EAST MILLINOCKET – Concerned about the effect Great Northern Paper Inc.’s shutdown is having on their old hometown friends, Mark and Lisa Legassey of Brunswick delivered a truckload of food Saturday to the Tri-town Baptist Church pantry.

The couple, who left the area about seven years ago, have spent the past few weeks collecting donations of food from businesses in the Brunswick area for the Millinocket and East Millinocket communities.

Mark Legassey thought the couple would collect enough to fill the back of his pickup truck.

Instead, it took a 14-foot U-Haul truck. It was packed with about a ton of food.

The couple set up two big carts at both entrances of the Brunswick Shop ‘n Save store along with a poster on each cart. “People would come in, read the poster, and when they came out, they would put a can or a bag into the cart,” said Legassey. “We emptied the carts out once or twice a day for a week.”

On Saturday, the couple went back again. The carts were inside the store. The two, who were required to have a store representative with them, stood outside with large posters.

One of their son’s friends who works at the store stood with them. “People were just filling these carts up,” Mark Legassey said. “One woman donated at least 40 gallons of milk.”

Late Saturday afternoon, the couple delivered a large variety of items the church pantry didn’t have, such as milk, a huge assortment of fresh and canned vegetables, pasta, sauce, cans of fruit and applesauce and about 500 pounds of dog food and cat food.

“It was incredible,” said Lisa Legassey. She said every business she went to in the Lisbon Falls and Brunswick areas freely offered to help. “The people in Brunswick are adopting these two towns,” she said.

Meanwhile, Dave Blaisdell, pantry coordinator, said the couple’s donation had provided a good variety of food. He said the food supply was in good shape.

The couple said they would be back with another load. Legassey said his employer, MidCoast Hospital, is holding a weeklong food drive to help the Katahdin region, and a friend of their son’s is kicking off a food and donation drive at his high school.