EAST SPENCER — A partnership with a food bank in Charlotte meant the delivery of plenty of free food, hygiene products and health products to East Spencer’s Community Day. Other opportunities for those in East Spencer on Saturday included free hot dogs for lunch and blood pressure screenings by local nurses.

The 12th annual iteration of the event allowed anyone to stop by and pick up any supplies they may need, completely for free and with no questions asked. ALDI provided free bags for the event, but the amount someone could take was not limited to simply one bag.

“You come in, you register at the front table. You get an ALDI bag, and if you fill up that one bag, you can just go get another one,” said Michael Douglas, East Spencer’s town manager.

The event was staffed by volunteers and members of the town’s board of aldermen along with police and firefighters from the town. Community Day is an event held to give away free supplies and information and nothing could be sold by the organizations that set up tables across the street from East Spencer’s Town Hall.

One of those organizations was the Piedmont Black Nurses Association, who set up a tent in order to provide free blood pressure screenings as well as answer any questions attendees had about health.

“We just kind of come out and provide education for the community and assess for any social determinants of health that we may be able to help them manage or be prevented for health issues,” said Tammy Woods, president of the Piedmont Black Nurses.

The event, which ran from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, had over 130 people come out for the giveaways according to volunteers working the sign-up table. Most of the health and hygiene products had been given out by 1 p.m., but plenty of potatoes, cantaloupes, dry food and sodas were given out to anyone who came out during the entire three hours.

Previous versions had music as well, but that part of the event had to be scrapped after the old school administration building at the front of the property burned down in January.

“When the building was here we had music because the building had electricity, but the building burned down so we don’t do that anymore. But we still provide hot dogs and water for everybody that wants a hot dog and water and all we do is just service the community,” said Douglas.