Got Lunch! toasts founders at start of 14th season

LACONIA — If this summer turns out like last, Got Lunch! Laconia will deliver weekly bags of groceries to the homes of more than 500 schoolchildren. The local Got Lunch! organization has become a robust and reliable source of support for families in the city, and has inspired communities around the state to replicate similar efforts in their own towns and cities.

Fourteen years ago, though, it was just a concept, and it might have stayed that way if not for the concerted, sustained efforts of a local core of volunteers who laid the foundation and established all of the necessary relationships, resulting in what today runs like a well-tuned machine.

“Doesn’t it feel like family when we all get together?” Trish Poliquin, volunteer coordinator and vice chair of the board for Got Lunch! Laconia, asked when she greeted a group of volunteers who filled the basement of the Laconia Congregational Church on Monday morning, the first day of this year’s summer food distribution program.

Got Lunch! Laconia was inspired by a simple, hard fact: more than half of the city’s schoolchildren live in homes which qualify for free or reduced school meals. What, then, do these families do during the summer, when school cafeterias are closed? Got Lunch! was formed to bring weekly food deliveries — bread and sandwich ingredients, mac and cheese, boxes of cereal — to city families with schoolchildren who sign up for the program.

But before bags could be packed in the church basement then brought out to the parking lot to be loaded into the trunks of a fleet of volunteer drivers, the current corps of volunteers paid tribute to some of their forebears, who turned Got Lunch! from an idea into a program.

“Some people do a week, a month, a summer, and that’s fantastic,” said Bob Champlin, a longtime program supporter who was superintendent of city schools when Got Lunch! launched. “And then there are people who come back year after year.” He called them “warriors for good — they are the symbols of everything that’s right in Laconia.”

This year’s Got Lunch!, its 14th season of food deliveries, is dedicated to Dave Barth and Stan and Sandy Brallier, some of the program’s original framers as well as volunteers for more than a decade each.

Barth is known for his “fun and creativity” and penchant for a good story, Champlin said. “There’s a great saying: ‘Happiness is a choice, choose wisely,’” Champlin said. “You make that choice easy,” he said to Barth.

The Bralliers were the logistical gurus of the early days, Champlin said, recalling how audacious the proposal first sounded to him. “How will this all get organized? Enter Sandy and Stan Brallier,” he said, adding they’ve made a “huge contribution” to the program. Then, turning to the room of volunteers, “Now it’s up to us to keep it going.”

After the ceremony, Sandy said it was “overwhelming” to be lauded by the people in the room. “I’m filled with gratitude. These people care about our community, they care about the children, and they all work together.”

Stan said his tenure with Got Lunch! was a “long and rewarding experience,” and that he’s glad to see it continue after he and his wife step away.

“It’s sustainable, because this is a special place, Laconia,” Barth added. “Having been in this community, and seen this kind of program succeed, Laconia deserves it. They deserve it because they are so supportive and strong. We can move on with complete confidence, these are wonderful people. More talented than we were, and just as dedicated as we were.”

Poliquin said there are about 120 volunteers in total, and she expects to have at least 500 children, coming from around 260 homes, sign up by the end of the summer, which is about how many participated in the program last year.

“I think the need is out there,” Poliquin said.