Amazing Grace's free market takes Durham residents too. Where to find groceries, hot meals and senior lunches in both towns, and when to sign up for Thanksgiving baskets.
Middletown Community Thanksgiving Project
Sign up: October 26 to November 20 at Amazing Grace, 16 Stack Street, 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; or one evening, Wednesday, November 4, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., at Russell Library, 123 Broad Street
Pick up: Fellowship Church, 1002 Saybrook Road, on Tuesday, November 24, between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Who can go: Middletown families. Proof of shopping at Amazing Grace is accepted in place of proof of Middletown residency.
What to bring: Proof of Middletown residency or of shopping at Amazing Grace, and ID for each person in the family
Contact: Lara SantaMaria, Fellowship Church, 860-346-1181 · Thanksgiving 2026
A Durham family that shops at Amazing Grace can call the project and ask whether that makes it eligible.
Holiday meals
The St. Vincent de Paul soup kitchen's website says nothing about Thanksgiving or Christmas meals. Call 860-344-0097, ext. 115, to ask.
Before you go
- Amazing Grace takes residents of Middletown, Durham, Middlefield, Portland, Cromwell, East Hampton and Higganum. Enrollment is in person, during market hours.
- Amazing Grace is closed on Monday, October 12, for Indigenous Peoples' Day.
- The Durham Food Pantry is for Durham residents and works by appointment. Call or email Human Services first.
- The senior lunches in both towns are by reservation, and Middletown's also asks for a state registration form called Form 5.
- Bring your own bags to the Shiloh pantry and to Foodshare's mobile pantry.
- Hours shift around holidays. Call ahead.
In Middletown
One organization, St. Vincent de Paul Middletown, runs both the Amazing Grace market on Stack Street and the soup kitchen at 617 Main Street, and between them they cover groceries and two meals a day.
Amazing Grace Free Community Market
Amazing Grace is set up like a small grocery store, and shoppers choose their own food twice a month. St. Vincent de Paul says the market serves about 1,250 families a month. A Catholic Charities social worker is on site to help shoppers apply for SNAP, WIC, HUSKY and energy assistance. To enroll, come in during open hours; staff will ask about household income, the number of people in the family and the town where you live. The market does not post a list of documents to bring.
Where: 16 Stack Street, Middletown
When: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, noon to 4 p.m.; closed Monday, October 12
Who can go: Residents of Middletown, Durham, Middlefield, Portland, Cromwell, East Hampton and Higganum
Contact: 860-347-3222, ext. 200 · svdmiddletown.org
Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church food pantry
Where: 346 Butternut Street, Middletown
When: Pantry on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month, 4 to 5:30 p.m.; free bread on the first, third and fifth Tuesdays, noon to 1:30 p.m.; a free food giveaway on Fridays, 12:30 to 2 p.m. Call to confirm.
What to bring: Your own bag
Contact: 860-346-8295 · shiloh346.org
St. Vincent de Paul soup kitchen
Breakfast comes with hot coffee, lunch follows an hour later, and the kitchen hands out sandwiches and snacks to take home. Its page lists no sign-up and no residency rule.
Where: 617 Main Street, Middletown
When: Breakfast Monday through Saturday, 8:30 to 10:30 a.m.; lunch 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Contact: 860-344-0097, ext. 115 · svdmiddletown.org
Middletown Community Café, for people 60 and older
The Senior Center on Durant Terrace hosts this lunch for Senior Resources, the area agency on aging. There is no income requirement. A $3 donation per meal is suggested, and it is not required.
Where: Middletown Senior Center, 61 Durant Terrace
When: By reservation, made two full business days ahead. Call for the serving days.
Who can go: People 60 and older, with a completed Form 5, the state's registration form
Contact: Rosa, the café coordinator, 860-638-4543, weekdays from about 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. · middletownct.gov
For Meals on Wheels, which brings meals to older residents who cannot leave home regularly, call 860-373-6834, the Midstate Region program coordinator at Senior Resources.
Food for Middletown students
Every student in Middletown's public schools, kindergarten through 12th grade, eats breakfast and lunch free in the 2026–27 school year, with no application. On the last school day of every week, the schools also send students home with a bag of weekend food from Amazing Grace: protein, fresh produce and snacks. Families sign up for the weekend bags through a form on the district's food services page, middletownschools.org, or call 860-704-4519.
Students at CT State Community College's Middlesex campus have a pantry of their own, the Magic Food Bus, in the Founders Hall student lounge. Bring a college ID. mxccfoundation.org
Also in Middletown: call before you go
These pantries appear on city or parish pages that do not give current hours.
- Hinka's Cupboard, Saint Francis of Assisi Church, 10 Elm Street, 860-347-4684
- The Salvation Army Middletown Corps, 515 Main Street, 860-347-7493
- All Peoples Community Outreach Ministries, 56 Warwick Street, 860-346-7886
If you live in Durham
Durham's own food programs all run through one office. Human Services, in the Durham Community Center on Pickett Lane, keeps the town pantry, signs people up for Thanksgiving baskets and Meals on Wheels, and takes reservations for the senior lunch and the monthly community dinner. One number reaches all of it: 860-349-3153.
Durham Food Pantry
Where: Durham Community Center, 144 Pickett Lane
When: By appointment. The Human Services office is open Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Friday, 7 a.m. to noon.
Who can go: "Open to all Durham residents"
Contact: 860-349-3153 · mperry@townofdurhamct.org · townofdurhamct.org
Durham residents can also shop at Amazing Grace in Middletown without an appointment, and the town lists it in its own monthly newsletter.
Durham Senior Community Café
Where: Durham Community Center, 144 Pickett Lane
When: Mondays and Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., with lunch at noon
Who can go: People 60 and older, and their spouses
Contact: 860-349-3153 · townofdurhamct.org
Reservations for the following week close at 1 p.m. on Wednesday. A first-timer needs only the reservation and a form filled out on arrival. The Kitchen at Futures cooks the meals. The town suggests $3 a meal, or $4.50 for a special meal, and turns no one away for being unable to pay.
TUMM! community dinner
TUMM!, short for Towns United through Meals and Mentoring, is a dinner on the first Thursday of each month for residents of Durham, Middlefield and Rockfall, at which older residents and a chef teach young people to cook. The next one is Thursday, November 5, at 5:30 p.m. Reserve through Human Services at 860-349-3153, and ask where it will be held; the town's newsletter gives neither the place nor a price. Guests bring a side dish or a dessert if they can.
Meals at home and school meals
Meals on Wheels is for people 60 and older who are homebound and cannot get to a meal site. Apply through Human Services.
Regional School District 13 serves breakfast free to every student in 2026–27. Lunch is free or reduced-price with an approved application, one per family, which families print, sign and drop off at any District 13 school or the Superintendent's Office, 135A Pickett Lane. Children in families that receive SNAP, Temporary Family Assistance or Medicaid may qualify without an application. The district's number is 860-349-7200.
Foodshare's mobile pantry, in Middlefield and Portland
Connecticut Foodshare's truck does not stop in Middletown or Durham. The two nearest stops are Victory Church in Middlefield, which Durham's newsletter lists, and the Portland Senior Center. The food is handed out outdoors, set up like a farmers market, and nobody is asked for ID or a reason. Each person leaves with about 20 pounds on average. Only people 16 and older who come in person can pick up, so bring bags, a box or a rolling cart.
Victory Church, Middlefield
Where: 191 Meriden Road, Middlefield
When: Mondays, 1 to 1:45 p.m.: October 12 and 26, November 9 and 23, December 7 and 21
Portland Senior Center
Where: 7 Waverly Avenue, Portland
When: Mondays, 1 to 1:45 p.m.: October 19, November 2, 16 and 30, December 14 and 28
A stop is canceled when the town's schools close for the full day because of weather. Text FOODSHARE to 85511 for dates and cancellations (COMIDA for Spanish), or check Foodshare's calendar.
SNAP, WIC and other help
SNAP puts money for groceries on an EBT card each month. Apply online at connect.ct.gov, by phone at 1-855-626-6632, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., or in person at the Department of Social Services' Middletown Resource Center, 2081 South Main Street, Suite B, open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The department answers within 30 days, and within 7 days in some emergencies, such as a household with less than $150 in monthly income and less than $100 in the bank. Its chart, current as of October 1, 2026, sets the gross income limit at $2,660 a month for one person and $5,500 for a family of four, and a little higher when someone in the household is 60 or older or has a disability.
