Volume 20, Number 35
Serving Durham, Middlefield and Rockfall
www.TownTimes.com
Friday, December 13, 2013
Community rounds up over 10,000 food items By Charles Kreutzkamp Town Times
Volunteers gather in the gym during the 8th Annual Community Round Up held Dec. 7. |(Charles Kreutzkamp/Town Times)
An enormous crowd bustled through the Coginchaug Regional High School cafeteria and gymnasium Saturday Dec. 7 during the 8th Annual Community Round Up. The event unfolds when teams of volunteers travel throughout the towns to pick up donations from homes and businesses to benefit food pantries of Middlef ield and Durham as well as the Amazing Grace food pantry in Middletown. This year, event chairs Kathy Bottini, Becca Sinusas and Melissa Cook reported 12,905 food items were collected in addition to almost $2,500 in cash donations and $235 worth of gift cards. H i g h s c h o o l s c i e n ce teacher Susan Michaels
said items were collected and then passed to different teams from the schools. Those teams then sorted and counted the items in the cafeteria before delivering the goods, on carts to the gymnasium, to be boxed up. Some of the food collected will go out to local families through the elementary school, Michaels explained. Certain boxes of food were earmarked for anonymous local families in need, and the rest was distributed to the various food banks. Seventy-five teams, of three or four participants, drove all around Durham and Middlefield to collect donations. Parents, teachers, and high school students served as drivers for the event. All told, over 500 volunteers parSee Food / Page 14
Toy collection featured at tree lighting By Mark Dionne Town Times
There were many of the usual sights at the Durham’s annual Tree Lighting ceremony Dec. 7. Organized by Durham’s Recreation Committee, the event featured caroling and Santa, hot chocolate and tree lights turned on by Nicholas Lipka, of Durham, who won the honor in a lottery. The event also was timed to coincide with the Durham Public Library’s traditional Santa visit. In addition, a Coginchaug Regional High School band played under the direction of Dean Coutsouridis. This year also featured a collection of toys that overflowed a folding table and kept growing. The toys were destined for the Smilow Cancer Center on
behalf of the Brenna Zettergren Memorial Scholarship Fund. Jen Zettergren greeted friends and accepted multiple hugs and bags of toys for the fund named after her daughter. The Smilow Cancer Center, Zettergren explained, goes through an enormous number of toys. Doctors and nurses use the toys to cheer up patients going through often difficult treatments. Toys at Smilow also cannot be reused due to the contamination risk to patients with compromised immune systems. As Durham and Middlefield children packed up cars with the donated toys, Zettergren pointed out that the timing of the toy drive also would help families, of patients dealing with cancer,
Durham’s Recreation Committee held its annual tree lighting ceremony on See Tree / Page 19 the town green, Dec. 7. | (Mark Dionne/Town Times)