There is an old house with ice forming on the electric outlets. You know the kind of house. Each window covered with white frost and thin smoke determinedly rising from the chimney. It is a tough winter for all of us, and harder still, for some of our neighbors. It is time, again, to step up and help.

The Freeport Community Services heating fund, the Kaplan Fund “Freeze Out” event, is coming on Feb. 15-16 and I am writing to ask you to help with a stretch donation of dollars for heat and food for the food pantry.

When I was your state legislator, I met poverty and hardship as never before. I sat at the barren kitchen table of poverty. I felt the cold of an empty oil tank. I heard the quiet dignity of our elders trying to keep warm and mothers and fathers trying to feed their children. I saw the looks of gratitude when a person’s oil tank was getting 50 or 100 gallons of oil. I saw the acts of numerous neighbors all across town, quietly helping their neighbors; working at the food bank, stacking wood, plowing a driveway, making a donation to the Kaplan Fund.

Nancy and I have made several stretch contributions this year. Will you? Please stop at the UCC Church on Main Street, Freeport (across from the Gap) from 10 a.m.-10 a.m. Feb. 15-16. Visit Sue Mack and volunteers standing outside hoping to see you. Hear about the people FCP knows, who justly need help. And/or send a check to the Kaplan Fund, Freeport Community Services, PO Box 119, Freeport Maine, 04032, or “click” donation at FCSMaine.org, or Facebook.

Please, don’t wait.

David Webster

South Freeport