The Valley community showed again how it takes care of its own with the announcement Friday of major donations to restock the bare shelves of six local food banks.
The donations — totaling $24,000 — came from the Valley United Way, the Valley Community Foundation, developer Bob Scinto, and Prudential Financial in Shelton. They were announced Friday afternoon at the United Way in Shelton.
“When there is trouble, when there is need, the Valley people have always taken care of other Valley people,” said Valley Community Foundation President James E. Cohen.
Also present for the announcement were Prudential Annuities Vice President Kimberly Tabb, Scinto, and representatives from several of the community food pantries that will benefit from the emergency donations.
They are:
- Spooner House
- The St. Vincent DePaul Society
- The Salvation Army
- The Seymour/Oxford Food Bank
- The Parent Child Resource Center
- The Center for Domestic Violence Umbrella Program.
Spooner House Executive Director Susan Agamy said the problem isn’t that food and cash donations have fallen. It’s that demand has increased from people in need because of the bad economy causing continued high unemployment and underemployment.
“There are a lot of people in need of food right now,” said Agamy, who estimated that demand for services from the local food pantries is up 10 to 15 percent over the last year.
According to Valley United Way President and Chief Operating Officer Jack Walsh, the desperate need to restock the local food banks came to their attention about two weeks ago when Bob Lalley, a volunteer at St. Vincent DePaul in Derby, brought it up at a United Way Volunteer Council meeting.
Click here to see a previous Valley Indy story on the situation.
Katie Scinto, the developer’s daughter, who was at the meeting, immediately pledged a $2,000 donation if the funds could be found to match it.
While the United Way staff went to work looking for matching funds, Cohen at the Valley Community Foundation was informed of the problem by Joseph Pagliaro Jr. of Shelton, who serves on the boards of directors of both organizations and had also attended the Volunteer Council meeting. He and Cohen went to work looking for additional funds to match those of the United Way.
By the middle of this week, the United Way and Community Foundation had each raised $5,000, which brought the total to $12,000 with Scinto’s contribution.
That’s when Tabb came forward with the pledge to double the total with a donation through the Prudential Foundation.
Tabb said she had toured several local food pantries recently where she witnessed the problem first-hand. “I was shocked at how thin their supplies were,” she said.
And to stretch the money further, the food pantries will purchase their food through the Adams Hometown Market in Derby. Store manager John Varrone also attended the announcement at the United Way office.
