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Reminder Assistant Editor EAST LONGMEADOW Susan Peterson, director of the East Longmeadow Public Library, shared her office with nearly a ton of food all through the month of February. Nine hundred pounds of canned vegetables, boxed cereal, macaroni and cheese and other non-perishable food was donated to the Emergency Food Pantry of Open Pantry Community Services Inc. Library patrons had the opportunity to make the contributions in exchange for paying fines for overdue materials. "Every can, literally, every can helps," said Executive Director of the Open Pantry, Kevin Noonan. "Sometimes we don't know how we're going to make it through it the week, then something like that rolls in and it's very reassuring that people care." On top of feeding the community's most needy families, the food drive served a positive purpose for the library. "It did enable us to get back some items that had been out for a long time that we thought we would never see again," Peterson said. "People would call and ask if they could bring in items six months overdue if they brought in extra can donations. We said 'sure!' That's the whole point." Because the library staff was unsure of where to store the mountains of groceries, they wound up in Peterson's office until the Open Pantry could come to collect. Peterson joked that if snowstorms had stranded her at work, at least she wouldn't have run out of food. "People in this community are really generous," Peterson said. "It always amazes me that people here give so much, not only to the library but to other organizations. When we can make that happen it's a win-win situation." This was the first time the library has collected food for the Open Pantry and Peterson hopes to do it again. She added that many people generously contributed donations without even having fines. Noonan said that the need for donations is greater this time of year because food supplies from the pantry's biggest annual event, the Mayflower Marathon, are just about gone. | ||||||
