Food bank back in business
Sep. 7—NORWALK — The Norwalk Area Food Bank will be open Thursday as usual, thanks to the help of its many volunteers.
A compressor in the freezer went bad last weekend and heated up all of the food inside. The longer it went, the hotter it got inside of the freezer. When volunteers came to work Tuesday morning, they were greeted with a real mess and an awful smell.
It got so hot in the freezer that some of the food actually started to cook.
Volunteers were there Wednesday morning cleaning everything down and getting the food bank ready to open.
"We came in yesterday and I thought it was a rotten potato," executive director Cindy Liben said. "We were looking for the potato. I go over to the freezer and it is dripping blood out of the bottom. I touched the freezer and it was hot.
"The compressor must have gone down and kept running and just cooked everything in there. Big poofy bags."
Liben said they lost close to 200 pounds of meat and "I don't know how much butter."
After a lot of hard work it is back to business.
"All cleaned up," Liben said. "Trying to put our insurance claim in. We don't think we will get it fully cleaned.
"We have a walk-in and a two-door freezer that still works. We will be up and running tomorrow (Thursday). That is how it works. All volunteer with some wonderful people."
The food bank is open from 10 a.m.-12 p.m. and 1-3 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
