Maine Fair Trade Lobster employees buy Christmas gifts for local kids

Maine Fair Trade Lobster employees opted to buy gifts for needy children instead of each other, and then the company owners matched the workers’ generosity. Anna Carver (left) of Harrington, personnel manager, and Jessica Whitaker, administrative support, retrieved Santa requests from an Angel Tree at the Pickled Wrinkle Pub.
PHOTO BY JENNIFER JOHNSON

GOULDSBORO — Using money collected from bottle and can deposits, Maine Fair Trade Lobster employees opted to buy Christmas gifts for local children rather than for each other.

And then when corporate headquarters in Topsfield, Mass., heard about the initiative, it decided to match the $400 the employees had contributed.

Jessica Whitaker, an administrative support person at the lobster processing plant, obtained the Santa requests from the “Angel Tree” at the Pickled Wrinkle pub in the village of Birch Harbor.

The tree was set up by the Acadian Women’s Club, which then matches gift requests to children who will receive them.

“I went shopping last Friday and was able to buy enough gifts for 42 local children,” Whitaker said.

When she emailed a photo of all the gifts she was able to purchase for children to Maine Fair Trade Lobster headquarters, they sent in their own matching contribution.

With the additional $400 Whitaker planned to buy 20 more gifts for children on the Pickled Wrinkle Angel Tree; four gifts for children on the Angel Tree at the Milbridge House Restaurant; mittens for the mitten tree at the Harrington Elementary School and also planned to make a $100 contribution to Hardy’s Friends, a cat and dog food fund based in Prospect Harbor.

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Jacqueline Weaver

Reporter at The Ellsworth American

Jacqueline's beat covers the eastern Hancock County towns of Lamoine through Gouldsboro as well as Steuben in Washington County. She was a reporter for the New York Times, United Press International and Reuters before moving to Maine. She also publicized medical research at Yale School of Medicine and scientific findings at Yale University for nine years.[email protected]

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