This Local Organization is Doubling Their Mobile Food Pantry Efforts for Stamford Residents
This Local Organization is Doubling Their Mobile Food Pantry Efforts for Stamford Residents
Around 2,000 Supported in the City Each Month
STAMFORD — With a boost from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation, Person to Person is expanding its work to tackle their hunger relief efforts in Stamford and surrounding communities. A new mobile food pantry will allow them to do just that.
In Stamford alone, an estimated 2,000 residents receive food assistance directly from Person to Person (P2P) every month. At a ribbon-cutting on Monday, September 16, for the new mobile operation funded by the Cohen Foundation, officials gathered to celebrate the exciting development while acknowledging more work is needed to address the overall issue of hunger that continues in the city and nearby municipalities where P2P also operates. This includes lower Fairfield County, specifically Darien, New Canaan, Norwalk, Weston, Westport, and Wilton.
Mayor Caroline Simmons joined the local charity for their Hunger Action Month announcement alongside other officials including Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz and State Senator Ceci Maher, who previously served as Person to Person’s chief executive officer from 2005 to 2019.
“Congratulations on this exciting and important expansion in our city,” Mayor Caroline Simmons said, regarding Person to Person’s efforts. “We look forward to many more years of partnership.”
The Cohen Foundation has backed Person to Person’s work since 2012 and helped get the first mobile food pantry up and running in 2017, P2P Chief Executive Officer Nancy Coughlin said.
One of the attendees was Tamara Francis, a Stamford mother of two and beneficiary of P2P’s community support.
“We have been very fortunate to benefit from the incredible services provided by Person to Person,” Francis said. This included a clothing drive, a campership for one of her daughters, and food assistance. “Person to Person has been a lifeline for my family and me.”
Founded in 1968 after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was tragically assassinated, Person to Person serves as a community resource to provide individuals and families alike with assistance by ensuring that they can access clothing, healthy food, housing assistance, and economic opportunity.
“Person to Person is finding solutions to the challenges that many people are facing in that current reality and will continue to do so as we go along,” State Representative and P2P Chief Impact Officer Corey Paris said. “This [mobile food pantry] is what’s going to change the course of history for Connecticut’s residents, not just in Fairfield County, but all across the state.“
According to the organization’s website, P2P offers resources through camperships, scholarships, clothing and care programs, emergency financial assistance, food assistance, their Financial Opportunity Center®, and seasonal programs.
In late July, Person to Person was included as the community partner for the Alive at Five concert featuring Sublime with Rome.
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