Volunteerism Up,

Food Donations Down

To the Editor:

The annual postal food drive was held on Mother’s Day weekend, which we thought would result in a lack of volunteers. However, because of the organizational skills of Sarah Beier and Lin Hertberg, we had more volunteers this year than ever before. In addition to our new volunteers, those who have helped in past years were back to drive and to help us sort the bins of canned and boxed foods.

Because we had so many volunteers, we are unable to list everyone individually. Thank you to the families who came and worked as teams, the high school students, the retired men and women who never stop working for others, our friends and neighbors who never say no, and all the others who worked long hours and never complained. A special thank you is extended to Ed Rees who worked from morning till night.

Thank you to My Place and to Carminuccio’s for providing us with pizzas throughout the day. We also thank Big Y Supermarket for letting us borrow shopping carts to move our food. How lucky we are to have such generous and caring businesspeople in our town.

Efforts were coordinated with the Newtown Post Office through the work of Rich Crowther, Dave Sabia, and all of the postal carriers who picked up food on their routes. We thank them for all their help.

And now the bad news! Donations this year were down by approximately one third, and we are trying to figure out why. There were several newspaper articles, and the post office mailed their reminder cards a few days before the drive. The weather was not good, but it was not raining on Saturday morning. Some streets were lined with bags of food, and others were bare. What did your street look like on Saturday, May 13? Perhaps next year someone on each street in town will put out a bag of food, and their neighbors will follow suit. If you forgot about food drive day on May 13, we will gladly accept your donation at the Social Services office in Town Hall South.

See you next year,

Joanne Klopfenstein

Ann Piccini

Newtown Department of Social Services

3 Main Street, Newtown                                               May 23, 2006