You wouldn’t think Lily Pearmain and former Maine Sen. George Mitchell have a whole lot in common.

She’s a 32-year-old mom, struggling to keep her two daughters fed. He’s a world-renowned statesman, a half-century her senior, who’s spent much of his life crosscrossing the planet trying to solve the most intractable of the world’s problems.

Yet there they both were in Brunswick on Wednesday morning, the featured speakers for the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program’s kickoff of its $500,000 expansion to help feed an ever-growing number of hungry Mainers.

Herself a child of poverty, Pearmain has long grown accustomed to the dark side of needing help. If you’re the type who makes snide remarks under your breath in the supermarket checkout aisle while she fumbles with her WIC coupons or swipes her Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program card, here’s a news flash – she hears every word.

“Every time I take that blue EBT card out of my wallet, it’s hard to not feel like I’m back in school lunch line sheepishly handing my blue free-lunch ticket to the lunch lady while the more affluent kids snort and snicker behind my back,” Pearmain told the crowd packed into the food pantry.

Enter the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program.

Founded in 1983, its staff and volunteers currently welcome more than 8,500 visitors annually to its food pantry.

Last year alone, they served 47,000 meals in the 40-seat soup kitchen.

And this school year, some 500 kids in Brunswick and seven surrounding communities are getting more to eat thanks to the “backpack program” that sends food home with them over the weekend.

Pearmain first showed up at the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program, with her two little girls in tow, just over two years ago. It’s changed their lives, she said.

“Thanks to MCHPP … my children have no clue that as a family, we struggle with food insecurity,” Pearmain told the crowd. “Thanks to MCHPP, we have access to healthy, nutritious food that we otherwise would not. Thanks to MCHPP, my children know how delicious local organic produce tastes.”

But it’s more than just the food. Bring enough people together around something so basic as eradicating hunger and bigger and better things start to happen.

“Thanks to the volunteers, staff and all those who support MCHPP, my children have positive role models to look up to and emulate,” Pearmain said. “Thanks to the people of MCHPP, my children have a sense of community I hadn’t experienced until very recently.”

With that, it was Mitchell’s turn.

The former U.S. senator spoke eloquently of the great divide between “unprecedented and massive amounts of wealth” on the one hand and, on the other, “an unequal distribution of benefits that leaves many in our society in need of the basics of life. And nothing, of course, is more basic than food.”

“Whatever one’s view of the world, of politics or otherwise, we all share a common humanity and, as Americans, a common pride in our society,” Mitchell said. “A society which, I believe, cannot and will not leave anyone, especially children, hungry and without proper nutrition.”

So how did these two, Lily Pearmain and George Mitchell, come to share the lectern on this morning?

Pearmain was asked to speak by Ethan Minton, the program director for Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program, a few weeks ago.

Truth be told, she was nervous about it at first. There would be TV cameras. And interviews. And with all of that, more snickering, more judgment.

But then she thought about her daughters. And about her grandmother, who died in December and left her a pin that said, “Buck the Trend.” And so she did.

“I am not a person who keeps my mouth shut,” Pearmain confided.

Mitchell was asked to speak by Karen Parker, the program’s executive director. He jumped at the chance – Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program is one of many such efforts he supports throughout Maine.

A few months back, during a previous visit, Mitchell met Lily Pearmain. They spoke at some length about her struggles, how she had to drop out of Southern Maine Community College but is trying to get back, how she’s working with the Maine Department of Labor’s Career Center, how her universe begins and ends with those two little girls.

“I admire her courage, her fortitude,” Mitchell said as he walked outside for the ceremonial groundbreaking. “She’s had a lot of difficulty in life.”

So, for those who may not realize it, has George Mitchell.

“What comes to my mind is when I left my home in Waterville to go to Bowdoin (College),” Mitchell said.

His family was near destitute at the time. His father, who had left school in only the third or fourth grade, had just been laid off. His mother had no education and could neither read nor write.

“My father, who was not a talkative man, said to me, as we sat at the kitchen table, ‘You’re a smart young boy and I know you’re going to do well. But I want you to look at your mother.'”

The young Mitchell looked over at his mother, who stood by the stove cooking dinner.

“Now look at me,” Mitchell’s father said. “We’re your parents. And don’t you ever forget where you came from.’ ”

Behind him in the distance loomed his prestigious alma mater. Yet here Mitchell stood in the parking lot of an ever-expanding program to feed Maine’s hungry.

“And I’ve never forgotten where I came from,” he said.

The groundbreaking beckoned. No gold- or silver-plated shovels here, mind you, just well-worn spades that looked like they’d been commandeered from someone’s backyard shed.

Lily Pearmain already had hers. Down the line, one last shovel awaited George Mitchell.

Together, the senator and the young mother broke new ground.

 

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