Wednesday, July 9, 2025

What's happening in Franklin, MA: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 ???

Library & Senior Center events
Library & Senior Center events
Wednesday, July 9


11:30am  Free Summer Lunch Program (Bellingham Library)

1:00pm Writer's Group (Franklin Senior Center)

6:00pm Summer Patio Concerts: Kat Chapman (live music) (Franklin Public Library)



For additional details on Library & Senior Center events ->        

** Town Meetings today   **

Historical Commission Meeting

Wednesday, July 9     Time: 6:00 PM

https://www.franklinma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_07092025-1814

------------


What's happening today in Franklin?
What's happening today in Franklin? 
Find the full Community event calendar  https://bit.ly/FranklinCommunityCalendar

If you have an event to add to the calendar, you can use the form to submit it for publication:  https://bit.ly/Submit2Calendar

2 of the Class of 2025 Heroines of Massachusetts recognized for their work at the Franklin Food Pantry

This year, the Class of 2025 Commonwealth Heroines comprises more than 125 women from across the state, leaders in industry, business, nonprofit, advocacy, and more. Read this year’s program book (link below) to learn more about their incredible stories from the legislators who nominated them.

The 22nd Annual Heroines of Massachusetts Celebration was held June 26, 2025 at the Mass State House

Yianna Zicherman, Milford
Yianna Zicherman
Yianna Zicherman
Yianna Zicherman, a Milford resident, works in the Franklin Food Pantry, and I ask that you nominate her for one of the 2025 Commonwealth Heroines awards. Yianna Zicherman manages the Pantry’s warehouse and a staff of volunteers. Yianna is not visible to the Pantry’s large coterie of clients, but more than 1,800 local families unknowingly benefit from all that she achieves for them. 
As a Pantry volunteer, Yianna’s strength in working through exhaustion and never seeking an opportunity to relax when knowing that her work is so valued by locals with food insecurities. I see her direct a volunteer staff and work together with them as they stack and organize food supplies so that the Pantry is well-prepared when the clients arrive. 
These clients include those with disabilities, the elderly on fixed incomes, some who are temporarily between jobs, and some who work but their salaries are insufficient to provide enough food for their families. Every item that is placed on shelves for the Pantry’s clients is placed there by Yianna and her volunteers. Yianna is an extraordinary woman who works hard to aid those with food insecurities. She places the needs of the less fortunate above all. - State Representative Brian Murray

Tina Taveres Powderly, Franklin
Tina Powderly
Tina Powderly

Tina Powderly is the Executive Director of the Franklin Food Pantry and led the efforts to build a new state-of-the-art facility. The new building provides a dignified and attractive space for customers to get what they need -- the food and the resources necessary for success. In 2024 alone, the Pantry reached 25,000 people and Tina’s tireless service has helped erase the stigma associated with food insecurity. Moreover, Tina has been instrumental in educating the community and raising awareness about hunger and how good food nourishes the body and powers a strong mind. 
Tina has 20 years of experience working in a variety of areas in the healthcare industry, including healthcare consulting, community benefits, and hospital business development and strategy. Tina previously was an Executive Recruiter for AMN Healthcare in its executive and leadership division. Tina also has directed the activities of the CEO’s office at Milford Regional Medical Center and worked as an independent consultant in business development at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, helping develop major expansion projects both in outlying communities and in Boston. 
Tina earned a B.S. in Business Administration from Georgetown University and an M.S. in Health Policy Management from the Harvard School of Public Health. She served on the Franklin Food Pantry’s Board of Directors from 2017 – 2021, including two years as its Chair before joining the Pantry as Executive Director. She has also served on the Hockomock YMCA Board of Managers and as Vice Chair of the Franklin Town Council. Tina resides in Franklin with her husband. They have five children. - State Representative Jeffrey Roy
For the complete listing of the Class of 2025 Commonwealth Heroines ->    https://masscsw.org/2025/06/18/read-the-2025-commonwealth-heroines-program-book/

2 of the Class of 2025 Heroines of Massachusetts recognized for their work at the Franklin Food Pantry
2 of the Class of 2025 Heroines of Massachusetts
recognized for their work at the Franklin Food Pantry

Franklin TV looking for actors for role in film about Horace Mann (video)

Franklin TV Horace Mann Series - Franklin TV is developing the first episode of a four-part series that tells the story of Horace Mann

