LENDING HANDS
Pantry at Coast Guard Academy supplies groceries to unpaid federal workers
NEW LONDON – Jimmy Jacot, an electrician at the Coast Guard Academy and one of 800,000 federal employees forced to stay home without pay in a partial government shutdown, pushed a shopping cart Thursday through aisles between tables of food, free for the taking.
The married father of two young children was one of several shoppers at a “pop-up pantry” established in a large entrance of a building at the academy’s New London campus that’s normally the site for Coast Guard band performances.
“This is very helpful,” Jacot said. “It’s nice of them to help out.”
The pantry began with 12 pallets of food and groceries delivered Saturday from We Share Hope, a Rhode Island charitable organization, and unloaded Sunday by volunteers. The Coast Guard may not accept donations or gifts, so the pantry is run by the Chief Petty Officers Association, a not-for-profit organization of senior enlisted personnel, which received permission from the Coast Guard to use Leamy Hall.
The group used its Facebook page to announce to the public it was accepting and distributing food and groceries.
“And before you know it, the outpouring was amazing,” said Craig Breverman, president of the Southeastern Connecticut Chief Petty Officers Association.
The pantry has since received hundreds of donations “from simply a bag of groceries to private individuals driving up with personal trucks full of groceries,” he said.
Cristina McKibbin, chief operating officer of We Share Hope, said her group has been helping military families in Massachu- setts and learned of the similar situation facing Coast Guard and Coast Guard Academy personnel.
Southeast Connecticut has long been the home to the U.S. Navy Base and Coast Guard Academy, employing thousands in the sprawling community.
“As soon as we heard the Coast Guard was doing a pop-up food bank, we went over there to see how we could help,” said Dina Sears-Graves, vice president of community impact at the United Way, which oversees the local food bank.
The group has dispatched daily deliveries of food to the Coast Guard Academy pantry, with more than one delivery on some days, she said.
Waller Walker, a Mystic resident, filled two vehicles with food and groceries she bought at a supermarket with her own money and collected from friends and neighbors.
“You name it and it came out of the Big Y,” she said after making a delivery.
She said she was motivated to help because those helping have themselves needed a hand in the past.
“Many people have been in the position they are in right now,” she said of the furloughed workers.
The pantry stocks everything shoppers would expect from a supermarket: canned fruit and vegetables, cereal, crackers, refrigerated meat and dairy items and fresh vegetables. A local animal protection group also donated 2,000 pounds of dog and cat food, said Lauren Laughlin, a spokeswoman for the academy.
Tables are being stocked by volunteer Coast Guard and academy personnel.
“We’re all coasties,” Laughlin said. “We come here to pick up food, help unpack and go back shopping.”
Near Bradley International Airport on Thursday, Foodshare, a regional food pantry that serves the Hartford area, opened another pop-up pantry to serve federal employees. The pantry, in a parking lot on Ella Grasso Turnpike, attracted Transportation Safety Administration and other federal employees. Foodshare has also set up a webpage for federal employees working without pay at www.foodshare.org.
President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats are locked in a dispute over a proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, with Trump demanding it and Democrats refusing. The president will not sign a funding bill for several agencies, leaving 800,000 federal workers furloughed without pay or forced to work with no salary.
Thad Allen, who was commandant of the Coast Guard from 2006 to 2010 and graduated from the academy in 1971, said he was “honored and proud” to be at the pantry.
“It’s an extraordinary, extraordinary outpouring of support from the community,” he said.
“This is a hardship imposed on the Coast Guard with no mission effect associated with it. It’s almost like we’ve become the victims here,” Allen said. “What needs to be done now is for our leaders in Washington to carry out their constitutional duties to provide for the general welfare and common defense.”
Breverman said the plan is to keep the Coast Guard pantry open until after the holiday weekend. If Trump and Congress reach an agreement and reopen the government, “we intend to close on Tuesday. Otherwise we’ll keep it open to make sure there’s food in people’s pantries,” he said.