When Betty Presnell visited FAITH Food Pantry one morning recently, she arrived with her usual smile and positive attitude. She also carried with her multiple envelopes filled with donations for two local organizations.

Presnell has been conducting a can and bottle drive since July 2020. What began as a way to cover the loss of Nunnawauk Meadows Residents Association’s (NMRA) canceled 2020 Community Tag & Bake Sale, has morphed into an ongoing townwide event that continues to benefit local groups and organizations.

Presnell has reached out through social media, inviting residents to drop off returnable cans and bottles at her home. She also drives around town to pick up collections of the same, and then heads to one of the bottle redemption centers in town to turn in those returnables.

She photographs each receipt and posts them on the Buy Nothing Newtown Facebook page, where local residents ask for or offer items to each other without charge. Presnell’s photo posts are considered “gratitude” posts, the third type done within the Buy Nothing group.

The result has been $2,500 collected for NMRA, which was Presnell’s original goal. When people continued to offer their cans and bottles, she continued collecting, redeeming, and then donating the proceeds.

She began with donations to FAITH Food Pantry, the nondenominational pantry located at 46 Church Hill Road that helps any resident in need. When Presnell visited on November 16, she made her tenth donation — which she is quick to point out is done on behalf of countless others who provide the returnables — to the pantry. That donation put the cumulative total at $5,000.

Additionally, there have also been $500 donations each to the American Cancer Society, Families United in Newtown, and The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, among others.

Presnell also added Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps to the list of recipients last month. NVAC Chief Liz Cain and longtime member Tom Hanlon met Presnell at the pantry on November 16, when they were given $500 for use by the corps.

Collections Continue

While she will continue to collect and redeem returnables while there is interest, Presnell said last week that she is cutting back on some of the running around she has done for the past 16 months.

“With gas prices going up again, I can’t keep driving all the time,” she said. “So I will be doing pickups just two days a week.

“I will turn in everything I receive,” she promised, “and people are still welcome to drop bottles and cans at my house any time that’s convenient for them.”

Presnell and her husband live in unit 1D of Nunnawauk Meadows, on 3 Nunnawauk Road. From Nunnawauk Road, use the second entrance into the complex (driving behind the community building); at the gazebo, look to the right (toward the east-southeast).

“We’re the house across from the gazebo,” she said. “That’s what I tell everybody.”

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Associate Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.