'Tis the season for rebuilding at the Bucksport Community Concerns food pantry after flooding forced the pantry out of its home.
"It started the beginning of November when we had all that rain,” said Bucksport Community Concerns Co-President, Linda Hayward.
Hayward has been a volunteer at the pantry for 27 years.
She said 4 1/2 inches of water came up through the drainage line in the pantry.
"Every time it rained from then on in we had six more floods,” said Hayward.
The flooding wasn’t covered by its insurance, so the food pantry had to pay out of pocket for all new shelving to keep its services up and running while rebuilding.
The loss of a freezer full of meat, as well as cases and cases of canned goods which had rusted and were ruined, was almost too difficult for Lori Hunt to watch happen.
"Seeing all the water and knowing that there was going to be damage was very upsetting,” said Hunt, the food pantry’s secretary. “It was a horrible feeling. It’s hard to describe.”
Volunteering at the pantry has always been a family affair, according to Hunt.
“My mother was a volunteer,” said Hunt. “My mother got me doing it. My sister did. My son started volunteering when he was four, so it’s a family thing.”
Hayward and Hunt said in the nearly 40 years the pantry has been in its Elm Street location there has never been a problem causing the pantry to lose food, until now.
"We were closed for two weeks which we have never done before,” said Hayward. “We’ve been very lucky because we’ve never had any major problems before. I mean, we’ve had problems with the heat not working, or something like that, but nothing like this.”
"It was so hard to not be able to do it for a couple of weeks, knowing that there were people out there who needed the help and we weren't there,” added Hunt.
Their concern now: helping the hundreds of families that rely on that food.
"We've had clients asking,” said Hunt. “I've had them stop me on the street and say, 'how much longer before you move back?'"
The drywall is still cut off three feet from the floor Saturday, a reminder of what happened, while volunteers work to reopen the pantry in its basement location just after the New Year.
"We should be all set for years to come,” said Hayward, of the rebuilding process. “That's the goal. We have such good people that help us out and everybody here that works at the pantry put in extra hours to get stuff organized here and to help out where they could.”
The food pantry is hoping to reopen in its former location Thursday or Friday after the New Year.
Volunteers say the pantry is typically open every Wednesday and serves approximately 200 families in the community year-round.