Volunteers in Brewer this week are assembling and distributing more than 1,600 Thanksgiving meal boxes for people across the state.
"Behind there, this is the potato room, where we have, I don't know, ten, fifteen thousand pounds of potatoes," said Jack McKay, the director of the group Food and Medicine, which organizes the annual Solidarity Harvest.
The Food and Medicine building is still packed with ingredients that will go into 1,675 boxes, each of which can feed six to eight people. McKay said the program is merely a band aid for food insecurity in Maine.
"This year has been the most challenging since we began," he said. "With the furloughed federal workers, the attack on SNAP, there's a major layoff in Baileyville, in Washington County with 160 workers currently laid off."
McKay said nearly 70 organizations are volunteering in the effort, including Ashlynn Ward, a nurse at Eastern Maine Medical Center and a board member for the Maine State Nurses Association.
"Solidarity Harvest isn't charity, it's solidarity," she said. "It's a shared commitment to building long-term solutions that support health, dignity and justice. It reflects the values we uphold as nurses: compassion, community and the belief that every person deserves the essentials of life."
