As the new year begins, the Saco Meals Program would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the local business sponsors, along with the many individuals, who were so generous in 2013 with monetary donations and gifts of time to help our program succeed.

Without their assistance, Saco Meals would not have been able to feed 6,055 guests and give out more than 10,000 meals.

We have several local businesses that not only support us with donations, but their employees volunteer their time cooking and serving our guests once a month. These businesses are Saco & Biddeford Savings Institution, Biddeford Savings Bank, Union Church at Biddeford Pool and American Medical Systems.

UNUM has a service grant that donates money to the Saco Meals Program for the hours their employees volunteer of their time, and for this we are thankful. Other businesses that support our program are Hannaford of Kennebunk, Shaw’s, Reilly’s, Shield’s, York County Food Rescue, local farmers who generously bring in fresh fruits and vegetables during the summer months for our guests to enjoy, students from St. James School who periodically make bag lunches for our guests, and the generosity of the Good Shepherd Parish.

We are staffed with dedicated volunteers: a prep crew who come in to peel, cut and dice vegetables, fruit and anything else that needs to be done and our cooks who prepare the evening meals. Additional volunteers pick up donated items from local merchants, to be placed out on our giving table for our guests to take home. We are grateful for our cooks, servers, dishwashers, cleanup crew and high school students who are willing to do anything we ask of them.

Our coordinators keep track of the volunteers, track the number of meals served each week and make sure the program runs smoothly every Monday and Thursday, acknowledge volunteers taking care of the mail, send thank-you notes to generous sponsors, take care of the bank account and receive help from Good Shepherd Parish office personnel. We must also give a special thank you to our board of directors, who are always there for support when we ask them.

A special thank you also to our guests who come each Monday and Thursday to be with friends, eat a hardy meal and take home items from our giving table.

To all these kind and generous people, plus any we may have forgotten, we want to say thank you for supporting our mission. We wish everyone a happy and healthy 2014.

–Virginia Kenney, on behalf of the Saco Meals Program