You may have seen it on the news yesterday. Hundreds waited in line to donate nonperishable food and personal care products to Connecticut Food Bank, warm clothing to the Salvation Army and dollars to the American Red Cross to help with Hurricane Sandy relief efforts here in Connecticut.
Vehicles stuffed with bags and boxes of groceries lined Sargent Drive in New Haven leading into IKEA, as well as at the Sears parking lot in West Hartford. Today, we’re still unloading pallets of food and personal care items, but so far we have more than 200,000 pounds!
The generosity is much appreciated as people who are struggling financially must replace the food items they had to throw away after losing power. Our network of 600 food assistance programs throughout six counties are expecting an even greater demand for their services in the weeks ahead.
There are so many people and organizations we want to thank. One is a woman from Orange, CT, who just got her power back on Sunday. She told us she spent her entire weekly food budget to help others. Another is a young man who rented a truck when he learned we needed help getting the food from West Hartford to our East Haven warehouse.
From the tremendous amount of people who waited in line for nearly an hour to donate, the volunteers who helped load food onto trucks and those who went above and beyond to rent trucks or use their own vehicles to get donations to our East Haven warehouse – we thank you!
We especially want to thank NBC Connecticut and its radio partners who organized and promoted the event including The River 105.9, 97.9 ESPN and KC 101; IKEA in New Haven, Sears in West Hartford and Nationwide Moving Company.
If you couldn’t make it to either food drive, there’s still an opportunity to help. Visit our Hurricane Sandy Virtual Food Drive to donate what you can to help feed those who are most affected by the storm.
