PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — A statewide food drive geared toward feeding the needy in Aroostook County enjoyed a record-breaking year for monetary donations, according to one of the organizers.
Traci Place, business agent for the South Portland-based Teamsters Local 340, said Monday that the Feed The County Food Drive brought in 4,000 pounds of food and $7,225 in donations during the annual Maine Potato Blossom Festival parade on July 16.
“Money is still trickling in,” she said. “We were so thrilled to see everyone supporting us like they did. Everywhere we went, people were just so generous to us. It was just amazing.”
The food drive, in its seventh year, benefits Catholic Charities of Maine Hunger and Relief Food Banks in The County through its “Feed The County” collection campaign. The Maine Potato Blossom Festival parade serves as a vehicle for the effort. During the parade, Teamsters members and representatives from Catholic Charities of Maine collected donations and food along the parade route.
Last year, Place said, Teamsters collected between $6,000 and $6,500 in monetary donations and 10,000 pounds of food.
Place said she believes that the rise in monetary donations was a result of the agency getting the word out about their new emphasis on cash donations over food donations. In the past, Place said, the Teamsters used to stop in various locations as they drove north across the state and The County with a tractor-trailer and filled it with food until they got to Fort Fairfield. The local union stopped the practice after the J.J. Nissen Bakery in Biddeford and Portland went out of business in 2013, and the Teamsters lost a donation of about two to three truckloads of bread from the bakery and its employees.
“When you have figures that show that $100 enables the purchase of 900 pounds of food, it just makes sense to try and collect more monetary donations,” she said. “That money goes a long way in helping to keep people fed each year.”