Community Corner

Sponsors Needed to Buy Thanksgiving Supper for Local Families

Town program pairs residents with families in need.

For more than 20 years, the Town of Farmington’s Community Services Department has worked with residents to bring holiday meals to hundreds of Farmington families in need. Residents sign up to sponsor a family by buying all the ingredients of a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal. They take a list to the grocery store, purchase and pack the items, then drop them off for town staff to deliver.

But the program took a double hit from this year’s October snowstorm and subsequent two-week power outage. First, there are more families than ever in need of help and second, the town was at a standstill during the time the effort usually gets the most signups.

“Between the storm and everything, we just have more families we haven’t been able to match,” said Nancy Parent, Farmington’s Community Services directory. “People were so focused with getting their lives back to normal that our largest number of people volunteering come in during that time and we lost that.”

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Parent is asking anyone who is interested in sponsoring a family to call her office at (860) 675-2390 by Monday. Those interested in helping with Christmas are encouraged to call, too. Sponsors are usually paired with families of four or more people. They get a description of the family they’re buying for – like two teenagers, a young child and a mom and a dad.

Some sponsor families take the opportunity to care for their recipients in a special way. Some make cards, others tuck in table linens or add pieces of their own family traditions.

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“We have some that have a special family bread that they make and include, some decorate a bag, some make ribbons and some come in grocery bags,” Parent said. “They come in all different shapes and forms but some people really take time and decorate it.”

The town takes care of smaller families, like a single mom with one child or a senior citizen couple, by having volunteers pack baskets with items they’ve bought or that have been donated. The volunteers will be heading to Stop & Shop on Saturday to pick up what they need.

Farmington police will join the effort there Saturday, too. Between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Officers Jason Raines and Joe Capodiferro with Drak are hosting a stuff-a-cruiser program to raise items for the smaller families. The radio station 96.5 will be there to provide publicity. Interested residents can also sign up there to sponsor a family.

Items being collected during the stuff-a-cruiser event include:

  • Small Turkey (or $15 gift card)
  • 1 bag of potatoes
  • 1 bag of carrots
  • 1 can/jar of gravy
  • Box/bag of stuffing
  • 1 can yams/sweet potatoes
  • 1 pie shell
  • 1 can pie filling
  • Disposable roasting pan


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