The Pantry Needs YOU now more than ever before!

"Those lights look like halos, and all of you are all angels for doing this for us."

August 2023 Donor Nibble The Pantry Needs Your Help Now More Than Ever!   August 9, 2023 Dear Stephen and Dolores, Did you know that The Pantry has moved into our new home at 341 West Central St. in Franklin? The new space is a dream come true, thanks to the dedication and commitment of caring people like you who have spent ten years supporting, planning, and designing our new home! At the same time, The Pantry has experienced a dramatic increase in demand for our programs and services. In June of 2022, we provided food, household products, and personal care items to 298 households; in June of 2023, we assisted 367 households. Last year, we enrolled one or two new clients per week. In the first two weeks in our new building, we enrolled 13 new clients and have enrolled more than 45 since then. Increased demand has occurred at the same time that we are all experiencing increased costs of everything from food, to housing, to medical care. Not only have our clients' budgets been squeezed, but The Pantry's has as well. Donations of goods from community members are down, and sometimes we can't buy what we need through our membership in the Greater Boston Food Bank because their donations are down too. The Pantry needs your help now more than ever before! When we opened our doors to clients a few weeks ago, one of them remarked to one of our volunteers, "Those lights look like halos, and all of you are angels for doing this for us." That's what all of this is about: helping our neighbors in their moments of need in our expanded warm, welcoming, and dignified space. We have reached 56% of our $3.5 million campaign goal to raise funds for the purchase and renovation of our building, enhance our client programs and services, and create a rainy-day fund for future building expenses. We are now opening up the campaign to the whole community - and we hope that you will join this effort today!  We are deeply grateful for your support, and can not help our neighbors in need without you! If you wish to support our continuing programs and services with a donation, please click here today! If you donate to the campaign today, 100% of your donation will be matched by one of our treasured Pantry Angels - up to $25,000!!! If you wish to contribute to our campaign, please click here today! Thank you! "It's not about the building, it's about what we will do in the building." Did you know... That you can schedule a tour to see the inside of the new Pantry? Click the link below for more information and to sign up! Building Update Lots of things are happening all the time at The Pantry! We have a team in the Falmouth Road Race on Sunday August 20! Click here to support our team! The Annual Franklin Turkey Trot will be on Thanksgiving morning, November 23, 2023. Check our website in September for details! The Food Elves campaign will be December 1-12, 2023, Check our website in September for details! More Ways to Give DAF Direct Legacy Gifts Help ensure that The Pantry will be here to serve our community in the future by making a legacy gift. This can be as simple as leaving a percentage of your estate to The Pantry in your will. For more information, click here. Donor Advised Funds Did you know that you can make a tax-free qualified charitable distribution at any time from your IRA if you are 70½ or more years old. For more information, click here.  Please seek the advice of your tax accountant or attorney.  Ask Your Employers To Match Your Gift Many employers encourage their employees to make charitable gifts by matching a percentage (sometimes 100%) or by giving paid time off to volunteer. Ask your employer if they will match your gift to The Pantry and make your gift go further! From the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network Universal State Charitable Deduction Update The long-delayed Massachusetts state charitable contributions deduction took effect on January 1, 2023. This deduction is now available to all donors including those who don't itemize deductions on their federal tax returns.   Thank you for supporting The Pantry!

Franklin Food Pantry | 341 WEST CENTRAL STREET, Franklin, MA 02038 Try email marketing for free today!

MassCEC Opens Third Year of Funding for the EmPower Massachusetts Program!

