Huge donation made to Food Pantry

OLD SAYBROOK, Conn. (WTNH) -- This time of year, food pantries are desperate for donations to begin with, but now the need is greater, and if a church is a place where prayers are offered, then it seems appropriate it could also be a spot where prayers are answered.

"Yeah, we'll take it. Bring it right down the ramp, an assembly line, we'll get it right on the tables and get it into the shelves," Laura Dean-Frazier said.

Dean-Frazier runs one of the five pantries for "Shoreline Soup Kitchens and Pantries" at First Church of Christ in Old Saybrook.

This is a delivery she's been hoping for, praying for, ever since Sandy blasted the coast.

"This is such, like, beautiful food. Oh my gosh, the peanut butter, the tuna fish, the beef stew in a can, this is like great stuff," Dean-Frazier said. Normally, on a Tuesday, I'll have between 140-150 families. This Tuesday, it could be a lot higher than that because there's probably people coming that haven't come before."

This particular gift comes from the Connecticut Food Bank, originally donated by C&S Distributors out of Windsor Locks.

"Another nice thing, applesauce. We use a lot of applesauce," Dean-Frazier said.

It's obvious a sea of prayers have gone out ever since Connecticut's coastline was ravaged by this super-storm. For a time, perhaps one prayer not needed, is food to fill an empty pantry, an empty stomach.

"When a family comes through and they walk out with their groceries in their hand and they're smilin', and they're like, see you next week, thank you, that's all the volunteers and myself really need," Dean-Frazier said.