Cape Ann and North Shore shoppers donated 13,495 pounds — almost 7 tons — of food to help neighbors in need this week. The Open Door’s food pantry will distribute the food.
“Giving back at Thanksgiving is an annual tradition for many people, and the air crackled with good energy as shoppers pitched in to give what they could,” The Open Door President and CEO Julie LaFontaine said in a prepared statement. “We have a resilient community that comes together when hard times are here.”
At Saturday’s Thanksgiving Food Drive, The Open Door focused its efforts on breakfast donations to help ease the grocery budget stress some families can experience over Thanksgiving school vacation when school breakfast and lunch are not available.
More food from private donation drives held for The Open Door will be collected this week as well.
Saturday’s drive was held at Market Basket at 101 Gloucester Crossing Road in Gloucester and 231 Newburyport Turnpike in Rowley; Stop & Shop at 6 Thatcher Road in Gloucester; Shaw’s at 127 Eastern Ave. in Gloucester and 146 High St. in Ipswich; and Crosby’s Marketplace at 3 Summer St. in Manchester-by-the-Sea.
Also Saturday, The Open Door distributed hundreds of holiday baskets at a drive-through at its headquarters on Emerson Avenue in Gloucester. Each basket contains choice of a turkey or gift card, carrots, squash, apples, potatoes, cranberry sauce, a baking mix, a stuffing mix, and a gravy mix.
“Behind the scenes, our warehouse, fulfillment center, and call center have been going above and beyond for weeks to make sure local people get the food they need this Thanksgiving,” said Jen Perry, director of operations for The Open Door, in a prepared statement. “An increase in holiday basket orders meant we needed to prepare more baskets with more turkeys and all the fixings, but thanks to our team, our volunteers, and the broader community, we’re prepared to meet that need so that everyone has a full plate on Thursday and good, healthy groceries for the future.”
The Open Door said it plans to distribute more than 1,600 Holiday Baskets before Thanksgiving, up 20% from orders for the baskets in November 2021, and a second round of baskets for the December holidays.
The Open Door, a 501 (c)(3) tax exempt nonprofit, is a community food resource center for low-income residents of Gloucester, Rockport, Manchester, Essex, Ipswich, Hamilton, Boxford, Rowley, Topsfield, and Wenham. In 2021, it distributed 1.83 million pounds of food to 8,516 people from 4,176 households. More information is available at foodpantry.org.