To the Editor:

FAITH Food Pantry would like to thank our generous community for helping us provide a full Thanksgiving meal to over 95 families in our town.

Thank you, Karin Halstead, for once again being the driving force behind the Fill the Fire Trucks Food Drives. We thank the members of all 5 firehouses for collecting donations outside of Big Y and Stop & Shop: Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire & Rescue, Hawleyville Volunteer Fire Company, Botsford Fire Rescue, Dodgingtown Volunteer Fire Company, and Newtown Hook & Ladder. The donations of 175 boxes of food, turkeys, hams, cash and gift cards helped us provide a Thanksgiving meal to so many, and will continue to help us shop for our clients in the future.

To every person that donated this week through their local school, grocery store, church, or directly to FAITH, we thank you. Over 95 families left with the fixings for a full Thanksgiving meal, due to kind and caring individuals like you!

We would like to thank the St Rose Knights of Columbus for donating and handing out a fresh pie for every one of our clients. Your generosity brightened many Thanksgiving tables!

To Steve of Butcher’s Best, Angelo of Sal e Pepe, and Ingrid of Villarina’s Pasta Shop of Newtown, we are so grateful for your continued kindness and your generosity. Your donations to FAITH are a blessing to so many families in our town.

To our giving friends that wish to remain anonymous, we thank you for your kindness and graciousness. We thank the woman who we nicknamed Grace for her continuous deliveries of carloads of food; we thank “Tom, the turkey man” for the dozens of fresh turkeys he purchases every year; and we thank the anonymous former client, for her very special donation of Big Y gift cards. Your kind gesture will allow us to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables for many others, and for that, we are so grateful.

Last but not least, we would like to thank our dedicated volunteers that prepared, bagged, and loaded up the cars of our clients. We thank you all from the bottoms of our hearts.

Lee Paulsen, Jill LeBlanc, Barbara Krell, Joan Brand, and Terry Ferris

FAITH Food Pantry of Newtown