BELFAST — Applications are open for Waldo CAP and Neighbor for Neighbor Coalition's 2025 holiday assistance in Waldo County.

Anyone Waldo County residents with a need can request food boxes for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas and Christmas gifts for children in a household.

“This is one of my favorite annual projects,” said Waldo CAP Development Director Monica Pettengill. “It is amazing to watch the whole community come together to support strengthening families with experiences and memories. It feels good delivering a box containing everything a household needs for a full holiday meal – including dessert – or to imagine the faces of the children on Christmas morning opening gifts someone carefully purchased when maybe otherwise they would have gone without. We receive letters of thanks every year that remind us how important this project is to our community.”

The deadline for applying for Thanksgiving food boxes is Friday, October 31. The deadline for applying for Christmas food boxes is Wednesday, November 26. To apply, simply click on this link and fill out the application: https://forms.office.com/r/BMhsWcqfyr

“These deadlines are important because we work closely with our food vendor Wentworth Family Grocery to purchase items ahead of time in the exact quantities we need for the best possible prices which allows the program to continue to serve as many people as possible,” said Pettengill.

Food boxes are generally delivered the Saturday preceding the respective holiday. Dozens of volunteers and coalition members work to pack the food boxes and hand deliver them to homes across the county. People receiving a food box must be home at the time of delivery since the boxes contain perishable items and cannot be left unattended.

The deadline for applying for holiday gifts is Wednesday, November 26. Coalition organizations and generous community members “adopt” families for gift-giving, and the deadline provides time for adopters to shop for those families ahead of the holiday.

“This entire program runs nearly completely on volunteers and donations,” said Pettengill.

Anyone interested in volunteering, making a donation, or becoming an adopter, can contact Community Partnerships at Waldo CAP at 33-4944 or email N4N@waldocap.org.

Waldo Community Action Partners is a charitable, educational, 501(c)(3) private non-profit organization located in Belfast, Maine. It is designed to utilize and mobilize public and private resources to assist low-income Waldo County residents in the alleviation of poverty and address its underlying causes. For additional information, please visit www.waldocap.org.