
Some one special works behind the scenes to stock the food pantry shelves.
That loads up boxes designed for specific families as they are lovingly assembled. There is a local lady in Houlton Maine who works day in and day out at the Catholic Church’s Food Pantry.
She leads the leading force looking for loads of dented cans from large grocery chains and donations from this boy scout troop, civic organization or folks from every denomination. She is amazing and had eight kids of her own around long dinner table. There is a long list of helpers she created for unloading and emergency donations when the need is urgent.
This hard working volunteer lady is like the CEO for world hunger in the local Southern Aroostook area.
I asked her how come this cause…what drives her to be so creative and diligent year after year. She said as a child in the Boston area, she was hungry…a lot. She was raised with little money or food to go round and it became a way of life, survival. She did not consider it out of the ordinary to go to bed hungry without a meal when the rest of us sit down for sustenance or dine out. Not so unlike a concentration camp of past world wars. Or the poverty caused by the conflicts.

When you think about it…when was the last time you missed meals for a day, or were hungry to the point of passing out with low blood sugar and fatigue? I don’t mean dieting or young people purging or obsessed with skinny. This nation is so blessed with abundant food and at this holiday season, look around for food baskets to buy to feed a family over the holidays with beyond the bare essentials.
Consider signing up as our Rotary Club in Houlton does for ringing the bell of the Salvation Army’s Christmas donation kettle appeal.
Make it a ritual of what you do around the busy holidays to know the meaning of Christmas every year. Our local rotary club also raises close to a thousand dollars a year in $20 donations from club members to buy a basket with food given below cost by the local groceries in the Houlton area. It is so refreshing and heart warming to live in an area where people care for other people. Beyond the suppers for the cancer survivors or families that lost their homes in fires.
Also, Maine is loaded with farms. So much of the produce grown is wasted and left on the ground after harvest. Over-sized, kitchen grade vegetables are perfectly good for nutrition and just need to be gleaned. Before frost hurts the quality or the sun works its magic on the food left behind by the harvester. It is a same that roughly 30% of food goes uneaten that is perfectly good. Just needs to be channeled to the proper avenues to put it into the food chain before being lost.
You have so much…more than you could ever use and will get back a deep, sobering feeling of community by taking part in local drives.

Your kids are watching too and they can help ring that bell or deliver food to the pantry at your local soup kitchen! You may need a helping hand some day too. At our local rotary club we also have a Christmas auction with proceeds to help the local library and a portion for extra help for the Salvation Army Christmas appeal! Small towns in Maine are rural but tightly knit. The population pulls together to provide for the needs of all the locals and can expect the same support in life here in Maine.
Help get behind food pantries, soup kitchens in your area.
Shhhh.. be quiet as a mouse and do it like you are the only one that knows about the gift. That’s what makes it extra special and a sense of duty or a mission you can not avoid year after year!
Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers – Houlton Maine Has Special People, Low Cost Property.
207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |
MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA