Young benefactors’ double birthdays assist food pantry

Caitlyn Lyons and Connor Sherrard shared a mutual 13th birthday on Saturday, December 3, at the Charlotte school. They were both born in Calais on December 4, 1998, and were delivered by the same doctor, who was running back and forth between the two rooms.
For a long time the two have been saying that they would like to have a birthday party together. They wanted to ask a lot of their friends to come and celebrate with them. Since they were becoming teenagers, it seemed like the right year to do so.
Because their birthdays are so near Christmas, they agreed it would be too much to ask everyone to spend money to buy two birthday gifts. What should they do? Together they decided that since they would be getting Christmas presents in a few weeks, they would like to do something that would help the community instead. After thinking about what would benefit the most people, they decided that there are many people who need help with buying food and who turn to food pantries for help.
Connor says that there are so many people in this county that do not think about the poor, and "everyone should be able to have a good Christmas." Christmas is about being with family, celebrating Christmas, bringing in the new year and not being hungry, they explain. Caitlyn and Connor say it was great to see all the food that was brought to their party to be donated to the food pantry in Calais. "Maybe someone will have a better Christmas because of our birthdays," they say.
On Sunday, December 11, Art Carter was invited to the home of Connor to pick up several boxes of food for the food pantry. Caitlyn and Connor were very happy to present the food items to Carter.