WINDHAM – Sheri Huff, the energetic part owner of Lee’s Family Trailer in Windham, has plenty of fundraising and community betterment ideas, most of which she makes reality.

As a longtime board member for the Sebago Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce, Huff came up with the WOMB (Women in Business) Forum, which has hosted notable Maine women such as first lady Ann LePage and former “Good Morning America” host Joan Lunden, who summers in Naples. Huff also came up with the chamber’s Bid of Christmas, which raises money for the organization by providing seasonal items for an auction. And she’s among the first wave of brave “celebrity” jumpers in the annual Polar Ice Dip on Sebago Lake, which raises money for the Maine Children’s Cancer Program.

But Huff’s latest idea is one of her most far-reaching so far – the Community Coin Challenge, in which businesses and residents of the 10 communities that make up the chamber collect money for the next 10 weeks to distribute to food pantries in the Lakes Region.

As Huff tells it, the fundraising idea came to her one morning while exercising on her elliptical machine.

“I just wanted to come up with something that would help make 10 communities of the chamber into one community,” she said. “So, basically, I had to think outside the box, and say, OK, how can I get them all involved and involve something from every town, and that’s when I thought of the food pantries.”

Huff said she has a special place in her heart for food pantries and the people down on their luck who must use them. She said Lee’s Family Trailer has spent thousands of dollars in nearly 30 years of donating to local pantries, and that the challenge would be an extension of that effort.

“We as a family have always felt fortunate that we’ve always had food on our table, so we just want to help people who struggle with it,” she said. “So it’s always been close to our hearts.”

The Coin Challenge started last Wednesday with a kickoff party at Windham Weaponry, and culminates with another big party Saturday, Oct. 13. Last Wednesday, chamber members and food pantry managers gathered at the Windham gun manufacturer to distribute 400 canning jars, provided by Aubuchon Hardware in Windham, that form the core of the fundraising effort.

Huff said anyone can get involved, and a special jar is not required. Families and individuals can pick up a jar at the chamber’s office on Route 302 or provide their own jar. When it’s full, they can deposit it at Gorham Savings Bank in an account that will soon be set up.

So far, according to chamber administrative assistant Sue Bonior, the fundraising effort is going “very well. We have lots of people taking jars and we have lots more to hand out.”

“What we’re hoping is we’ll get 400 jars out,” Huff added. “But we hope those people will tell their friends who will also start collecting in their own jars. It’s not like we have to give them the jar. We’re hoping it will spread like wildfire.”

Challenge accepted

The challenge couldn’t come at a better time for local food pantries, which report slumping food donations and greater need.

“I think it’s wonderful,” said Windham Food Pantry administrator Madeline Roberts. “There’s definitely a shortage. I’m getting more and more clients and fewer and fewer donations in the summer months. So, my shelves do get down to nil quickly.”

Roberts manages the only pantry in the Lakes Region that receives major town funding. Windham taxpayers donate $20,050 a year, but Roberts needs about $90,000 to operate annually.

“So, we do depend on the community to make up the difference for the 200 families we feed every month. And I anticipate with heating oil season, we’ll see an increase,” Roberts said.

In Naples, Crosswalk Community Outreach food pantry manager Joanna Moore said the Coin Challenge “is huge. The chamber is very energized about the whole thing, and I think that’s going to make a huge difference and hopefully bring awareness.”

Moore said her pantry could use a shot in the arm as typical sources are drying up and residents aren’t coming forward with donations as hoped.

“Right now couldn’t be a better time,” she said. “We’ve been in a slump for the last year as far as the ability to get food. Foods are less and less to find, and people who have stores have done better with their inventory. They’re trying to do what’s right by their business, and conserve, so the places where we used to get food, like Hannaford, those donations have gone down.”

One bright spot has been the recent restoration of federal money, in the form of Emergency Food and Shelter Program funding, to provide food pantries bulk food such as meat and cheese. The United Way of Greater Portland, which distributes the federal dollars, is infusing Cumberland County pantries once again with funding, cut last year since the formula that assessed need steered money away from Maine’s relatively wealthier counties. However, some agencies around the country failed to comply with the rules of the program and lost their funding, allowing money to be redirected.

The federal money is welcome, Moore said, but to provide for what Crosswalk pantry users really need, more donations are needed.

“We spent a lot of time writing grants this year and got two grants that are helping with produce and farm fresh eggs, and we are still working on some funding so we can keep our program going,” Moore said. “So that’s why this chamber funding is so timely.”

On Oct. 13, after all the work of filling the jars is done, a large block party known as Octoberfest & Street Dance will be thrown by the chamber as a thank-you to the community. The event is scheduled at businesses adjacent to Buck’s Naked BBQ on Route 302 in North Windham.

While participants can deposit their money directly to Gorham Savings Bank at any time in the next 10 weeks, the block party will provide a final tally. (Organizers hope people will deposit their money prior to the Oct. 13 event, since counting what could be thousands of dollars worth of coins and small bills could take a while.)

While organizers are tallying the last of the donations, most everyone else will be making merry. The party, open to the public, will stretch several hundred feet along the eastern side of Route 302 from Buck’s to Lee Cars. The party will include food, pumpkin-patch walk, costume parade, apple bobbing, decorated dog parade, tattooing, face painting, helicopter rides and hay rides, all free to the community.

Huff hopes to see lots of donations by Oct. 13.

“If each jar came back with $100 in it, that’d be $40,000,” she said. “Is that my goal? No, but that would be great. My goal is $20,000. That’s my personal goal.”

Luanne Cameron, of State Farm Insurance in Standish, is ready to start collecting donations for the Community Coin Challenge, now under way in the Lakes Region. (Staff photo by Cyndy Bell)