Kate Ramunni Photo
Carol Pendagast, co-chairman of the Corporate Volunteer Council, Pat Tarasovic and Carolyn Cutaneo of Prudential Insurance.
Christmas is coming early for food pantries in the Valley as the United Way’s Corporate Volunteer Council holds its latest “Harvest House.”
On Thursday, volunteers from businesses throughout the Valley gathered along the Shelton Riverwalk to build the 400-square-foot house, whose walls are lined with non-perishable items.
On Friday representatives of the food pantries will come to collect the items, which will be distributed to residents in need in the coming months.
The first Harvest House was constructed in 2005, according to Pat Tarasovic, the director of the Volunteer Action Center at the Valley United Way. It’s now staged every two years, she said.
“We do it every other year because it’s such a massive project,” she said. Work on the 2019 Harvest House will literally begin on Friday because there is so much that goes into it, she said.
The Volunteer Council member businesses collect food and monetary donations for the house, she said. This year more than 50,000 items will be distributed, as well as the $20,000 they raised, she said.
Among the businesses sponsoring this year’s Harvest House are R.D. Scinto, Inc, Prudential Financial, the Shelton-Derby Rotary, the Hampton Inn, the Valley Community Foundation, Bic and Minuteman Press.
Thursday morning dozens of volunteers lined the shelves with the food before enjoying a pizza lunch. Thursday evening is the officials Harvest House kickoff, Tarasovic said, and then on Friday the food pantries will arrive to collect the donations.
Carolyn Cutaneo, a manager at Prudential, said her company participates because they believe in the mission.
“I think this project aligns with Prudential’s strategy of providing basic needs for the community and basic responsibilities,” she said. It’s the fifth year they have been involved, she said.
“This is a very happy time for the food pantries,” Tarasovic said.
But, she said, the food will only last for four to five months. “We decided we needed to take responsibility for that,” she said, which led to the creation of the United Way’s Food Task Force, which works with the food pantries to provide food to them all year long. It’s part of the work of the Corporate Volunteer Council, she said.
They have set up a website – www.valleyunitedway.org/harvest-house – that accepts donations that go to purchasing non-perishable items, Cutaneo said.
While the life span of the house is less than two days, it takes much more than that to create it, said Carol Pendagast of Serra and DelVecchio Insurance of Shelton, who serves as the co-chairman of the Corporate Volunteer Council.
“It’s a lot of work, but it’s so well worth it,” she said. “There’s a lot of preparation that goes into it, but so much good comes from it.”
“We volunteered for Harvest House all through our high school careers as part of the Youth Partnership program with Pat Tarasovic at the Valley United Way,” said Colleen Holt, who works at Indeed in Shelton, who was there with her friend Jennifer Mezzapelle, a recent Fairfield University graduate. “We come back every two years to keep the tradition going and help the needy in the Valley.”
Check out this video posted on the Greater Valley Chamber of Commerce Facebook page.
“I think it’s a really good way to get people out from the community to help people in the community because I don’t think we always realize how much of a need there is in the Valley,” Mezzapelle said. “It’s a really good way to raise people’s awareness of it.”
