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Dentist turns Pilgrim to fill Thanksgiving food baskets
SHELTON — While it’s been a family tradition for the past 34 years, Bruce Sofferman said he knows the Valley needs him more than ever this year.
Wednesday, as he has done for decades, the Shelton dentist will don his Pilgrim clothes and friend Brendan Carey of Carey and Guarrera Real Estate will be dressed as a turkey.
Together they’ll stand in the Smile Dental Center parking lot, 1000 Bridgeport Ave., accepting donations of money, canned goods or frozen turkeys that will be handed over to the Valley Food Bank.
They’ll be out there from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
“I want this to be our best year ever,” said Sofferman, who started the tradition with his wife, Deborah, and their infant daughter, Sophia, now 33, at their original practice in Derby. “I’d like to have enough food for 750 meal baskets.”
That’s about 250 more than normal.
But 2020 has not been a normal year. The COVID-19 pandemic that brought illness, shutdowns and layoffs made certain of that.
“Donations are down and needs are up because of the pandemic,” said Susan Agamy, the executive director of the Spooner House and its Valley Food Bank which will be distributing the meals Sofferman collects. “I’m glad they’re doing it again this year.”
Things will be different this year. For the first time Sofferman’s wife and daughter won’t be participating because they are away. Taking their place will be Chaz from WPLR’s Chaz and A.J. show.
Donors are asked to stay in their cars, pack the food in a bag or a box and place it in their trunk for Sofferman to retrieve.
And this, unlike previous years, may be the Valley’s only pre-Thanksgiving food collection to benefit Spooner…