Auditions can be arranged by reaching out to Chris Flynn at cflynn@franklin.tv

For more information, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGfn3eKFVoU

Franklin TV looking for actors for role in film about Horace Mann (video)
Franklin TV looking for actors for role in film about Horace Mann (video)





Reminder: A Very Tolkien Creation Story Sunday, July 13 @ 10:00 AM

The Fourth Unitarian Universalist Principle says that member congregations will affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. As Unitarian Universalists we are encouraged to be open to the experience of awe as we encounter the great mysteries of life. We are challenged to find our own sources of truth and meaning in our lives, whether through sacred texts, encounters with nature, or the exquisite alchemy of our relationships.

A Very Tolkien Creation Story Sunday, July 13 @ 10:00 AM
A Very Tolkien Creation Story Sunday, July 13 @ 10:00 AM

In this service, FUSF lay leader Dave Gerlits will share his own search for truth and meaning, and how he finally found a Creation Story that he could embrace. It appeared in a most unexpected place: the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien.  Please join us for this special service! 




The First Universalist Society in Franklin (FUSF) is a Unitarian Universalist Welcoming Congregation located at 262 Chestnut Street, Franklin. Our Interim Minister is Reverend Beverly Waring. For more information about FUSF please visit our website at Fusf.org. You can also contact us at info@fusf.org or by calling 508-528-5348.  

Call for artists to create an Interactive Pop-Up Art Installation

We’re looking for bold, interactive art that pops!


Call for artists to create an Interactive Pop-Up Art Installation
Call for artists to create an Interactive Pop-Up Art Installation
The Town of Franklin/Arts and Culture Symposium Subcommittee invites artists + designers to submit proposals for an Interactive Pop-Up Art Installation — set to debut at the Franklin Arts & Culture Symposium and travel to events like our Fall Markets, World Cup celebrations, and MA250 commemorations! 🌍🎉⁠

🎯 We're seeking work that:⁠
✔️ Sparks joy + photo ops⁠
✔️ Celebrates community + creativity⁠
✔️ Is adaptable + durable⁠
✔️ Can be printed as life-size foam cut-outs!⁠

🖼️ Artist Honorarium: $1,000⁠
📅 Deadline: Friday, August 22⁠
📩 Submit to: cshea@franklinma.gov
Subject line: Interactive Pop-Up Art Installation⁠

Bring your vision to life—and into the hands (and selfies!) of the community. Let’s make Franklin more vibrant, one photo at a time! 💫⁠

ICYMI: Rep. Auchincloss ‘By Invitation’ in The Economist: “A congressman on how Democrats can regain the initiative on the economy”

In a recent guest essay for The Economist, Congressman Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) outlined a new framework for Democrats to reclaim voters' trust on the economy by treating cost disease—the economic phenomenon where prices in key sectors rise faster than wages year over year. Cost disease explains why rent and healthcare costs consume so much of Americans' wallets, and why that share keeps rising. Rep. Auchincloss sets out how treating cost disease, particularly in housing and healthcare, must be core to the Democrats' agenda for financial freedom. 

Please find below Rep. Auchincloss's op-ed:

"Cost disease is also known as the Baumol effect. It helps explain why rent and health care consume so much of Americans' wallets—and why, in the case of health care, the share keeps rising. William Baumol, an American economist, showed in the 1960s that inflation is not evenly spread across the economy. Service industries with low productivity growth inflate fast. Manufactured goods and automated services deflate prices.

The Baumol effect is both esoteric and everywhere. Housing and health care are prime examples: together they consume half of a typical middle-class family's income in America. Families wondering why their rent and health-insurance premiums are going up faster than their take-home pay are asking the question that Baumol helped to answer.

Three decades before Baumol described the problem, Theodore Wright, an American engineer, had found the cure for cost disease. Wright's law observed that cost per unit goes down as more units are produced. Want a service to be affordable? Turn the service into a product. Then, manufacture the product at scale to lower the cost per unit. New manufacturing jobs will not be taken from other countries through tariffs. They will be created from services, by turning them into products.

