Basket-Pa-Looza Brings Thanksgiving to 189 Families
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Swan Agency Real Estate.
BAR HARBOR—It was the weekend before Thanksgiving and all through the basement of the Bar Harbor Congregational Church, a lot of humans were stirring, and packing, and organizing box after box after box of holiday meals.
Those boxes will bring Thanksgiving to 189 families that signed up for a Thanksgiving basket this year.
The volunteer program, centered at the church, is believed to be in its 27th year.
“It’s such a huge community effort!” said Cristy Benson, one of the organizers. “We received tons of food. Anything that we didn't pack into baskets was donated to the Bar Harbor Food Pantry.”
That’s important because food insecurity isn’t something that just happens on holidays. The need for help is constant and year round.
“Food insecurity is a large issue in every community and people can feel very vulnerable in sharing about their food needs, so many might not realize that there are folks in our community who are hungry and not sure how they will pay for next month's groceries,” Benson said. “I hope that participation in creating these baskets can increase people's awareness of the need for more and better access to food. Donate to the Bar Harbor Food Pantry! And then maybe donate a second amount to a food pantry off the island, like HOME's Goodness Sake Food Co-op or Seacoast Mission Food Pantry in Cherryfield!”
Sylvia Mathews Burwell once said, “Day after day, ordinary people become heroes through extraordinary and selfless actions to help their neighbors.”
That quote became practice again. That selflessness of ordinanry people has been on hand all this past month on Mount Desert Island. Truckloads of donated food came to the Bar Harbor Congregational Church this week. The MDI YWCA will host a dinner tonight, November 25, too, at 5 p.m. where ordinary people will break bread together.
For the Thanksgiving baskets, the only real cost is for the meat that gets included. Still, it’s a lot to organize. The organizing board included Benson, Debby Hammond, Sarah Joy Chaples, and Kay Rand.
“This year, Sarah Joy Chaples joined the organizing committee, bringing her incredible knowledge of nonprofits and data management. Her insights will help us run things even better in the future,” Benson said.
According to the Maine Department of Education, 1 in 4 Maine kids are “at risk for hunger” and 37% of those children aren’t poor enough for public assistance.
The University of Maine’s Cooperative Extension states that 14.4% of Maine households are food insecure; this translates into 16% of Maine seniors, and 1 in 5 children, so the statistics vary among age demographics. It also states that Maine is 9th in the nation for food insecurity.
According to the USDA, about 10.5% of households in the United States were food insecure in 2020, which represents 13.8 million Americans. Feeding America estimates that 1 in 8 Americans were food insecure in 2021. An article on Stacker estimates that the food insecurity rate in Hancock County is 8.3% higher than the rest of the country, with the insecurity rate for kids being 22.6% higher than the national average. That translates to 1,690 children and 6,420 total residents.
This March, the Good Shepherd Food bank wrote, “Population-level rates of food insecurity grew from 10.5 percent in 2021 to 13 percent in 2022, resulting in an estimated additional 35,000 people in Maine struggling to find room in their household budgets for food. All told, one in eight or 180,000 people in Maine experienced food insecurity in 2022, including one in five or 46,000 children.”
The USDA defines food insecurity as “at times during the year, these households were uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food to meet the needs of all their members because they had insufficient money or other resources for food. Food-insecure households include those with low food security and very low food security.”
Throughout Mount Desert Island and Hancock County there are multiple efforts to help. This weekend at the church and Monday night at the MDI YWCA are just two instances of ordinary people doing good.
“I appreciate all the folks who turned out to help. I'm grateful that we have such a generous community,” Benson said.
How generous? Here are all the supporters: Food was provided by:
Conners Emerson Food Drive
MDES Food Drive
Tremont School Food Drive
Bar Harbor Congregational Church
Seaside UCC
Somesville UCC
Galyn's Restaurant
Slice of Eden Bakery
Open Table
Bar Harbor Food Pantry
Holy Redeemer
MDI Episcopal Churches
River Church
Financial contributions came from both Rotary and the Bar Harbor Congregational Church. Kids Corner and Conners Emerson School provided artwork.
Volunteers came from the Bar Harbor Congregational Church, River Church, Girl Scouts, MDI High School, Knowles Company, and the MDI and Ellsworth Housing Authority.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BAR HARBOR CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BAR HARBOR FOOD PANTRY
https://www.barharborfoodpantry.org/
TO LEARN MORE AND/OR POTENTIALLY PARTICIPATE IN SHARE THE HARVEST
Last year’s application online.
Call for information: 207-801-0135
CONTACT THEM WITH ANY QUESTIONS OR IDEAS ABOUT HELPING LOWER FOOD INSECURITY LOCALLY!
Share the Harvest
(207)-801-0135
Beech Hill Farm
(207) 244-5204
MORE RESOURCES:
https://stacker.com/maine/counties-highest-rate-food-insecurity-maine
https://www.maine.gov/doe/foodsecurity
A 2017 report on Maine’s food insecurity.
More about those statistics from UMaine.
NPR article about the Biden administration’s plan to end hunger by 2030.
Biden’s remarks on the upcoming conference on hunger, nutrition and health.
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