A face made for radio

Thursday morning I made my radio debut on two Norwich stations, WICH, WCTY, and KOOL 101, New London.
My goal, to tell about the upcoming

FOOD DRIVE

SATURDAY, 9-2

STOP and SHOP
42 TOWN SREET

NORWICH

This is the second joint food drive between the BACKUS FEDERATION of NURSES and the UNITED WAY, our first being last summer when we collected over 1300 pounds of food and over $200.  The United Way runs the GEMMA E. MORAN UNITED WAY LABOR FOOD CENTER which last year distributed more than 1.7 million pounds of food through more than 90 free food programs which in turn helped provide meals and snacks at no cost to those in need throughout New London County. The Food Center is a time-tested partnership between United Way, Labor and the entire community that works.

This drive is in response to an plea for help from a United Way food distribution partner, St. Vincent de Paul, to restock their food pantry. Our 3 AFT locals at L+M held a food drive last week at Stop and Shop in Groton and collected almost 1 ton of food!  This is something they do annually.

This will be our fourth community outreach project as a young union, continuing a tradition of unions in general and AFT in particular. Besides the food drive last summer, we also participated with the Lisbon Volunteer Fire Dept in the Lisbon Safety Day at Lisbon Landing in the fall.
A few weeks ago we held a blood pressure check at St Mary Star of the Sea Church, New London, where Father Bob Washabaugh is pastor.  We were real busy, it was extremely rewarding and we will be looking to do more of these.

I'd like to thank the local radio stations, Stop and Shop and the United Way for the opportunity to contribute to our community.  Special thanks to Laura Giannelli and Sharon Peccini of the United Way and Dan Durant of AFT CT for setting this up.

Please stop by, say hello, and help out as best you can on Saturday.  If you know of any other community outreach projects that we could get involved in let us know, we're here to help.

My radio debut went well, they said I had "a face made for radio".