Montville Food Bank Helping More Residents In Need

Kathleen Doherty-Peck, director of Montville Senior and Social Services,  has seen more and more needy Montville residents walking in the building to pick up basics such as food, clothing and hygiene products.

“We see new people every week,” she said recently; right now, more than 100 families are using the Social Services food bank weekly.

“Unfortunately, I think with our economy, that it’s the sole source of food” for some Montville residents, Doherty-Peck said.

The bank is located inside the small, white social services building just down the hill from the Town Hall. Along with racks of used clothes, its shelves are stocked with canned goods and other sustenance items like pasta and cereal. Sometimes the bank will also have bread or frozen food available.

One hundred percent of the supplies in the building come from donations from individuals or businesses. Food drives provide much of the nourishment on the shelves inside. The Food Center in New London is another contributor.

Doherty-Peck is thankful that amounts donated have increased, even as the need has gone up.

There are no restrictions on visitors who use the bank other than that they must be residents of Montville. Doherty-Peck will register them and allow them to choose what they want to take with them. She does it this way in order to ensure that nobody who needs help gets passed over.

After the state took over welfare from the towns in 1998, Doherty-Peck explained, a large number of towns did away with social services. According to her, this left needy people in those places to fall through cracks in the system.

“I don’t think they grasped the differences between social services and welfare,” she said. She says that certain working families with low income are likely be exempt from state aid, but still face too many expenses to support themselves. The bank is also for residents who may have been getting by, but fell on hard times when faced with a sudden cost such as a furnace repair or the rising gas prices.

Though any Montville resident can use Social Services, Doherty-Peck believes that the stigma attached to accepting aid prevents many people from getting help.

“I know that that not every person in Montville in need takes advantage,” she said. She sees the reluctance in many of the people who walk in. There have been people who use the bank that will drive around the parking lot until there is nobody outside to watch them walk into the building. Even those who go inside often feel embarrassed about accepting aid.

“They have a hard time walking through the door,” Doherty-Peck said.