The Friendship Table is kicking off its annual fundraising campaign with a $1,500 donation from Save-A-Lot in Bradford.

For the last two months, Save-A-Lot has been asking customers if they’d like to donate their change to the cause. Then, owners Bill and Nancy Larson donated a few hundred dollars to bring the donation up to $1,500.

This is just some of the support that the grocery store offers to the Friendship Table throughout the year.

The Larsons were able to choose the recipient of the round-up program donations, so they chose the Table “because of all the good work they do,” said Bill Larson.

Assistant Manager Joe Doriguzzi said Save-A-Lot provides plastic bags for the Table to distribute its to-go meals. In fact, often when the Table crew realize they need something, they will come to the Larsons for assistance.

Nancy Larson added that she will donate extra food that is still good but that she knows the store won’t be able to sell in time.

“I’m going to dump it, so I might as well give it to someone who can use it,” she said.

The funding is coming at a time when services provided by the Friendship Table are more important than ever. The organization serves free meals to the community Monday through Friday.

Due to the pandemic, the Table is providing all of its meals to-go, but that has not discouraged anyone from stopping by. In fact, the organization is serving record numbers of meals following the COVID-19 restrictions that left many people unemployed.

In 2019, the Table served 32,649 meals, according to Doriguzzi.

Since January, the Table has served 40,169, with 36,969 of those meals served since mid-March when the restrictions were put in place.

Doriguzzi believes the Table could reach the 50,000-meal mark by the end of the year.

“It costs us $8,750 a month to survive,” he added.

That’s more than $100,00 for a year. It’s the Friendship Table’s goal to reach that through fundraising.

Doriguzzi said fundraising campaign letters will be mailed out this week to community members.