The Brandon Area Food Shelf has declined to accept any donations from the “Let’s Go Brandon” rally the state Republican party has planned for this weekend in Brandon, Vermont, food shelf Director Kathy Mathis said in an email to VTDigger.
“The Food Shelf was not informed of this ‘happening,’” Mathis wrote.
The rally will be the first event organized by the new state GOP chair, Paul Dame. “Let’s go Brandon” is a euphemism for “Fuck Joe Biden” and has caught on in Republican circles over the past month. Brandon is Dame’s hometown.
The state GOP is selling “Let’s Go Brandon” hats, T-shirts and bumper stickers, and said some percentage of the proceeds would go toward the Brandon Area Food Shelf.
“It annoys me that they went ahead and did this without even contacting the food shelf itself,” Mathis told the Times Argus earlier this week. “And I understand their intentions are good but nevertheless, blowing it up on social media as a Republican big event, it looks to me as if, and to anybody who’s reading it, it looks like the Brandon Area Food Shelf supports the Republican Party, and I resent that.”
Mathis said the food shelf is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.
Dame told the Times Argus he would find some other charity in the Brandon area to donate proceeds to.
— Riley Robinson