charities in Aroostook County managed to collect $6,000 in monetary donations and over 10,000 pounds of food.
“Teamsters Local 340 and Teamsters Joint Council 10 New England supported us for our Feed the County efforts,” Dixie Shaw, director of hunger and relief services for Catholic Charities, said. “They collected monetary donations and food donations from all their members throughout the state and New England including fire departments, police departments and factory workers.”
Shaw said the food donations were down from previous years, but that was because teamsters made an effort to focus on monetary donations.
“We can purchase food at nine cents a pound from Good Shepherd Food Banks. So if we get $100 we can buy 900 pounds of food. It makes a bigger bang for your buck then going out and donating food,” Shaw said.
Opposed to local food collections “it’s so much easier to make a cash donation and not only does it allow us to make that money go further by our purchasing power to Good Shepherd Food Bank it also allows us to get those things we actually need for the pantries,” she added.
Catholic Charities’ food bank in Aroostook County serves 24 food pantries, two local school pantries and one soup kitchen. The money and food collected during this year’s drive will help sustain the pantries for approximately six weeks.
“We distribute 40,000 pounds minimum each month and 480,000 pounds annually,” Shaw said. “It costs a lot of money to give away free food.”
Members of Catholic Charities walked down Fort Fairfield’d Main Street Saturday during the parade and collected money and food donations from those who lined the street.
“We were very well received by the community because everybody knows who we are,” Shaw said. “It reminds me very much of a party down Main Street where people are passing us money and food donations and giving us high fives and thumbs up and cheering and clapping as we go by.”
Teamsters haven’t finished their collection yet and there’s still time to donate. Shaw said checks can be made out to Catholic Charities and mailed to P.O. Box 748, Caribou.
“We are just so appreciative and so grateful and so thankful for the people throughout the state, but especially to the Teamsters for making this happen,” Shaw said. “It is by far the biggest effort statewide and it ends up here in the County.”