Help with the application is free. Connecticut Foodshare takes calls weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., in English and Spanish, at 860-856-4357, and End Hunger CT! runs a SNAP helpline at 866-974-7627. Shoppers at Amazing Grace can ask the Catholic Charities social worker there. For people 60 and older, Senior Resources helps with the online form at 860-887-3561, and older adults renew every 2 years instead of every 6 months.
WIC adds groceries for pregnant women, new mothers, babies and children up to age 5, and fathers, grandparents, foster parents and other guardians can apply for the children in their care. A family on SNAP, HUSKY or Temporary Family Assistance already meets its income rule. The WIC office for both towns is Middlesex Health WIC, 1 MacDonough Place, Middletown, 860-358-4070. Or start with the state's online interest form, and a WIC worker will follow up.
For anything else, dial 2-1-1 or search 211ct.org, which lists pantries, meals and senior programs by town.
How to help
Amazing Grace takes groceries, anything bagged, canned, bottled, jarred or boxed, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and asks that nothing be left outside when it is closed. For another time, call 860-347-3222 and ask for Brenda Reilly, the program director. Hygiene products are welcome too. Its S.O.S. program, for Sponsor/Stock Our Shelves, asks donors to pledge one item a month for a year. Volunteers work distribution and the warehouse on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays between 10:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.; anyone under 16 comes with an adult 21 or older.
The soup kitchen's list is fresh fruit and vegetables; large containers of butter, cream cheese, yogurt and cottage cheese; deli meat and cheese; Ranch or Italian dressing in family-size bottles; olive oil and fresh garlic; and plain grits and oatmeal, not instant. Donations go to the kitchen door, off the driveway on the right side of 617 Main Street, between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Volunteers register online and choose breakfast or lunch shifts.
The Middletown Community Thanksgiving Project says money helps most right now. Checks are made out to "MCTP" and mailed to MCTP in care of Fellowship Church, 1002 Saybrook Road, Middletown, CT 06457; plans for food donations will be announced. To volunteer, call Lara SantaMaria at 860-346-1181.
Durham's pantry takes nothing opened or expired. Its list includes side-dish packets, tomato sauce, peanut butter, canned beans and chili, soups, canned chicken, macaroni and cheese, rice, instant potatoes, jelly, pancake mix and syrup, shelf-stable milk, canned fruit and coffee, along with toothpaste, soap, deodorant and laundry detergent. Drop donations at the Community Center, 144 Pickett Lane, weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., or by appointment. Gift cards for Walmart, Stop & Shop, Visa or gas are always needed, and checks payable to Durham Neighbors in Need can be mailed to P.O. Box 428, Durham, CT 06422, attention Human Services.
For the Thanksgiving baskets, Durham needs frozen turkeys and the fixings: gravy, canned vegetables, cranberry sauce, cream of mushroom soup, fried onions, instant potatoes, boxed cornbread and stuffing. Anyone giving a turkey should tell Morgan Perry by November 13 and drop it off by November 17; the other items are due by November 13. Gift cards for Stop & Shop, Aldi and Walmart help too. TUMM! also needs volunteers for future dinners; call 860-349-3153.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to live in Middletown to shop at Amazing Grace?
No. Amazing Grace enrolls residents of Middletown, Durham, Middlefield, Portland, Cromwell, East Hampton and Higganum.
Can I get a meal without signing up for anything?
Yes. The St. Vincent de Paul soup kitchen at 617 Main Street serves breakfast from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m., Monday through Saturday, and lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., and it lists no sign-up. Foodshare's mobile pantry in Middlefield and Portland asks for no ID.
I live in Durham. Who do I call?
Human Services, at 860-349-3153. The office books pantry appointments and handles the Thanksgiving baskets (sign up by November 6), Meals on Wheels and the senior lunch.
Is there food on the weekend?
The soup kitchen is open Saturdays, with breakfast from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Middletown public school students bring home a bag of weekend food on the last school day of the week.
Do I need an ID?
For the Middletown Thanksgiving baskets, yes: ID for each person in the family, plus proof of Middletown residency or of shopping at Amazing Grace. Foodshare's mobile pantry needs none. Amazing Grace asks about income, household size and town when you enroll but does not post a list of documents, so call 860-347-3222 if you are unsure.
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