Kathleen Doherty-Peck is one of two people in what she says is a very busy office. Along with Robin Washington, Doherty-Peck runs the office of Senior and Social Services for the Town of Montville. And yet, Doherty-Peck said she is amazed by how many people in town don’t know about the office or the services they provide.

The Department of Senior and Social Services is available for Montville residents during times of need or crisis, helping to provide basic needs through their food bank, clothing bank and hygiene bank, which provides soap, toothpaste and other personal care items that might be out of the budget of a person who is barely able to pay rent or keep their electricity on.

While the department and its banks — which operate entirely on donations of money and supplies — provides assistance to families and individuals, it also offers Montville residents the opportunity to give back to their community knowing that their donations will go directly to their friends and neighbors.

“Nobody ever thinks somebody might need a bar of soap,” said Doherty-Peck.

One program that has been particularly successful is the Montville We Help Other (WHO) group. Doherty-Peck and Washington work with Montville residents Lizz Adams and her daughter Colleen Rix to collect donations for a new family or individual each month. Doherty-Peck and Washington identify a recipient while Adams and Rix reach out to Montville residents to collect donations based on that family’s need. The recipient is always keep anonymous. At the end of the month, Adams bring the donations to Doherty-Peck who passes them along to the recipient.

“This month, all we knew was that the gentleman was ill and out of work,” said Adams last Wednesday when she brought April’s collection to the Montville Senior Center, where Doherty-Peck’s office is. In addition to a visa debit card, Adams had received donations for personal hygiene and car care supplies, what she called ‘feel good’ items.

“We all know how expensive personal care items can be,” she said

Adams organizes donations through a Facebook group called W.H.O. — We Help Others — Montville, CT, which has over 450 members. She started the group in 2013, around the time when she said she was noticing viral pay-it-forward campaigns, like people buying coffee for the person behind them in line.

“If we could all take our $2 and put something together,” a group could do some good for their community, Adams remembers thinking. She approached the Office of Senior and Social Services, which had in the past helped people and businesses adopt families for the holidays.

Adams estimates that in the two years since it began, W.H.O. has helped around 45 people and one dog. The have provided robes and spa items to an ill woman to make her last days more comfortable, helped pay for car insurance that allowed a man to find and drive to a new job, helped a single father decorate the new bedrooms of his two children, and helped a grandmother cover the legal costs of gaining custody of her grandchildren.

“We feel good about all of them but that one was kind of special,” said Adams about the grandmother and her grandchildren.

Adams said she likes that the recipients are kept anonymous. She likes the idea that a little girl she sees in the grocery store could be the little girl who has a newly decorated bedroom because of the donations. Doherty-Peck said she likes to see the faces of the recipients each month when they come in to find out what has been collected for them.

“We get the bonus of the hugs and the tears,” Doherty-Peck said. She said it can give people who are losing hope the feeling that they are part of a community and that they are important when they don’t feel that way themselves. “It really makes a difference in somebody’s life ... that somebody cared enough to put this together for them.”

Despite all that they’ve been able to accomplish, Doherty-Peck said she knows there are people in town who could benefit from her department’s services, but who aren’t taking advantage of them.

“We try to make it inviting to come in,” she said. “A lot of people have a very difficult time asking for help.”

Adams said she can relate to those people.

“There have been times of my life where I’ve needed help and people have come forward, where people have made a difference in my life,” she said. She hopes that through this program, she can continue to do the same for others.

j.hopper@theday.com

Twitter: @JessHoppa