Volunteers Helped at Shelter

Editor's Note: This story was published on Friday when the shelter was seeking volunteers. The shelter closed at 8 p.m. Saturday and the Oxford High School showers are open for residents from noon to 8 p.m. today.

The Oxford Ambulance Association was seeking volunteers to help out at the .

In her push to gather volunteers, Madalene Taggart, assistant director of the Oxford Ambulance Association, said:  "Maybe some of our candidates (running for election on Tuesday) would want to come up here and do some good old fashioned community service."

One candidate, Amy Cote, who is running for the Oxford Board of Education, has been volunteering, Taggart said. Cote herself did not have electricity much of the week, as did many other volunteers. 

Taggart said she had been going to get bagels and doughnuts every morning and making trips to wholesale stores to buy food from the Oxford Ambulance Association's account. Many of the volunteers at the shelter are volunteers from the ambulance association. The American Red Cross has also helped and donated food. 

She said Fire Chief Scott Pelletier, emergency management director and fire marshal, has put in yeoman's work this week. "This community doesn't realize how lucky it is to have Scott," she said. "It's amazing the work he's done and the effort he's put in."

She said Pelletier will decide tomorrow, after seeing how power restoration efforts are going, whether the shelter will be reopened tomorrow. 

"We have a good volunteers, but people are getting tired," Taggart said. 

See more of Taggart's comments in the comments field.