OXFORD — On Wednesday evening, about 270 local families got fresh, nutritious food thanks to a joint effort of local businesses, nonprofits and the town of Oxford.

Scott Smith, community development director for Black Bear Entertainment, said the distribution was meant to help the unemployed and underemployed of the Oxford Hills area.

According to the Maine Department of Labor, unemployment in Oxford County stood at 9.8 percent for the second straight month in December, up from 9 percent in October.

“That doesn’t get at the underemployment,” Smith said. That includes people working part-time or a combination of jobs after losing better-paying jobs who are having a hard time paying for expenses.

It wasn’t just canned and boxed food. Prime Cut Meat Market in Raymond donated hundreds of pounds of meat, Blackie’s Vegetable Stand in Auburn donated fresh vegetables and the Hostess Wonder Bread Bakery-Thrift Shop in Auburn donated bread. There were eggs, milk and fruit.

Food donations also came from the Oxford Hannaford store, Pizza Hut in Oxford and the Good Shepherd Food-Bank.

Black Bear Entertainment put up $5,000 for food at Hannaford, which Smith said gave them “a deep discount.”

Peter Bolduc, president of Harvest Hill Farms in Mechanic Falls, provided his trucks to transport the food — about 18 pallets in all.

Suzanne Grover, co-founder Grover Gundrilling in Norway and an investor in Black Bear Entertainment, has been organizing Oxford Food Pantry events like this for years, but she said this was by far the largest. She said there were families waiting outside nearly two hours before the 5 p.m. opening time.

Volunteers were at the Oxford Recreation Center for more than six hours before it began, setting up tables and hauling in donated food, Grover said.

Sue Berry of the Oxford Pizza Hut, put the estimated number of volunteers at 40. She saw younger people carrying boxes of food to elderly people’s cars, something she said she’d never seen at a food pantry before.

“People have been coming out of the woodwork to help out,” Smith said.

Oxford selectmen were there, as were Oxford County commissioners, local business leaders, members of the Oxford Community Church and people such as Marge Owens, who just wanted to pitch in.

Owens said she’d been working since 7:30 Wednesday morning, making two trips to Auburn to pick up bread from the Hostess store. On Monday, she helped slice 500 pounds of meat, which took about five hours.

She said a lot of hard-working people have fallen behind these days.

“A lot of people have jobs, but they just need a little bit of help,” Owens said. “That’s what this was for: A little bit of help.”

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