MONTICELLO, Maine (WAGM) – Catholic Charities Maine now has room for up to 320,000 pounds of frozen food.
A new freezer in Monticello is about five times larger than the organization’s previous frozen-food storage capacity. The added space means Catholic Charities can accept larger donations when available and store that food until it’s needed by pantries across northern Maine.
Jon Blanchard, director of hunger and relief services, said the freezer allows the organization to accept and distribute protein-based donations more easily.
“The frozen food is where the protein comes from. So to be able to just always accept donations and be able to dole it out in sizes to our pantries that they can accept because they’ve got to have refrigeration to keep it frozen too is huge for us,” Blanchard said.
Steve Letourneau, CEO of Catholic Charities of Maine, said the expanded storage capacity allows the organization to accept donations from a wider area.
“We’ve gotten requests for food donations from other parts of the whole country and with the large food bank that we have now, we can really take on a lot of those donations and that’s going to benefit everybody in the county,” Letourneau said.
The freezer cost more than $400,000 for work and materials. Officials said the money came from donations and fundraising efforts.
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