Betty Presnell’s latest donation to FAITH Food Pantry (FFP) has marked another milestone in the Newtown resident’s ongoing bottle and can drive.

When Presnell and her son Michael visited FFP on July 12, she arrived bearing envelopes containing a collection of cash totaling $236.65. When she handed the funds over to FFP Treasurer Barbara Krell, it put the cumulative donations from the continued effort at the $8,000 mark.

Presnell has been actively collecting and redeeming returnable bottles and cans since July 2020, after the then-president of Nunnawauk Meadows Residents Association knew that group would be unable to host its annual tag and bake sale due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A call for donations not only covered the $2,500 the association raises each year, it has continued to be answered.

Residents have dropped off cans and bottles for Presnell to return, and she has in turn used funds to make donations of $500 to local fire companies, Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Families United in Newtown, American Cancer Society, and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, among others.

Her latest $500 donation, in late June, went to Dodgingtown Volunteer Fire Company.

Presnell is often accompanied by her son Michael when she visits local redemption centers. At the end of each visit she puts that day’s work into an envelope, and sets the envelopes aside.

She doesn’t put those funds into a bank — she doesn’t want to be accused of mingling the redemption funds with her personal funds — and doesn’t write checks. Instead, when it’s time to make the next donation, the envelopes are handed to their intended recipients.

She divides the funds between FFP, which she visits every few weeks, and the next intended recipient, which is why the FFP donations are odd numbers but the others are always in $500 increments.

Since the start of the project two years ago, Presnell has made nearly $15,000 in donations to local groups and the food pantry, in addition to reaching the initial goal for the Nunnawauk Meadows group.

She refuses to take all the credit for the donations. When thanked, again, by FFP board members during her July 12 visit for the latest offering, Presnell was quick to say she isn’t the only person making the effort.

“There are a lot of residents who have been helping me,” she said. “I don’t even know everyone who has dropped off cans and bottles since I started this. Sometimes they leave them anonymously, so I can’t even thank them in person.”

Krell smiled, not letting Presnell push away all of the credit.

“It’s still you who does a lot of hard work,” she told Presnell.

Presnell has said she will continue to redeem bottles and cans and make donations to the food pantry and other nonprofit organizations as long as the returnables show up. Readers who would like to donate to the ongoing effort are welcome to drop off clean, rinsed bottles and/or cans at 1D Nunnawauk Meadows. From Nunnawauk Road, use the second entrance into Nunnawauk Meadows (driving behind the community building); at the gazebo look to the right (toward east-southeast).

Presnell doesn’t go too long these days without receiving new donations of bottles and cans to be redeemed. When she arrived at the food pantry earlier this month, volunteer Andy Engels hustled out toward her vehicle. In each of his hands, Engels was carrying plastic bags filled with bottles, more donations for Presnell’s effort.

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Managing Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.