Newtown Resident Is Hoping That

‘One Can’ Will Continue To Make A Difference

By Shannon Hicks

One can.

One dollar.

One person.

Any of the above will make a difference to a person or family who is struggling to put food on the table, and one Newtown resident is ready to change lives once again.

Breanne Lubinsky, who organized the extremely successful One Can Make(s) A Difference food drive for the 2008 Labor Day Parade, is ready to go for this year’s parade on September 7. Breanne’s was the parade float that collected nonperishable donations for FAITH Food Pantry.

While last year’s efforts were in part to fill requirements for her Girl Scout Gold Award, this year’s effort continues something that Breanne learned last year. While reading about the 30th anniversary of the food pantry based in St John’s Episcopal Church, Breanne learned that many Newtown and Sandy Hook residents continue to count on the pantry and its volunteers for some of their food.

“I’m doing this because hunger is a year-round thing,” she told The Bee last August. “Many people think about hunger and collecting food during the holidays. But I want to do something now.”

“This year I’m doing this because I still want to help,” Breanne announced this week.

According to FAITH volunteer Lee Paulsen, FAITH provided food to 52 families in June 2008. During the same period this year, the pantry provided meals for 87 families, which is a 67 percent increase. Mrs Paulsen recently met with Breanne, offering suggestions of items the food pantry could use (see Wish List in adjacent box). FAITH will accept anything, of course, but there are some items — like pasta and soup — that they really have more than enough of.

Having surpassed last year’s goal of 1,000 cans — Breanne and crew collected 2,455 items (cans, boxes and even some glass jars that had, in many cases, been wrapped to protect from breakage), $190 in cash, $25 gift cards each for Big Y and Super Stop & Shop, and a number of Big Y coins — Breanne is realistically hoping to double last year’s goal. Keeping the economy in mind, she hopes to this year collect at least 2,000 cans.

Paradegoers are asked to put at least one nonperishable donation into a shopping bag, which will then be picked up during the course of the parade.

“They also need those plastic bags,” Breanne said of the food pantry’s volunteers. “This helps everyone. It’ll be easier for us to collect the donations, and it will give more things to FAITH. They were just as thrilled with the bags as they were with the food last year. It makes it much easier for the clients to get the food out to their cars.”

As with last year’s parade, volunteers will also be walking with buckets to collect money and Big Y coins, all of which will also go directly to FAITH. Gift cards were also received last year, and will certainly be accepted again on September 7 and will probably include some for Caraluzzi’s Market, which has opened in the center of town since last year’s food drive.

The Lubinskys would like to ask for donors to keep a few things in mind this year. One, check expiration dates before donating food.

“People were so good about that last year and we were so thankful for that,” said Linda Lubinsky, who added she was thrilled that less than a half-dozen items had to be discarded because they were no longer edible.

“We helped with the postal good drive and people, I think, just cleaned out their closets without checking dates,” said Breanne. “We threw away so much food from that. It just doesn’t help.”

Their second request is just to make sure the donations are on the side of the road — like the dozens of lawn chairs that traditionally line the parade route hours before the marchers step off Monday morning — before the One Can folks reach them.

“Last year we missed people and they were running to catch up with us,” said Breanne, who may have worried that parade organizers would be upset at the possibility of delays. “People can just put their bags along the side of the road so they can be collected when we reach them,” she said.

Last year Breanne and her family had two trucks rolling along the parade route. This year there will be three, which is the limit on the number of vehicles for any group in the parade this year.

“We had one truck overflowing with donations well before we reached the flagpole, so we pulled over and unloaded everything at the home of our friends the Berminghams,” said Breanne. “We went back later to pick everything up again, but that way we had more space to collect for the rest of the parade.”

A similar outcome happened down by The Pleasance, where the group’s second truck had filled to overflowing. That load was pulled off and left with the Rotarians who were staffing their food tent, and picked up later.

Three trucks will hopefully make things a little easier this year. The Lubinskys are looking for a third driver, by the way.

“We already have a third truck promised to us, but we need someone to drive it and they need to be able to drive a stick shift,” said Linda Lubinsky, Breanne’s mother. Anyone interested in being a driver can call the Lubinskys at 270-8382.

“We were just absolutely blown away by everyone’s support, and concern,” Linda Lubinsky said this week. “It was touching, so very touching.”