The return to school is just around the corner, and we are gearing up to give families a helping hand. We'll need the usual items: new sturdy backpacks, pencils and pens, erasers, markers, glue and tape - check our SignUpGenius for what's most needed. (printable list by grade level). Please bring your donations to the Scarborough Public Library on Monday August 26th (10am-2pm). If you'd rather not shop, please consider making a gift today to Project GRACE to sponsor a child's backpack. Thank you!

Please join us and your neighbors for the 6th Annual Scarborough Community Thanksgiving Dinner. Again this year, the community dinner will be a curbside to-go affair and it will feature roast turkey with all the traditional fixings of the holiday - and pie! Scarborough School Nutrition, Scarborough Public Safety, Scarborough Community Services, and Project GRACE are the partners hosting the dinner, together with many generous sponsors and friends. Mark your calendar, we're saving you some pie!

Community Services recently reported that the "Meals to Go" program in partnership with the Agency on Aging has provided over 3,300 frozen meals to seniors in our community since July 2020. (Wow!)

Thanks to a generous gift, beginning last February, Project GRACE covered the costs for fresh meals for the seniors participating in the twice-monthly pick ups. We extend our heartfelt thanks to the staff at Scarborough School Nutrition, including Brenda who had the idea of serving meals to seniors and Leslie and her team at the High School for making the fresh 'heat and serve' meals every month. And we salute Sgt. Thibodeau and his colleagues at the SPD for helping to get the meals from the High School over to the Hub. We also thank the caring and creative staff at Community Services who put this great program together for seniors. Nice work, everyone!

We're all about being good neighbors, and in this year of challenges, we're still thank-full for our community, our neighbors. This year's holiday season will be different, for sure, but we'll still have plenty to be grateful for, plenty to share and celebrate. 

Please save the date for our 5th Annual Thanksgiving Community Dinner! We won't be gathering indoors at Wentworth as we have in past holidays, but we can still have dinner together - we'll just have to stretch a bit to pass the cranberry sauce, see our smiles through our masks! Please join us! All are welcome!

Thanks to caring neighbors, 185 kids went back to school ready to succeed with sturdy new backpacks brimming with school supplies, plus extras for the classroom. Once again we were impressed by our community's generosity and the care put into making the packs 'just right' for the kids. It all added up to a great start to the beginning of this very unusual school year. One parent told us, the packs "had everything they needed, and more" and a dad said, "As a single parent, I couldn't have done all this for my kids myself, thank you." >> More Thank You Notes

We are thankful to all who volunteered their time, brought in a pack, gave supplies, sponsored a child's backpack, or hosted a collection drive and helped us with the drive-through drop-off. We especially wish to thank Ann and the team at Scarborough School Nutrition and the school bus drivers for their help in getting many of the packs to families, and to Scarborough Public Safety for the use of their community room and help hosting the drive-through collection. Our appreciation also goes out to our co-leaders, Kelly Murphy and Jodi Shea, and to volunteers Ralph, Bert, Linda, Deb, Peggy, Hilde, and Sharyn.

So many neighbors helped us make this community effort such a resounding success again this year.

It's difficult to overstate the importance of giving children healthy meals and snacks, and especially so for kids whose families struggle to stretch tight budgets for groceries and other essentials. When kids come to school hungry, it's harder for them to fully participate in school activities and their future is threatened in profound ways.

The recent news from the schools highlighted the many, including Project GRACE, who have stepped up during the disruption to lend a helping hand or make a financial gift. Schools are closed, but our hearts are open, and our kids are getting nutritious meals and groceries for the family, thanks to the tireless work of the nutrition staff and school bus drivers  and volunteers who made the pivot to make the 'backpacks' program work when schools were closed due to the pandemic. >>MORE

For many years, Project GRACE has partnered with Scarborough School Nutrition to get more groceries and more healthy meals to at-risk kids. We are pleased to present a grant in the amount of $2,934.25 to the Scarborough School Nutrition program to cover the snacks and milks, school lunches, and second helpings for students whose families were not eligible for the 'free and reduced' subsidy, but still could not afford to pay nutrition fees this academic year before schools were closed. This annual grant is made possible by charitable gifts made to Project GRACE, and compliments other investments in the 'school backpacks program' as well as grocery gift cards and supports provided to families through the social workers and guidance counselors, school nurses, and administrators.

We are particularly grateful for the compassionate and respectful way in which the school staff address hunger among our students. No child goes hungry; no child or parent is shamed. It's our pleasure and privilege to work with such dedicated and caring people, who make it so easy for us to extend the reach of our neighbors-helping-neighbors services into the community.

If you are having difficulty feeding your kids, please reach out to the school nutrition team who is ready to assist. Email [email protected] or call (207) 730-4700. "Our goal is to make sure all students have the necessary food to stay healthy," said Nutrition Director Peter Esposito.

Friends of Project GRACE, including the Loyal Order of the Moose and Town and Country Federal Credit Union, have donated funds to help us distribute simple health kits with 2 masks, 2 pairs of gloves, and a 2oz bottle of hand sanitizer. Thank you! The donation is also being used to offer masks at two 'help yourself' locations: one at the Scarborough Public Library and one at the Post Office. Be well, everyone!  (If you'd like to help us keep the Post Office station supplied with masks, please get in touch!)