Lakes Region Vineyard Church fills the gap for Thanksgiving

LACONIA — Despite record-high inflation, gas and grocery prices, the Lakes Region is still feeling charitable this year.

Individuals, businesses and religious organizations pulled together to make Thanksgiving meals possible for families in need this holiday season. Last Friday, sixth graders of Laconia Middle School donated more than 300 items to the St. Vincent DePaul Society, a local nonprofit known for its food pantry and thrift store.

“This is great, this is excellent,” said McKee Jack, who picked up the middle school donations. “Demand is climbing back up, and donations are pretty good right now. It's the holiday time and we get a lot of good donations."

The Lakes Region Vineyard Church, along with several grocery stores, have worked together for years to help feed those in need.

This year, the church is providing 50 Thanksgiving meals.

“The turkeys and potatoes, those come from the New Hampshire Food Bank, all the peripheral stuff, the gravy, canned goods, pies, rolls, fresh veggies, all of that is being donated by Fire N' Stone Chimney Services in Lochmere,” Pastor Dick AuCoin said.

On Friday afternoon, a Fire N' Stone truck loaded with goods pulled up to the small parish on Mechanic Street to bring in their donations. For around five years, Fire N' Stone has partnered with the church.

“It happened through Pastor Dick, he's my father-in-law,” said Fire N' Stone owner Angelo Farruggia. “There was a need in the community, so we tried to step forward and help.”

Farruggia explained that all the groceries they purchased are from Market Basket in Tilton.

“They're great with that with us,” Farruggia said. “We send them a list of everything that's needed about a month in advance, then they set it up and tell us what time it's available. The staff is great, too. They come out and help us load it all up.”

Hannaford also helps provide food to the church the rest of the year, according to AuCoin, who started the pantry nearly two decades ago.

“The food pantry started in my home in 1992 in my basement,” AuCoin recalled.

Since then, the pantry has expanded to an even bigger basement, complete with full-sized freezers, storage bins and even a walk-in cooler.

“I go to Hannaford Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday morning at around 7:30 a.m. They load me up, a couple thousand pounds a week,” AuCoin said.

Although the pantry has always been robust, the pandemic forced the church to adapt and shift their distribution model.

“Before COVID, in the cafe area, Thursdays, we provided hot breakfast and we'd have all the stuff here,” AuCoin said, gesturing toward the basement stairs. “They could have breakfast, coffee and then the dry goods and frozen meats came from downstairs.”

When COVID came, serving in-house meals was off the table, but the church was able to still collect and distribute donations. Volunteers had to mask, wear gloves and work with smaller groups of people at a time, but the Vineyard still managed to serve.

“We've talked three or four times, do we want to go back to the old way?” AuCoin said. “I think Isaiah 61 [Cafe] has pretty much taken up the slack on the breakfast and stuff, so we send sandwiches over to them and cooperate that way and just focus on [the pantry] and Thanksgiving baskets.”

Since that time, the number of clients has gone down, but not because of available food items.

“We've dropped from 70 [Thanksgiving baskets] to 50,” AuCoin explained. He said the church could get what they needed in terms of donations, but demand had gone down. The church still serves a significant number of people.

“This was yesterday,” AuCoin said, displaying a clipboard with a spreadsheet of names. “So that's 40 clients and this is the amount of people, adults, children, over 60s. If you averaged it out, three to four to a family times 40, it's about half of what we did before the pandemic.”

AuCoin attributed the decline both to the pandemic and the country's response.

“Food stamps increased, people got free money for a period of time so they didn't feel the pressure, then you got this fear, 'if I go to the pantry, who's going to be there? Are they wearing a mask?' But they're starting to come back, it's just a whole different dynamic,” AuCoin continued. “We'll just do it this way until we have to change again.”