A Gray-New Gloucester high school senior is looking to leave his mark on neighbors and peers with a community service project.

Adam Dale of New Gloucester is raising money to purchase meat for the New Gloucester Food Pantry, supported and housed by the First Congregational Church in New Gloucester, and the Gray Community Food Pantry, run by the First Congregational Church in Gray. But he doesn’t plan to pick up the meat at the supermarket. Instead, Dale wants to raise money to purchase livestock at the Cumberland Fair 4-H Livestock Auction.

Dale said he got the idea for the project in January, and contacted the Rev. Linda Gard at the Congregational church. He also enlisted two friends – Caleb and Katie McGrath-Holmquist, also longtime fellow members of the Cumberland County 4-H Sheep Club and the 4-H Swiners – to help.

Their goal is to raise $5,000 from the community by Sept. 28, the date of the auction. They estimate that $5,000 will allow them to purchase four market hogs and two market lambs at auction.

Through the 4-H, Dale has spent 10 summers raising sheep and pigs to be sold at auction. The club, he said, has encouraged him to give back to the community. A similar project is underway in Cumberland, Dale said, and he wanted to bring the initiative to Gray.

“I figured, why not do something good for the community, where I’ve lived all my life?” said Dale, who volunteered at the New Gloucester food pantry for several years. “I’ll keep the project within our town, and support people who need it, the 4-H club will get buyers, and the food pantries will get meat.”

Gard said the food pantry is “excited about the project, and impressed by his concern for our neighbors who experience food insecurity, and his direct, personal and meaningful action on their behalf.”

The New Gloucester Food Pantry has been in the community for more than two decades, and provides staples to 60 households in town each year.

The food provided by the pantry comes from numerous sources, Gard said, including non-perishables from individual donations and food drives, the Good Shepherd Food Bank and a local grocery store.

A continuing initiative for the food pantry is to provide fresh sources of protein to pantry recipients, Gard said. The pantry uses cash donations to purchase eggs and milk, and “when local farmers like Adam are able to contribute fresh frozen, professionally processed meat, we and our clients are thrilled.”

Gard said while many local students have gotten involved in the food pantry in a variety of ways, she believes the project spearheaded by Dale and the McGrath-Holmquists is a first for the New Gloucester food pantry.

The trio “will help the New Gloucester Food Pantry provide many neighbors in need with healthier, more nutritious food this winter, and we thank him.”

The Gray Community Food Pantry, serves 40-70 families with emergency and home deliveries. Approximately 15 percent of the clients are elderly seniors living on a fixed income and 30 percent are children.

Once the students have finished fundraising and know how much money they have to spend, they will consider the market animals’ weights and decide which animals to bid on – not necessarily their own. The cost for the animal is per pound and varies each year. Dale said the plan is for his father to bid on the animals at auction, held at the Cumberland Fairgrounds.

After the animals are purchased, the club will send them to a local butcher.

As members of 4-H, the students send letters to local grocery stores and restaurants, requesting their presence at the auction to bid on their animals. This year, the three are also sending letters to local businesses and residents, asking them to donate money to support his community-service project.

Dale also had a booth at Gray’s End of Summer, a harvest festival to help raise money and awareness of the project.

Dale has spent the summer raising two pigs and two sheep  in his back yard. The pigs cost roughly $700 each, and the sheep $400. Dale said generally sheep are more of a challenge to raise. While pigs only require food and the occasional cleaning of their pen, sheep need to be shorn, and occasionally walked on a lead.

Students have to walk the sheep to “show them off” to buyers before the auction, Dale said, and the sheep’s reticence to walking on a leash shows how well they’ve been trained.

Adam Dale shows off Grif, one of two sheep he is raising for the 4-H club this year. Dale and two fellow Gray-New Gloucester students are fundraising to purchase livestock at this year’s 4-H auction, and will donate the meat to the local food pantries.