BREWER, Maine — Every year at this time many Maine families have fallen on hard times. But this year, due to the pandemic, the situation is worse.
Food AND Medicine's Solidarity Harvest is currently underway to help ensure that hundreds of families will be able to have a Thanksgiving feast. This will be the organization's 18th year putting on the Solidarity Harvest, which is sponsored by the Eastern, Southern and Western Labor Councils.
Jack McKay, director of Food AND Medicine, said this is the largest one yet with over 1,400 Thanksgiving baskets going out to families in hard times throughout Maine.
Many of the meals packed in boxes were loaded on a truck Friday and will be delivered to more than 80 non-profits, unions, churches, and other groups to be distributed around the state.
Penquis CEO Kara Hay said, "We know that food security and food insecurity is challenging in fact 200,000 Mainers go to sleep hungry. 200,000 Mainers have to wake up every day and decide which meal they might want to skip because they don’t have food on the tables. It's not OK we need to do better.
One of the Solidarity Harvest Volunteers, Sam Dickson, added, "When Jack said it was 1400 boxes I was like heck yeah and I didn’t realize how many boxes 1400 are and so just thinking of each box as a family that it can feed is really heartwarming and I am so thankful to be part of it this year."
All of the food, from the turkey to the produce, is purchased locally.
The cost per basket or box (meal) is $40 and if you would like to help out you can click here for Food and Medicine's website.