Learn more about funding opportunities + how to apply

We hope all is well! The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) is excited to announce the release of our THIRD year of funding opportunities under the EmPower Massachusetts program! The goal of the EmPower Massachusetts program is to increase access to the benefits of clean energy and/or reduce energy burden to previously underserved populations in Massachusetts. MassCEC is thrilled to be able to support another round of innovative projects that will help us equitably achieve the Commonwealth's climate goals. For this next year of EmPower, we will be offering two levels of funding similar to the first two years of the program, but with some changes to funding amounts and timeline. See below for more information: Innovation and Capacity Building Grants  Grant range: $5,000-$25,000 (some opportunities for up to $50,000) "Seed" funding for applicants to explore innovative ideas for potential program models or projects and to build organizational capacity to support future program models or projects. Applicants are encouraged to apply with the intent of building toward an EmPower Implementation grant project. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis through April 3, 2024, with three priority deadlines: October 18, 2023, January 18, 2024, and April 3, 2024 (applications will be reviewed starting immediately after these dates). Implementation Grants Grant range: $50,000-$150,000  Funding to implement new program models/projects for increasing access to the benefits of clean energy. A limited number of grants for up to $300,000 will be awarded to projects that use Energy Coach/Ambassador or Technical Assistance Provider models; see section 5.2 of the Implementation Request for Proposals (RFP) on the EmPower website. Applications will be evaluated in two review periods, with deadlines of October 18, 2023 and April 3, 2024. We encourage you to share this opportunity with any organizations, individuals, etc. in your community who you think would be good candidates for the program. To find all information including request for proposals/application documents, please visit the Funding section of our website, which includes funding descriptions, schedules, eligibility, and how to apply!   View both funding opportunities here! To learn more or prepare to apply, join us for office hours & watch our program overview: Office hours We will be hosting our first office hours session on Friday, August 18th from 10:30-11:30 am; you can find the Zoom registration link here. More office hours will be held in the weeks following - keep an eye on the EmPower website for more sessions.  Overview video We will be posting a video overview of this round of the program to the EmPower page in the coming weeks. In the meantime, feel free to watch our video overview for last year's round of the program here! Other Ways to Stay Engaged! Sign up for the Slack channel here. This is a great space for networking and collaboration between organizations. We will also be posting programmatic updates on this channel. Reach out to us directly via email at empower@masscec.com, so we can set up a time to talk and answer any questions you may have.  Read up on the EmPower blog posts, with new posts regularly! Check our website regularly for updates! All inquiries may be submitted via email to empower@masscec.com. Copyright © 2023 Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in at our website. Our mailing address is: Massachusetts Clean Energy Center 294 Washington St. Suite 1150 Boston, MA 02108

How to make sure your donations count when weather disasters strike

How to make sure your donations count when weather disasters strike

By Colleen Tressler

"Throw a dart at a map of the U.S. and chances are you'll land on a community that suffered severe weather this year. Whether it's landslides on the West Coast, extreme ice storms in the South, spring tornadoes across the Midwest, recent flooding in the Northeast, or the wildfires consuming the Hawaiian island of Maui, communities have experienced devastating losses ― and many are still recovering.  

With any weather disaster, you may consider a charitable donation to help those affected. But how you can avoid charity scams?"

Read more ->  https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2023/08/how-make-sure-your-donations-count-when-weather-disasters-strike

How to make sure your donations count when weather disasters strike

Franklin's Event Outlook: August 11, 2023 to August 17, 2023

Friday, August 11

2:00pm - Franklin Farmers Market (Franklin Town Common)

2:00pm - Thrift Threads thrift shop (Franklin Federated Church)

3:00pm - Thee Taco Dude (food truck) (Franklin Town Common)

3:30pm - Matt Zajac (live music) (Franklin Town Common)

6:00pm - AK Cody (live music) (La Cantina Winery)

6:00pm - Pub Kings (live music) (Franklin Town Common)

6:00pm - Elastic Five (67 Degrees Brewery)

8:00pm - Playing Dead (live music - ticketed event) (THE BLACK BOX)

Saturday, August 12

9:00am - Being Good Stewards to the End (Grace Episcopal Church)

10:00am - Franklin Historical Museum (always free)

4:00pm - Emily & Nick (live music) (La Cantina Winery)

5:00pm - Patrick Durkin (live music) (Birchwood Bakery)

6:00pm - ZeroDrift (live music) (67 Degrees Brewery)

Sunday, August 13

10:00am - FUSF Service "Respect for all Living Things" (First Universalist Society of Franklin)

