Long lines for free food persist a year into the pandemic, causing concern among advocates Jacqueline Rabe Thomas, ctmirror.org FacebookTwitterEmail Volunteer Tony Montemurno, of Stratford, reaches for a bag of apples as he assists a woman picking up groceries at the weekly food pantry event outside Bridgeport Rescue Mission’s new Community Care Clinic, currently under construction in Bridgeport, Conn. April 8, 2021.Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media Worried the 1,200 boxes filled with apples, cheese, meatballs, and onions that a small army of volunteers were handing out at 10 a.m. would be gone before they could claim one, residents in this Bunker Hill section of Waterbury began lining up almost two hours before the drive-through for free food was scheduled to begin.