Representatives from St. Mary’s Food Pantry recently presented an award to Sam’s Italian Sandwich Shoppe at Cook’s Corner in Brunswick for their outstanding effort in raising money to end hunger in Maine.

In addition to a plaque for display in the store, employees were awarded free movie passes donated by Frontier, a food, arts and cultural destination in Brunswick.

Every fall, St. Mary’s and Sam’s locations statewide partner in a campaign to sell “cornucopias” to customers for $1 each with proceeds to benefit local food pantries. The campaign is also a competition among the 13 Sam’s locations to see which store raises the most funds. Statewide, Sam’s stores raised $4,895 for hunger relief.

Sam’s in Brunswick won the competition with $1,074 raised for their local pantry, the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program.

The mission of Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program is to provide hungry people with access to healthy food, to work to improve the quality of their lives by partnering with others, and to serve them in a manner which recognizes their dignity. To that end, MCHPP distributes more than 318,000 free meals annually to neighbors in need. To learn more about this program, visit mchpp.org.

In total, the seven Lewiston Auburn Sam’s locations raised $2,740 for St. Mary’s Food Pantry.

In 2017, the St. Mary’s Food Pantry provided food for more than 1,170 people per week.

In addition to its food pantry, St. Mary’s Nutrition Center offers cooking, nutrition and garden education programs for people of all ages, job training programs for teens, community gardens in Lewiston and Auburn, and manages the year-round Lewiston Farmers’ Market and Good Food Bus. For more information, go to stmarysnutritioncenter.org.