---

"It's better to light one candle than to stumble in the dark," said John Beaudette of Our Lady of the Annunciation parish in Queensbury.

Mr. Beaudette and his wife, Bert, have been volunteering for the parish's canned meal program for about three years. The program brings bags of canned goods and a corresponding recipe to the Warren-Hamilton Counties Community Action food pantry.

Community Action provides social services to those in need, including a food pantry. Its stated mission is to "open opportunities for work and to provide the opportunity to live in decency with dignity."

Every week, the Beaudettes get in their Rav4, with the back piled high with bagged meals, and drop them off at the Community Action center in Glens Falls.

Mr. Beaudette said the need is apparent: As soon as the couple arrives at the center, patrons "grab [the bags] practically as we unload them.

"I have a theory," he remarked. "My theory is if you can help somebody and you don't, it's a sin."

Recipes included
Lorrie Citarella, the organizer for the committee at Annunciation parish that assembles the bagged meals, tries to make it easy for parishioners to help: Recipe cards are placed in the back of the church, so Mass-goers can take a card, head to the grocery store and fill a bag with the canned ingredients, and return the bag of canned goods to the parish with the recipe card inside.

"We try to keep the cost less than $10 per meal," Ms. Citarella noted.

The bags are stored at the church and brought to Community Action each week.

One dilemma is that all the food for the meals must be non-perishable.

"We try to make them healthy, but obviously everything is in a can; it isn't going to be fresh ingredients," said Ms. Citarella. "We can't collect fresh ingredients."

The committee is always collecting new recipes. Once a month, members set out new recipe cards at the church. "I've got a folder full of recipes," Ms. Citarella said, listing off meals such as tuna rice casserole, chili macaroni, ham and scalloped potatoes, chunky beef stew with vegetables and pasta alfredo.

Seasonal meals
At Thanksgiving time, the recipes reflected the season, with bags filled with ingredients to make chicken, stuffing and mashed potatoes.

"By the time the meal gets done, it's going to be similar to a Thanksgiving dinner," Ms. Citarella said, noting that canned chicken is available in grocery stores, but not canned turkey.

She feels for the patrons who receive the bags: "This is a program for folks who are really in need of food. There are a lot of people who don't know where their next meal will come from."

Another challenge for donors and recipients of the food is the weight of the bags. Elderly people can find heavy bags of canned goods hard to carry. Ms. Citarella tries to keep the recipes as "light" on the ingredients as possible.

Mr. Beaudette has seen the poverty that exists in his community. A retired electrical inspector, he's had to go into old motels that have been converted into housing for people utilizing social services.

Life in poverty
"These [were] one-room units with a limited amount of power, usually electric heat," he recalled. "People are living there, in places like that. They don't have storage; they don't have appliances. They have a bed and a room. In some cases, they don't even have hot water."

He pointed out that many people who are living in poverty don't have a stove or oven for cooking. The bagged meals that Annunciation parishioners offer can often be cooked in a microwave or toaster oven.

From September to October, the parish donated 150 meals to Community Action.

"Nobody can solve poverty," Mr. Beaudette told The Evangelist. "There's always going to be poor people, but you've got to do the best you can."[[In-content Ad]]

---