Food pantry meets a growing need
“Peanut butter, sauce, macaroni, flour, and sugar go on the bottom. We’ve got more sauce here. All the vegetables are down there.”
Donna Lathrop, the coordinator of Mildred’s Food Pantry in Houlton, looks over boxed and canned goods neatly organized on pantry shelves.
“Hannaford donations go here. You’ve got bread and sweets. And then, these are our two freezers,” she explains.
The shelves look fully stacked now, but it won’t be long before they begin to be emptied, thanks to the coordinated efforts of Donna and a team of volunteers.
“We each have our job. We know what we need to do, and we just do it,” says Deacon Ron Ouellette, who is among those serving at the pantry.
Those jobs include signing in clients, filling boxes with food, putting the boxes in carts to be wheeled outside, and then loading them in people’s cars.
“Everything is tailored to what people want, so everybody fills out this piece of paper so that they can select what they want, how many children, how many are in a family, special instructions, food allergies,” explains Donna.
A ministry of St. Mary of the Visitation Parish, the food pantry got its start in 1988, primarily due to the commitment of one woman, Mildred Madigan, who was an active parishioner and community member.
Father Kevin Martin, current pastor, says when calls would come into the parish from people looking for food assistance, the secretary or pastor would turn to Mildred for help.
“She would do what she could do to put a box of food together, mainly through donations that parishioners brought in, but she would also go out and purchase items,” Father Martin says.
Mildred, who passed away in December 2024, continued to guide the pantry for many years, which led to the decision to name it in her honor.
The pantry is open every Tuesday and Thursday, and clients can come in once a week. In recent years, the number of people receiving food has increased significantly.
“When I came here at the start of COVID, we did 15 cars a day. Now, we sometimes do over 60. That’s how much of an increase there has been with the number of people we serve,” says Gregory Ryan, the parish’s maintenance director, who assists at the pantry.
“There is such a need in the community, and it’s getting worse and worse with the way the economy is going, the way that grocery prices are going up and up and up. More and more people who didn’t need the pantry prior to this are needing it now more than ever,” says Deacon Ouellette.
“It’s not only people who are not working or people who are having hard times. There are people working who still can’t make ends meet,” says Wanda, Deacon Ouellette’s wife, who also volunteers. “It’s nice to talk to people and assure them that it’s OK to need help. We all need help somewhere along the line, no matter if we’re richer or poorer.”
The need has increased so much that Donna says while the pantry used to get one pallet of food every month from the Catholic Charities Food Bank, it is now getting two. People come not only from Houlton but from other southern Aroostook County communities, such as Amity, Cary, Island Falls, Linneus, and Orient. Those who get food say they would have to make some tough choices without it.
“I would have to decide on what I would have to give up to pay for food instead,” says Bernadette, who is on disability. “We’re a large family, and food is kind of a luxury that we can’t afford.”
Sue Blanchard, who volunteers at the pantry along with working at a local restaurant, says she, too, has benefited from it.
“I wouldn’t have food to feed my family if it wasn’t for [the pantry]. It’s that important,” she says. “It allows me to purchase other items that I ordinarily wouldn’t have been able to purchase for my family. I have a family of five, so it gets very expensive.”
Jacqueline Hurley, another volunteer, says she too once turned to a food bank for help.
“Way back in the past, not here in town but down country, a food bank helped me out for a while when I really needed it, and I wanted to give back. I just felt the strong need to help,” she says. “Some people come in looking kind of desperate at times, and to know that we can put a little relief on their faces is really nice.”
“We need to feed people in the community. That’s why I volunteer,” says Patrick MacDougall of Houlton. “We’ve got a lot of hungry people.”
Father Martin says because the pantry is such an integral part of the community, the parish wants to ensure it is available to people for years to come. It is why the parish is looking to set up an endowment, in Mildred Madigan’s memory, through the Catholic Foundation of Maine.
“The regular support that we get to fund parish ministries is integral and important, but an endowment is definitely a more enduring way to fund and support the work of those ministries,” he says. “It’s really the gift that keeps on giving.”
Father Martin says the pantry has always had generous donors, but the new endowment would provide another pathway to giving. He says he is grateful to all who have supported the pantry through the years, including parishioners, such as Mildred herself, and companies such as S.W. Collins Company, which provides free trucking services, and Hannaford, Andy’s IGA, County Yankee Grocery, and Walmart, which donate food.
“I just am so appreciative of the many people who help us, and I thank everybody that has made the pantry what it was, what it has been, what it is now, and what it will be in the future,” says Father Martin. “It’s definitely a huge blessing to everybody.”
That includes not only the clients but the volunteers, who say they have found a supportive and uplifting community through their service at the food pantry.
“Retirement from my nursing profession was very hard on me, so this really has saved me and given me an outlet to keep serving, although in a different capacity,” says Wanda. “I had people around me whom I trusted and cared about and with whom I could divulge what I was going through, and it was a big help for me. Having Greg here, we banter back and forth and carry on all day.”
Along with supplying food, the pantry also offers nutritional information to clients thanks to the assistance of Christine Finemore from University of Maine Cooperative Extension.
“Each month, we change the topic. For instance, this month, it is fruits and veggies,” she says. “I will also have givebacks to clients. It might be measuring cups, shopping pads, vegetable peelers, things that they can use in their homes.”
Clients can also learn about other available community services by browsing through pamphlets and chatting with volunteers staffing the Cross Resource Café, which is set up in the parish hall.
“We provide information if they need information for any services in the area, but more importantly, we’re here to get to know people and for them to get to know us,” says Lynette Dobbs, the café coordinator. “We see Christ in them. They see Christ in us, hopefully.”
The dedication of the volunteers at the pantry was recently acknowledged by Catholic Charities Maine Parish Social Ministry, which gave the parish a $4,000 Matthew 25 Award grant. The money is being put toward the cost of a new walk-in freezer that was purchased.
“This is a game changer when it comes to storing frozen food,” says Donna.
Father Martin says the parish plans to dedicate the freezer to the memory of one of the pantry’s treasured donors, Robert A. Fields, who passed away recently. A native of Houlton, Fields became a successful New York entrepreneur but always generously supported his hometown, including the food pantry.
