Since the first of the year, Tim Layne and his co-workers at CCB, Inc., Construction Services, along with business and residents throughout the community, have been collecting food for the city’s needy.
For the past two years, the food drive was just something the staff at CCB did themselves, but, this year, it dawned on them – getting more people involved would mean getting more people fed.
Making its first appearance at Together Days this year, now that the food drive has been opened to the public, the organization’s leaders hope the event helps them to break their own record for food collection and inspires more community members to donate on a monthly basis.
The Westbrook Community Food Drive is looking for donations of any canned, dried, boxed, jarred, or non-perishable food items, such as jars of baby food, boxes of cereal, canned fruits and veggies, canned soup, coffee, cocoa, condensed milk, juices, macaroni, powdered milk, spaghetti, and spaghetti sauce.
For those who need an extra incentive to clear out their cupboards for the needy, the food drive organizers will raffle off hats and gift certificates. Anyone who donates four food items is entered into the raffle.
Layne first started trying expanding his efforts to pack the food pantry around Thanksgiving, when he asked 40 local businesses to donate $100 toward the cause. Those companies willingly offered their help and he said other businesses and residents have stepped up to the plate ever since.
Last month, Layne said, the company brought in more food than ever to donate to the pantry, filling nine boxes with goods.
Though Jeanne Rielly was hesitant say it for fear of discouraging more donations, she said, the pantry is “blessed to pieces with food,” and she credits most of that to CCB.
“Boy, they sure did adopt the food drive with a vengeance,” Rielly said.
She said the Westbrook Food Pantry serves 310 households in the city and the only requirement to participate is a Westbrook address. Even with the increasing crowds visiting the pantry, Rielly said, there’s enough food to go around.
“We’re just tremendously, tremendously supported,” she said. “It’s just great.”
Still, Layne wants to get the word out to more people, which will hopefully translate to more food donated and fewer hungry people in Westbrook and beyond.
“To think the community could do something like this,” he said. “It was kind of cool.”
In May, the Westbrook Community Food Drive collected nine boxes of goods, including boxes of macaroni and cheese, cereal and canned foods, to be donated to the Westbrook Food Pantry. The organization will have a booth for the first time this year at Together Days.
Denise Dyer and Mary-Ellen Brown, of Pike Industries, deliver food to CCB, Inc., a construction company that started soliciting food donations from Westbrook businesses and residents this year to be donated to the Westbrook Food Pantry.
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