A routine Saturday patrol took an unexpected turn for Sergeant Harry Handy of the Bow Police Department when a trucker hauling processed chickens waved him down at the Alltown truck stop on Route 3A.
The driver had a problem: he had an extra pallet of poultry that needed a place to roost.
Handy called Detective Sergeant Tyler Coady to help him with the unusual conundrum that police officers don’t usually encounter.
“The trucker had to find a home for a pallet of whole chickens. So we made a phone call, several phone calls, to try to find a home for them,” said Coady.
Police officers in Bow often have had to find homes for dogs and even a loose emu, but never 250 frozen fowl ready for the roaster.
After many calls, the Friendly Kitchen, a Concord-based nonprofit that feeds the hungry, agreed to take the chickens.
With the help of a pickup truck from the fire department, the officers loaded the boxed-up birds, which had traveled all the way from Texas, and drove them to Concord.
“What else are you going to do with a pallet of chickens? There’s hungry people,” Coady said. “It’s one of those things that we’re glad we were able to help facilitate.”
Staff at the Friendly Kitchen said they would use each four-pound chicken to make meals serving six to eight people, which means the donation could feed roughly 1,500 to 2,000 individuals.
Coady, who joined the Bow Police Department in 2008, is no stranger to helping deliver food.
Several years ago, when a church in Bow was struck by lightning, the road had to be closed, leaving a woman unable to get her frozen groceries to her home.
Coady stepped in, carried the groceries down the street to her house, and even ended up being photographed and featured on the news, he said.
While he’s happy the chickens went to a good cause, Coady said he’s glad they weren’t live birds.
“Thankfully, they were already dead,” he said. “It’s one of those feel-good type things where the public gets to see what we do.”