SANFORD — Fresh carrots, potatoes and cabbage, dinner rolls, frozen chicken and other meats all go into the box. So do canned vegetables, canned fruit and pantry staples like rice and tuna fish.

It is a chilly Thursday in December, and volunteers filling boxes are dressed appropriately — and to some degree for the season — with “reindeer” ears and Santa hats helping to keep the atmosphere merry.

Also in keeping with the spirit of the season, Santa was in the parking lot, he and other church volunteers were directing traffic.

Thursday was the monthly distribution for the Senior Mobile Food Truck, held at Crossroads United Methodist Church on Grammar Road in Sanford.

It’s been happening here each month — on the Thursday following the first Friday of each month — for the last several years, helping York County seniors on fixed incomes extend their food budgets, no questions asked.

It was set to begin at 10 a.m., and wind down by 11:30 a.m. Church volunteer Candy Hagan said later Thursday. By the end of the 1 1/2 hour period, 220 boxes of food had been distributed.

It is an organized event — the Good Shepherd Mobile Food Truck is parked at the back of the parking lot and an army of church volunteers, along with women from the Southern Maine Re-entry Center in nearby Alfred, fill the boxes that are then passed out to folks 60 and older.

“We couldn’t do it without them,” said Crossroads church member Marsha Plourde of the volunteers from the re-entry center, a program designed to help women nearing the end of their prison sentences ease back into society.

According to Good Shepherd Food Bank’s vice president of community partnerships, Kathy Helming, the senior food mobile in York County is funded through a grant from Kennebunk Savings Bank.

It is the only year-round mobile food bank in Maine set up specifically for seniors  — senior food mobiles are set up in communities in other Maine counties on an occasional basis if there is specific funding  earmarked for them — an example was one set up Wednesday in Rockland, Helming said.

“There is certainly a lot of need,” Helming said.

As well as the regular senior food distribution, Thursday was also the day when some seniors who receive  food from the federal commodity supplemental food program pick up their allotment.

That program, sponsored by Southern Maine Agency on Aging, does have income requirements and is held on the first Friday of each month — though some choose to pick up their commodity box — this month containing juice, cheese, canned fruits and vegetables,  pasta and peanut butter — on senior food mobile day.

According to Helming, the senior mobile food program began to help those on a wait list for the commodity program — and blossomed so much that both programs outgrew their former location at York County Shelter Programs in Alfred.

The program was embraced by the folks at Crossroads United Methodist Church.

“It took us about two minutes to say ‘yes,’” recalled Plourde when church members were asked a few years ago if they’d take on the two programs.

“We like to get to know the clients. They pray for us, and we pray for them,” said Plourde. “We’ve met some really nice folks. It’s been a really good program.”

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or twells@journaltribune.com.