Letter Carriers, 50+ Volunteers Help Neighbor-to-Neighbor Stamp Out Hunger

stamp out hungerIt was quite a sight. On Saturday US Postal trucks streamed into the parking lot by Neighbor-to-Neighbor’s food pantry housed out of Christ Church.

Neighbor to Neighbor Executive Director Nancy Coughlin said the food drive comes at a critical time. It’s almost summer and not only is that traditionally a time food pantries run low, but more children are home at lunch time.

claudia IMG_4306 “We stock up on lunch items like tuna and peanut butter and jelly,” Coughlin said of the May “Stamp Out Hunger” project. “We do buy some food to supplement donations in the pantry, but this goes a long way toward keeping our food bills down.”

While dozens of volunteers worked non stop unloading trucks and sorting donations of food that arrived in yellow plastic bags provided by Kings Markets. Last week the bags were placed in residents’ mailboxes. On Saturday, residents filled the bags with non-perishable, non-expired food items and left them out for the letter carriers.

All afternoon the Postal Service trucks arrived laden with food donations. Waiting for them was a barbecue manned by more volunteers. In fact, Coughlin said the volunteers included children from schools including Greenwich High School. “We have a group from St. Pat’s Church in Armonk,” Coughlin said. “And Eileen Bartels whose kids’ sports teams organize too.”

There were other students working toward their bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs and confirmations.

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The operation on the east side of town functioned as a satellite, with a U-Haul stationed in Old Greenwich. Later in the afternoon, the U-Haul transported a jumbo load of donated food to Neighbor-to-Neighbor’s food pantry.

Each week Neighbor-to-Neighbor’s food pantry provides nutritious food at no cost for 1,000 Greenwich residents, half of whom are children.

Neighbor-to-Neighbor is located at Christ Church, 248 East Putnam Ave in Greenwich.

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