By Gilda Geist
Dec 30, 2022

Every Wednesday at 3:30 PM, Brian Laramee reports for duty at the Falmouth Service Center.

This week, Mr. Laramee—who has volunteered at the center for 20 years—was stationed at the produce and frozen food section of the service center’s assembly line-style food distribution system, which is so efficient the center can serve over 60 clients per hour.

One after the other, volunteers push shopping carts—one for each client—loaded with dry and canned goods to Mr. Laramee’s station. Alongside another volunteer, Mr. Laramee listens closely as the driver of the shopping cart reads off a grocery list: “oranges, apples, broccoli.”

As she is reading, Mr. Laramee grabs the items from the fridges and freezers on either side of him and places them into the brown paper shopping bags that have been prearranged in the cart…