MANCHESTER – It’s a sight usually relegated to the vast storerooms attached to wholesale clubs: Forklifts hauling dozens of shrink-wrapped pallets loaded with cans and boxes of mixed vegetables, pasta, tuna, cereal, tomato sauce and other staples from trailer trucks onto industrial-strength shelving.
On Tuesday, however, the scenario played out in the midst of big smiles and words of gratitude at the New Hampshire Food Bank, where forklift operators moved an eye-popping 40,000 pounds of donated food, pallet by pallet, from a trailer that arrived late-morning from Rhode Island.
The super-sized donation was one of 10 delivered to social service agencies throughout New England and New York Tuesday as part of Rhode Island-based retailer Ocean State Job Lot’s community assistance program called Three Square Meals.
“This is a very significant donation,” Food Bank executive director Mel Gosselin said. “Most of our biggest donations come in December. We typically don’t see truckloads coming in in January.”
That the Food Bank receives no federal or state funding makes donations like Tuesday’s ever more important, Gosselin said.
“This is the time of year when people are deciding whether to heat or eat.![]()
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