HHS students help turn spare clothing into food

By Gloria Austin
Staff Writer
    Houlton High School students will be turning clothes into food for Aroostook County.
    Dixie Shaw, program director of Catholic Charities Maine Home Supplies and Food Bank, spoke to the high school mentoring class, as well as junior and senior high students during assemblies.
    At first, Shaw asked the students, “Can anyone write me a check for $12,000 today?” Probably not. But, if I asked you to help me raise $12,000 by cleaning out your closet, I would imagine your parents would be quite excited, as well.”
Houlton Pioneer Times Photo/Gloria Austin
HELPING OUT — Houlton Junior/Senior High School students were challenged recently to help out those less fortunate by participating in a clothing drive. Among those answering the call were, from left, Clarissa Crandall, Maddi Good, Dixie Shaw (program director of Catholic Charities Maine Home Supplies and Food Bank), Ally Carmichael, Kate Hannigan and Morgan Ross.
    Shaw invited the students to bring in used clothing in an effort to raise money to help feed people in Aroostook County.
    “We are recycling clothing,” Shaw explained. “Used clothing is shipped to areas less fortunate than us who do not have the necessary clothes and shoes needed to cloth them or protect them from the elements. We are paid for every truck load we ship overseas.”
    Clothes are collected, baled and put into large boxes to be loaded onto trailer trucks. Recently, Catholic Charities Maine Home Supplies and Food Bank collected enough clothes to buy $12,000 worth of food for people in Aroostook County.
    It takes five watermelon totes [large boxes] of used clothing bagged to make one bail of clothes, which weighs 1,000 pounds once it is compressed, Shaw explained. “We need 40 bails or 200 watermelon totes full of clothing to make one tractor-trailer load full of clothes to be shipped out,” she added.
    Once the clothes are baled, they are weighed.
    “We need them to weigh a minimum of 40,000 pounds,” Shaw said. “Then we receive a check from the company we work with to buy food. We serve people throughout Aroostook County. We help them every month by giving each of the 25 pantries we work with as much food as we can to help them meet the needs of their respective communities.”
    Catholic Charities Maine Home Supplies and Food Bank operate two food banks in Aroostook County, one in Monticello and the other in Caribou.
    “We serve the pantries which help the people,” said Shaw. “It takes an entire tractor-trailer load of food every single month for us to give out food to those pantries. It costs a lot of money to buy a tractor-trailer load of food.”
    The first school in The County to offer their assistance to the cause was Mars Hill Elementary School. Usually Shaw needs help with food collection, but this time, she asked Mrs. Wright to consider this project.
    “We had them fill 66 totes,” said Shaw. “We didn’t ask them to fill 200 because we thought that would be a bit too much. The children had a picture of the trailer they were filling and coloring it in as they filled it.
    “In their first year, they filled in the trailer,” said Shaw. “They were a third-grade class of 8-year-olds.
    Shaw then asked, “What can junior high/high-schoolers do?”
    “It’s an easy thing to do, clean out your closet and bring in clothes you don’t wear anyway for kids that need them and don’t have them,” said senior Clarissa Crandall. “It is not going out of your way to do community service or a clean-up project. It is just really easy to bring in clothes and help a lot of people out.”
    Freshman Katie Knights agreed.
    “It’s giving kids who need clothes, clothes, who don’t have the money to buy them,” she added.
    Shaw explained to the students that she and her staff have to figure out ways to raise money and to do that they have the clothing collection and thrift stores. So everything you buy in our thrift stores helps us feed The County.”
    Shaw said there are two things people cannot survive without — eating and heat.
    “We focus on the eating piece,” she said. “One hundred percent of our profits go to operating our food bank. Not just the food, but we pay electric bills, repairs and fuel for our equipment.”
    Not all of the used clothing is sent overseas, noted Shaw.
    “Thrift stores are where people who need to get inexpensive clothing can. But, our main focus is food. If someone needs clothing or doesn’t have the ability to buy clothing, there are other resources in Aroostook County. The clothing is a byproduct of what we are doing — collecting to feed The County,” she said.
    Shaw noted the inflation that continues to grow year to year.
    “What  I used to be able to do for $20,000 takes 10 times that now,” she said. “I have gone without things I would have liked to have. For example, I had an opportunity to get tuna fish from the Good Shepherd Food Bank. One pallet cost just over $2,400. If I bought a pallet, I could have given every food pantry four cases this month. That’s nothing. I look at cheaper items like green beans and corn. But, they are not cheap, they are expensive.”
    With specific food collection items such as cereal, Shaw knows she won’t have to worry about getting that for the month, she can worry about [providing] for lunch and supper.”
    Shaw implored the students to let family, friends and neighbors know about the used clothing boxes.
    “Put the clothing in bags but don’t put in hangers or anything breakable because we are going to crush it into a zillion pieces and it will cut someone’s hand who opens it on the other end.”
    Catholic Charities Maine will pick up the clothing boxes from the school or someone will deliver the items to their baling area in Monticello.
    “I hope you realize the benefits of helping to clean up your community and to help people throughout the world,” said Shaw. “They need our help and we need your help.”
    For more information or to drop off clothing, call Jobs for Maine’s Graduates classroom at 532-7736 or dbutler@jmg.org.