Brattleboro, Vermont – On Friday morning November 15th, Project Feed the Thousands will kick off its 19th annual food drive. The launch will take place at the Price Chopper Supermarket on Canal Street in Brattleboro, with a live broadcast hosted by long time media supporter, WTSA 96.7 FM.
The community goal this year is to raise $100,000 in cash and to collect enough provisions for 200,000 meals. The Project Feed the Thousands Team will collect non-perishable food, personal care items and cash donations on behalf of the thousands of people who face hunger each and every day throughout southeastern Vermont and southwestern New Hampshire.
“Although Project Feed the Thousands is this region’s largest community food drive,” Project Co-Chair Kelli Corbeil states, “even with a growing list of corporate donors, and many area schools participating as well as the individual donations large and small, achieving our goal this year will be challenging.”
Lucie Fortier, Executive Director of The Brattleboro Drop In Center states, “This cash and food drive is imperative to our community food shelves, we rely on it! All of the food shelves in our region are struggling and when the cold season comes the need is enormous. We could not possibly feed all the individuals we see if it wasn’t for Project Feed the Thousands.”
Project Feed the Thousands was started in 1994 by Larry Smith, then of WTSA Radio and George Haynes formally President of Brattleboro Savings & Loan. They believed in helping those less fortunate in their community and they enlisted their neighbors and friends to start a food drive to alleviate hunger in Brattleboro and surrounding towns. At that time the goal was to feed the estimated 1000 individuals in need of food in the Area. That meant filling a single tractor trailer with food.
In its 19 year history Project Feed the Thousands has grown in size and scope now covering the entire Windham County Area as well as Southwestern New Hampshire. It has raised not only hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase and distribute food and personal care items to those in need but also has filled hundreds of truckloads of actual food to be distributed to the area food shelves. It has nourished countless individuals and families with turkeys for the holidays, cereal, juices, peanut butter, canned foods, soups, crackers and many other non perishable foods and personal items to alleviate the most basic human need of nutrition and compassion.
Project Feed the Thousands has built awareness of the hunger needs of our neighbors, friends, families and especially children in our communities. It has educated school-aged children on the importance and meaning of compassion and caring for others and has shown them how to take action to fight the large issue of hunger.
But Project Feed the Thousands is about more than just its recipients it’s also about those who give -our community members large and small. It brings us together to celebrate the fibers that make us this amazing community. It reminds us all of the spirit of empathy.
Monetary contributions may be made online by visiting the Project’s web site: www.FeedTheThousands.org or addressed and sent to: Project Feed the Thousands, c/o River Valley Credit Union, P.O. Box 8366, 820 Putney Rd., Brattleboro, VT 05304.
Non-perishable food and personal care items may be donated at the Brattleboro Food Co-op, Brattleboro Savings & Loan, Hannaford’s and Price Chopper locations in Brattleboro, RiverBend Farm Market in Townshend, Shaw’s in Walpole and Wilmington, all River Valley Credit Union locations, Wal-Mart in Hinsdale, St Michael’s Church on Walnut St in Brattleboro as well as many other churches and other local drop-off points. For more locations please visit Feedthethousands.org
Please visit feedthethousands.org for upcoming events.
Contact: Kelli Corbeil – (802) 380-6137