Rep. Auchincloss ‘By Invitation’ in The Economist
Rep. Auchincloss ‘By Invitation’ in The Economist

Take computers. A century ago, a "computer" was a person. Sitting side-by-side, hundreds of individuals scribbled out algorithms. It was an expensive service. Then a "computer" became a product. It was a machine as big as a room. That first product was expensive, too. But then computer manufacturing took off, and cost per unit fell. Today, computing is cheap. It was cured of cost disease.

Mass production requires consistent standards. Production is an act of learning. To compete, factory managers learn how to produce more with less. This learning under competition delivers Wright's law: that cost per unit falls as production increases. When product specifications change unpredictably, though, much of the learning on the factory line has to reset. Costs go up, not down.

Democratic states and cities have been changing and adding specifications (for multi-family housing, for instance) for decades, through regulations. Frustrated by the resulting high costs, politicians then send out money to constituents (in the form of, say, housing vouchers). In the short term this does help them muddle through. In the long term, though, cost disease is inflamed by this cycle of regulations that restrict supply and then subsidies that increase demand.

To lower costs, America needs to build a lot, fast, the same way. Housing should be the priority for mass production. Americans may perceive housing as a product—something you buy and own—but most of it is a service. It is constructed, not manufactured, and construction is labour-intensive, with low productivity growth. Since the 1960s, in fact, construction productivity has actually gone down. Manufacturing productivity, by contrast, has risen by more than 500%. Manufacturing more of America's housing could help deliver the 7m extra homes that the country needs, quickly and cost-effectively. Just like with computing, turning house-building from a service into a product would cure it of cost disease.

The government can help with both permitting and financing. For example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) could issue an advanced commitment for thousands of manufactured housing units. Fannie Mae, a government-sponsored mortgage giant, could be used to finance this at low interest rates. HUD specifications could be made the national standard for building permits. And any city accepting federal low-income housing tax credits could be required to adopt not just that permitting, but denser zoning too.

When Austin, Texas adopted land-use reforms of this sort, apartment construction boomed and rents plunged. Cambridge, Massachusetts has followed suit. Those who doubt that Democrats can think differently on regulations, take note of Cambridge: a city where Kamala Harris won 86% of the vote adopted a new zoning law in which three-quarters of the text was to do with deleting old rules.

Health care is a more traditional Democratic issue. Democrats earned Americans' trust on health care by expanding coverage. Now, we must lower its cost.

There are two ways to treat cost disease in health care. The first is more conventional: turn custom services into mass-produced goods. Generic drugs, therapy bots and over-the-counter hearing aids are examples. Each affordable product meets a need that was previously addressed through expensive clinical services. Democrats should accelerate this service-to-product pipeline, which will require taking on various special interests within the health-care system.

The other way to reduce health costs is to deflect patients from the most expensive sites of care. In America, those sites are generally intensive-care units, emergency rooms, nursing facilities and jails. Interventions that reduce demand for beds at those sites help treat cost disease. Examples include lowering co-pays (deductibles) for prescription drugs, promoting telehealth for the old, expanding community health centres' footprint and taxing sugary beverages.

Health-insurance executives are likely to object that they do this already through their plans—or so they claim to Congress. Yet health-insurance premiums keep rising faster than inflation. Democrats should square off against the big insurers and show that we can lower costs where they will not.

The policies above, from housing to health care, are diverse. Yet they are not hard to communicate if brought together in the frame of the Baumol effect. Few Americans may know Baumol, but they are familiar with the feeling of prices rising faster than their pay. Republicans are making it worse with their chaotic tariffs. Democrats can make it better by treating cost disease." 

Did you read the Community @FranklinUMC // Impact Summary, Grant Report

Impact Summary, Grant Report
Impact Summary, Grant Report

The work that has been accomplished through the Community@FranklinUMC in a short amount of time, with a relative small amount of money, and A LOT of community support is incredible.


Check out what we’ve been up to, the impact we’ve had, and get involved!



Jennifer Tefft schedules back to back performances July 10 & July 11

Jennifer Tefft schedules back to back performances July 10 & July 11
Jennifer Tefft schedules back to back
performances July 10 & July 11
via Jennifer Tefft:


Two new venues for me this week! If you are in the area, come by and say hi!





The “Panther F Logo” fundraiser returns for 2025

The “Panther F Logo” fundraiser returns for 2025
The “Panther F Logo” fundraiser returns for 2025
It's that time of year show your Panther Pride with a driveway F painting!

