by Rachel Hunter
The Town of Gouverneur and the Village of Gouverneur partnered with the North Country Store (Philadelphia, NY) and Kinney Drugs (Gouverneur, NY) to provide lunch for the correctional officers at the Gouverneur Correctional Facility on Saturday, January 23.
Town of Gouverneur Supervisor David Spilman, Jr. said: “Today, we are trying to boost some morale. The Gouverneur Correctional Facility is one our biggest employers in town here, and the hardest hit right now.”
A quantity of 120 North Country Store submarine sandwiches (60 turkey and 60 ham) along with snacks, soda and bottled water from Kinney Drugs was delivered to the Gouverneur Correctional Facility.
Paul Trombley of Gouverneur talked with the Gouverneur Tribune Press this past week about how the initiative progressed from an idea to a reality – in only one short week. He said the following: “The manager of the North Country Store (Philadelphia, NY) is a retired corrections officer, Matthew Montroy. I am a retired officer. And I manage the nutrition site in Gouverneur for the SLC Office For The Aging. I pretty much meet with Town of Gouverneur Supervisor David Spilman, Jr. every morning. We were talking about the numbers and stuff that are coming out of the Gouverneur Correctional Facility, and how helpless people feel that they can’t do anything to help them. That’s the thing right now. There’s a lot of feelings of helplessness and hopelessness – because there is not much that you can do. I said, “Well, it is a state-run facility. They pretty much take care of their own.” But there is one thing we can do. We can feed the troops! I can remember being an officer there, and being locked in during a crisis… sometimes for three days. With something coming from the outside in, I can remember pizzas being delivered. I remember McDonalds sending boxes of sandwiches in. It just gives you a little pickup, a little boost, a sense of normalcy. So within five minutes, that’s what we decided to do. We’ve gotten about a week into the planning stages, and got it all together. I contacted some fellow retired officers, and got some contributions to help cover the costs. So that’s what it comes from Gouverneur Correctional retirees, Town Supervisor David Spilman, town officials, and Mayor Ron McDougall.”
Mr. Trombley added the correctional officers retire young, and then “find something else to do.” As such, he connected immediately with Mr. Montroy. “I reached right out to him because I know he makes a good product,” Mr. Trombley said. “It is a North Country famous sandwich, and he dove right in and said it was not a problem.”
When asked why Matthew Montroy wanted to get involved in the project, he said the following: “I am a retired corrections officer myself – and it not only helps the corrections officers but maybe they’ll try our product and shop with us again.” Mr. Montroy said he brought in extra North Country Store employees and staff on Saturday morning, and it took them about two hours to make the subs. “We’ve got quite a process from start to finish. Of course, we’ve got the meat slicing to do because everything is fresh. It takes about three and a half minutes to get a sub all the way through – from start to finish. We were timing it.”
Town of Gouverneur Supervisor David Spilman, Jr. said the Town of Gouverneur and the Village of Gouverneur were also grateful for the donations from Gouverneur’s own Kinney Drugs, Inc. to allow them to provide snacks, bottled water, and soda to the Gouverneur Correctional Facility. Supervisor Spilman explained that the Town of Gouverneur gets a donation of nonperishable food items when stocked items get close to the sell-by date. The initiative started a couple years, when he got in contact with Linda Hill at the Kinney Drugs Warehouse. Since then, they have supplied nonperishable food items all around the county – at the nutrition sites, local food pantries, Gouverneur Kiwanis Wildcat Backpack Program, “Anyone we can help, we do it,” Supervisor Spilman said.
Recently, Supervisor Spilman said, the distribution has benefitted from the connections and enthusiasm of Dr. Robert Saidel, who in retirement, has been greatly involved in the distribution work. Supervisor Spilman said, “I gave him a key to the building where I store it, and he goes and gets all the ARC houses and has his own little circuit. He has endless amounts of energy. Some of the last stuff we got actually ended up in NYC. A friend of his is a lawyer and helps out with five homeless centers there. So we took a bunch of sweaters and jackets from our consignment store, and the loaded the first half of the van. The second half we put some of the snacks. They met in Pennsylvania, and ended up in NYC. It’s good…”
Once all the volunteers arrived at the Gouverneur Community Center, the boxes of food and beverage items were loaded in awaiting vehicles and were immediately driven to the Gouverneur Correctional Facility. Through a gate order, the volunteers were able to donate the items just in time for lunch on Saturday, January 23. Much gratitude is extended to all those who made this morale booster possible.