BRIDGEPORT — An interfaith partnership will on Saturday feed 2,500 families struggling through the holidays.
“The executive director of Catholic Charities (of Fairfield County) received a call last week from the president of the Mormon Church — the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Brian Wallace, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, said. “The church leaders in Utah decided to send a large tractor trailer truck with over 40,000 pounds of food to Bridgeport because they heard there was great need here due to COVID.”
The Mormons and their Catholic Charities partner needed a distribution spot, so they turned to Wade’s Dairy on Barnum Avenue, which for months during the coronavirus pandemic hosted Saturday drive-up food box giveaways.
As previously reported, that program, which was initially funded by the federal government and then taken over by the state, ended Oct. 30, leaving the responsibility up to Bridgeport’s individual food pantries and shelters.
Dairy owner Douglas Wade on Friday was preparing to greet the shipment and the local Morman volunteers who will help assemble the donation into boxes for pick-up by car or on foot Saturday, beginning at 7:30 a.m. until 11 a.m. or the supplies run out. Wallace added that the first 300 families will get a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs along with the non-perishable food provided by the Mormons.
“This is pretty amazing,” Wade said. “They shipped me 24 pallets of food direct from Utah.”
This is the second Saturday in a row Wade and other volunteers have been able to re-activate their prior food box giveaway. Last weekend’s event, which included the distribution of turkeys and fresh vegetables, was made possible, Wade said, by $14,000 raised by Fairfield-based Sacred Heart University students, parents, faculty and alumni and an additional $12,000 worth of donations.
Wade’s Dairy is located at 1316 Barnum Ave.