A Lebanon middle school science teacher has turned into somewhat of a grocery hero in the pandemic, making shopping trips to provide hundreds of people with free groceries over the last several months.
Louis Goffinet got the idea to start providing free groceries for families struggling to make ends meet when his parents asked him to go shopping for neighbors who didn’t want to venture out during the height of the pandemic.
“I thought about just paying for their groceries and getting some good karma. I realized there’s probably a lot more families in their same position,” he said.
Goffinet decided to turn to facebook and ask his community for donations and they came through in a big way. He’s raised about $40,000 to date for his Neighbors Grocery Relief Project.
He says he’s been able to make about 130 shopping trips and all sorts of families have benefitted from his service.
“Its families of all types. Some of them are older couples. Some of them are younger couples with children. Some are single adults. It's been really cool to see some of how everyone has come behind this movement across the community to help out everyone else that just needs a hand,” he said.
Goffinet said he wants to continue to help out in his community in some way, even once the pandemic ends. “It really all started from this one family grocery bill. I think it’s a reminder that we all have the potential to help out a lot more than we think and to sort of take the jump and see what you can do,” he said.
