For the second year, Patty Cook is gardening on company time. A manager at Idexx Laboratories, Cook is one of hundreds of employees cultivating crops for local food pantries behind the global veterinary testing company’s sprawling corporate headquarters in Westbrook. "We delivered to the Sagamore (Village) Food Pantry last year," Cook said. "It was amazing … Read more
The Law Offices of Joe Bornstein is proud to support ‘Preble Street and ‘The Power of Sharing.’ For one week, Portland’s Time & Temperature Building will display the message ‘END HNGR’ to bring attention to Maine’s food insecurity crisis and honor Preble Street’s efforts to help this statewide problem. Food insecurity in Maine, which started to surge in … Read more
PORTLAND, Maine — Portland social workers, with the help of a university professor, are crunching the numbers on what they say may be the first in-depth study of food pantry users in Maine. Among the more striking early conclusions, said Donna Yellen, who is spearheading the effort, is the number of working people who still … Read more
Panel discusses how Maine families and children struggle with hunger and how we can take advantage of the existing infrastructure and available federal funding to help reduce hunger, including the federal Summer Food Service Program, subject of a forthcoming MECEP report. Host: Connie Zhu, MECEP Policy Analyst Guest(s): Ned McCann, Vice President, Maine Children’s Alliance; … Read more
A soon-to-be-released study indicates that a significant number of working families in Maine are reliant on soup kitchens and food pantries to meet their nutritional needs. The study of hundreds of families using food pantries in Cumberland County was undertaken by the Portland-based non-profit Preble Street. “Forty-two percent of the households we surveyed were working … Read more
People began lining up just after 9 a.m. Thursday outside Preble Street’s food pantry, waiting for the doors to open four hours later. But even as Preble Street, a multi-service agency serving homeless and low-income residents in the Portland area, sees demand rising for its food pantry and three soup kitchens, federal funding that helps … Read more
Some 83,000 Maine children quality for free of reduced school lunches. But what happens to them during the summer break, when schools are out and cafeterias are closed? Well, according to estimates, only 15 percent of qualifying children get summer meals. Today in Portland, anti-hunger groups announced the expansion of efforts in southern Maine to … Read more
PORTLAND, Maine (NEWS CENTER) — Two Americorps VISTA volunteers are working with the Preble Street Resource Center to help spread a nationwide campaign to end hunger. Shoshona Smith and Abby Farnahm will be working for the next year with the organization. They’ll be helping with fundraising efforts, and applying for grants. One of the key … Read more
The last three years have been an unending challenge for the people who distribute food to those in need. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 195,000 Maine residents struggled with "food insecurity," which means having difficulty providing enough food for their families. With nearly 15 percent of households in that category, organizations that supply … Read more
Six nonprofits are teaming up to expand food supplies to hungry Mainers and reverse the rise in the rate of people struggling to feed their families. Leaders of the coalition, called the Maine Hunger Initiative, hope to generate more funding and food donations for pantries, which are facing increasing demand. They also plan to push … Read more
