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3/31/2021
Cumberland’s senior lunch delivery program about much more than food
Peter and Jack Mardo, above left, volunteer with Cumberland’s senior lunch delivery program, with Senior Center Director Mike Crawley last July. Above right, Abby, left, and Amy Daley, also volunteers with the Cumberland senior lunch delivery program stand with some of their deliveries last June.
CUMBERLAND – One of the bright spots about living through the pandemic (and there aren’t many), according to Sarah King, has been Cumberland’s lunch delivery program, where a group of volunteers have been bringing meals to senior citizens in town since March of last year.
12/30/2020
Cumberland shows character, care as COVID-19 rages
Organizers Joyce Hindle Koutsogiane, left, and Mike Tusoni attached an American flag to a car when they were preparing for the start of Cumberland’s 94th annual Arnold Mills Fourth of July Parade and Road Race on Saturday, July 4, along Nate Whipple Highway. The traditional parade was replaced with a motorcade along the major roadways in town and a virtual road race. (Breeze File photo by Robert Emerson)
Pandemic impacted every area of life
CUMBERLAND – An unprecedented modern health crisis upended every aspect of life in 2020, from the way Cumberland residents worked and played to the way they learned and gathered socially or for entertainment.
CUMBERLAND – Volunteers at the Northern Rhode Island Food Pantry on Angell Road are serving double their typical number of families in 2020, a number due only in part to the organization’s opening of a satellite location at the Boys & Girls Club in Woonsocket.
Bob Chaput, co-executive director, said that even without the new location, which was started in part with a large grant from the United Way COVID-19 Response Fund, monthly visits have gone from about 200 families per month to more than 300. The organization has also received grant funding this year from the Rhode Island Foundation, among others.
In February, the facility saw visits from 215 families. Last Saturday’s monthly distribution saw 365 families just at the Cumberland location. With Woonsocket factored in, some 466 families were fed.
12/16/2020
Ben Grimes with his sons Tommy, age 8, left, and Henry, age 6.
CUMBERLAND – Den Leader Ben Grimes knew his Cub Scouts were facing a sharp uphill climb when leaders learned almost two months ago that the group would need $2,600 just to hold onto their charter. With only $1,500 in the bank, and typical fundraisers a no-go because of the pandemic, the future for Cub Scouts Pack 1 Arnold Mills was cast into doubt.
Pack 1 was already hurting, dealing with flagging participation since COVID hit in March as the traditional meetings and activities that participants are accustomed to became nearly impossible. The doors at their headquarters, at the Arnold Mills United Methodist Church, were locked as the pandemic struck back in March.