To The Editor:
Thank you for promoting the August 27 concert to benefit the Newbury Food Pantry.
NEWBURYPORT — On Aug. 27, our community came together to support the First Parish Newbury food pantry at a benefit concert by the Essex Ensemble at the Maudslay Arts Center in Newburyport.
We thank the Maudslay Arts Center for graciously donating their beautiful venue for our concert. The outdoor setting and superb acoustics were magical. We also thank Dianne’s Fine Desserts of Newburyport for their generous donation of delicious desserts enjoyed by our concertgoers.
We are immensely grateful to food pantry volunteer Andrew Price for arranging this benefit concert and leading the ensemble of eight top-tier professional musicians who gave so freely of their time and talents.
Andrew and other Essex Ensemble members perform with several highly regarded orchestras such as Boston Pops; Boston Symphony; Bach, Beethoven and Brahms Society; Boston Lyric Opera; Portland Symphony; and Boston Ballet Orchestra.
In addition, we also thank the amazing volunteers of the Newbury Food Pantry for their hard work making this year’s concert an enjoyable and successful fundraising event. The First Parish Newbury food pantry is the largest all-volunteer food pantry in the Greater Newburyport area serving the communities of Newbury, Newburyport, Byfield, West Newbury, Salisbury, Amesbury, Rowley, Ipswich and Georgetown.
We fulfill orders for over 400 people each Friday, providing fresh produce, meats, shelf-stable items, dairy, personal care items, household products and pet food. One in 10 people in our area do not have a reliable source of healthy food, according to the Greater Boston Food Bank.
All proceeds from the benefit concert will be used to purchase needed food and supplies. We thank the community for your continued support of our mission to end food insecurity in this region.
Catherine Utt and Caroline Monahan,
volunteers and concert coordinators
