Nobody expected a grand speech.

He sat down, accepted a piece of cake, and listened.

PART 14

By the next winter, Maple Street Neighbors had become a regular part of the town’s calendar.

The program wasn’t large.

We still depended on donations and volunteers.

Some weeks we had more food than families needed; other weeks we had to call partner pantries to fill the gaps.

But there was now a telephone number people could use without explaining their whole life to a stranger, and a schedule of dependable deliveries.