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Date: 3/9/2021
EASTHAMPTON – Liberty Cannabis, a division of Holistic Industries, and the Easthampton Community Center (ECC) recently partnered for a food drive that garnered more than 600 pounds of food as well as other supplies.
Liberty’s General Manager John McGuigan told Reminder Publishing that his team was focused on reaching out to ECC from the start.
“It is even something we talked about with potential employees during the interview and hiring process at Liberty. We identified what causes were important to the team, and I reach out to as many local organizations that focused on those causes as I could find,” McGuigan said.
He continued to say that Robin Bialecki, the executive director at ECC, was very responsive, and McGuigan felt like they could work together successfully and become partners.
Bialecki and McGuigan quickly realized that a food drive was something they could do safely in-store and during COVID-19 that could provide the kind of community impact they were looking to make.
“Our retail team worked with our Massachusetts Market Director Kris Smith to come up with a tiered discount for our medical patients to encourage and thank them for taking part in the drive. We plan to continue our work with the ECC and partner with them on supporting additional needs throughout the year,” McGuigan said.
ECC provided Liberty with a list of suggested items that the center needed.
“We knew that shelf-stable food and nonperishable good were the standards, but they also mentioned sanitary products, deodorant, toothbrushes, the kind of things that might not be top of mind with potential donors,” McGuigan said.
He continued to say that they collected a wide variety of canned food, shelf-stable pasta and grains, soup, proteins, canned milk, and Smith donated a case of toothbrushes and a case of toothpaste.
Liberty had a collection bin placed at the concierge desk, and once it began to fill up, it caught the attention of more and more potential donors. McGuigan said they received items from patients, customers, and the Liberty team members.
In addition to more than 600 pounds of food, the team collected 250 toothbrushes and 150 tubes of toothpaste.
Bialecki told Reminder Publishing that Liberty was “terrific” and had an “amazing” food drive.
In a prepared statement provided by Holistic Industries, Bialecki was quoted saying, “It’s our mission to provide services and assistance to residents of the greater Easthampton area as we’ve proudly done for the past 48 years. We’re so appreciative of all of the help and support we get around the holidays, but food insecurity is an issue for people throughout the year. We are grateful that companies like Liberty Cannabis in Easthampton recognized the need for year-round donations and organized a food drive last month to help the community.”
McGuigan said they felt like the holidays receive a lot of attention for this kind of charity work, so they wanted to extend past that window, as food insecurity is a year-round issue.
“The ECC has experienced more than 100 percent increase in daily needs due to the pandemic, and the numbers continue to remain high. Our support year-round will help combat this during times when others cannot assist,” he said. “The food drive was a big success and well received by our patients, customers, and the entire community. We plan to continue our partnership with the ECC and are looking forward to doing additional food drives and other events to support Easthampton.”
Director of National Outreach James Kahn said community support is a top priority for the company. Kahn said this begins by hiring locally and offering a livable wage with high-quality benefits, including health insurance. In addition to these efforts, they work hard to ensure cannabis remains accessible to customers, providing various discounts to veterans and senior citizens.
“Our corporate responsibility platform, Liberty Cannabis Cares, is active in every market we operate in and designed around four primary issues: social equity, diversity, cannabis education, and community service,” he said.
He added that this past year in Easthampton, they focused heavily on COVID-19 relief efforts, including donating 6,000 KN-95 masks to first responders and providing 250 hams to struggling families on Christmas Eve.