1:00pm - Franklin Historical Museum (always free)

1:15pm - Second Sunday Speaker (Franklin Historical Museum)

Monday, August 14

6:00pm - Scream VI (movie night) (Franklin Public Library)

Tuesday, August 15

11:00am - Books to Go

Wednesday, August 16

11:00am - Franklin Q&A (hybrid event) (Franklin Senior Center)

1:00pm - Senior Scribblers (writing group) (Franklin Senior Center)

6:00pm - Charcuterie Workshop (ticketed event (La Cantina Winery)

Thursday, August 17

8:30am - Town Council Office Hours (Franklin Senior Center)

6:00pm - Paul Hansen (live music) (La Cantina Winery)

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The Franklin Art Association Art Gallery remains open during business hours at Escape into Fiction (Main St, Franklin)

Find the full Community event calendar  https://www.franklinmatters.org/p/blog-page.html

The Cultural calendar displays only the cultural events      https://www.franklinculture.org/things-do/pages/calendar

If you have an event to add to the calendar, you can use the form to submit it for publication:  https://forms.gle/oPdi8X3ZbHHyrHzo6

The Town meeting calendar is found  https://www.franklinma.gov/calendar
The School district calendar is found  https://www.franklinps.net/calendar-by-event-type/26 

Franklin's Event Outlook: August 11, 2023 to August 17, 2023

Want to track who's taken nomination papers for each position for election Nov 2023?

You can keep track, thanks to Town Clerk Nancy Danello. She will updated this  periodically and I'll share weekly. 

https://www.franklinma.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif10036/f/news/nom_in_out_november_7_2023_2.pdf

The Election Collection for this year will contain all the information shared here during the run up to and just after the election on November 7, 2023. ->   bit.ly/FranklinElection2023

Want to track who's taken papers for each position? Thanks to our Town Clerk, you can

In this Making Sense of Climate we start with ship tracks and get into geoengineering (audio)

FM #1030 = This is the Franklin Matters radio show, number 1030 in the series. 

This session of the radio show shares my conversation with Ted McIntyre, Franklin resident and climate activist via the Zoom conference bridge Monday, August 7, 2023.  

In this episode we have another wide running conversation with a starting point on the ship tracks  Links to the articles we talk of are located in a section below.  

This discussion continues our journey understanding the MA roadmap toward net zero and while it helps me “make sense of climate”, we hope it helps with your understanding as well. 

If you have climate questions or Franklin specific climate questions, send them in and we’ll try to answer them in a future session.  

The conversation runs about 46 minutes. Let’s listen to my conversation with Ted McIntyre as we help ‘make sense of climate.’ Audio file -> https://franklin-ma-matters.captivate.fm/episode/fm-1037-making-sense-of-climate-30-08-07-23

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Links to articles referenced:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Fu_Yg-0pQc4mNpYBMQnwgwfq3f0_vSvX/view?usp=drive_link 

** See the page that collects all the “Making Sense of Climate” episodes -> https://www.franklinmatters.org/2022/02/making-sense-of-climate-collection.html 

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We are now producing this in collaboration with Franklin.TV and Franklin Public Radio (wfpr.fm) or 102.9 on the Franklin area radio dial.  

This podcast is my public service effort for Franklin but we can't do it alone. We can always use your help.

How can you help?

• If you can use the information that you find here, please tell your friends and neighbors

• If you don't like something here, please let me know

Through this feedback loop we can continue to make improvements. I thank you for listening.

For additional information, please visit www.franklin.news/ or  www.Franklinmatters.org/ 

If you have questions or comments you can reach me directly at shersteve @ gmail dot com

The music for the intro and exit was provided by Michael Clark and the group "East of Shirley". The piece is titled "Ernesto, manana"  c. Michael Clark & Tintype Tunes, 2008 and used with their permission.

I hope you enjoy!

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You can also subscribe and listen to Franklin Matters audio on iTunes or your favorite podcast app; search in "podcasts" for "Franklin Matters"

In this Making Sense of Climate we start with ship tracks and get into geoengineering (audio)