NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — This year's city and school food drive raised nearly 960 pounds of food to donate to the Friendship Center.

 

City workers gathered the donation boxes on Friday morning to deliver to the Northern Berkshire Interfaith Action Initiative's food pantry on Eagle Street.

 

"It is awesome that we are able to do this and the city of North Adams employees are just a great bunch of folks," Mayor Richard Alcombright said. "People really do chip in this time of year and they realize the needs of our community."

 

Donation boxes were left in City Hall, the police and fire stations, the public schools, the Spitzer Center and the library.  

 

"This is a wonderful thing, and it shows how much this community really cares," longtime Friendship Center volunteer Richard Davis said. 

 

The program, largely organized by Ellen Sutherland, assistant to the school superintendent, and Rosemari Dickinson, administrative assistant to the mayor, is in its fourth year. The collections has been around 800 pounds of nonperishable food annually, said Sutherland, but this year the amount increased by well over 100 pounds.

 

The mayor said it is a humbling experience to donate and that he is proud of the city for really stepping up to the opportunity. 

 

"I have been blessed my entire life in this community. I grew up in a family that wasn't rich but that never really went without," he said. "You really don't internalize that until you do something like this because it makes you think about who you are helping and why and I think that is incredibly important."

 

Alcombright also thanked the volunteers at the Friendship Center who serve an average of 150 families a week.