The FHS Girls Basketball Boosters are excited to launch our 2025 “Panther F Logo” fundraiser. As in years past, players will come to your house and paint your driveway or basketball court with the Franklin Panther F logo.

Sign up will be open from July 7 to August 15.


Once the sign up is closed and all payments have been received the Boosters will establish a schedule for the painting to begin in September and conclude in October (8/1 to 10/15).

The Panther F logo is a great addition to your driveway for all Franklin students and families!



24th annual Bill Capen Memorial Golf Tournament, Aug 10

24th annual Bill Capen Memorial Golf Tournament,  Aug 10
24th annual Bill Capen Memorial
Golf Tournament,  Aug 10
Join us for the 24th annual Bill Capen Memorial Golf Tournament on Sunday, August 10th, 2025, at Wentworth Hills Country Club!

This special event honors Bill Capen, a beloved FYBO volunteer, and all proceeds fund the FYBO/Bill Capen Scholarship Awards for graduating high school seniors. To date, over $60,000 in scholarships have been awarded to deserving students.

The tournament starts at 1:00 PM with an entry fee of $150 per person. The tournament will have a 50/50 raffle and other prizes!

Help us continue supporting local youth and their educational journeys - foursomes are filling up fast! For questions or to register, please contact Larry Pollard at lap7374@gmail.com.


Federal funding by state (chart)



Job scammers are looking to hire you


Consumer Alerts from the Federal Trade Commission

By BCP Staff

Scammers are always "hiring" but don't actually want to employ you. Instead, they want your money, personal information, or both. 


    


Franklin Public Radio - wfpr.fm Schedule for Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Yes, Franklin has it's own radio station -> wfpr.fm. Franklin Public Radio introduced a brand new schedule early in 2025 for the locally produced shows that fill our air waves. 

It is available anywhere, anytime at wfpr.fm or in the local Franklin, MA area at 102.9 on the FM dial.

Tune in to listen to the following:
 
Franklin Public Radio - wfpr.fm Schedule for Wednesday
Franklin Public Radio - wfpr.fm Schedule for Wednesday


8:00 AM, 1:00 PM and 6:00 PM   Franklin Matters Radio – Steve Sherlock 
Franklin and its local government, services and events  (repeats Saturday at 2 PM)  

9:00 AM, 2:00 PM and 7:00 PM  The Wonderful World of Wine – Mark Lenzi, Kim Simone  All about wine, its culture, lore and finer points.    (repeats Saturday at 1 PM)  



Get this week's program guide for Franklin.TV and Franklin Public Radio (wfpr.fm) online  http://franklin.tv/programguide.pdf 

Franklin TV schedule for Wednesday, July 9, 2025

  • Franklin All Access TV - Our Public Access Channel (Comcast 6, Verizon 26) = WEDNESDAY
7:30 am Mental Health: Abigail Drake
8:30 am FSPA: Spring 2025 Show 2
10:00 am More Perfect Union: D. E. I.
11:30 am Cooking Thyme: Lobstah
12:00 pm Brook'n'Cookin': Peppers
12:30 pm Cooking with Linda: Pies
1:30 pm Pizzapalooza: Meat-Lovers Pt. 2
2:00 pm New England Candlepins: Summer 2018 Show 1
3:00 pm Candlepin New Generation: Show 8
3:30 pm Franklin 4th 2024: Backyard Swagger
5:30 pm Franklin Matters: Electric Youth
8:30 pm Circle of Friends: Abbie Gardner

  • Franklin Pride TV - Our Educational Channel        (Comcast 8, Verizon 28) = WEDNESDAY

7:00 am Public School Event: Remington Spring Music '22
8:30 am FHS Spring Jazz 2025
10:00 am SAFE Coalition: Overdose Awareness Day 2024
11:00 am Lifelong Music Spring 2025: Strings School
12:30 pm FHS Varsity Softball v Taunton 04-09-25
4:00 pm Tri County Graduation 2025
6:00 pm FHS Graduation 2025
8:30 pm FHS Varsity Baseball v Wachusett 04-24-25

  • Franklin Town Hall TV - Our Government Channel (Comcast 9, Verizon 29) = WEDNESDAY

8:00 am  Town Council 06-18-25
2:00 pm  Town Council 06-18-25

Get this week's program guide for Franklin.TV and Franklin Public Radio (wfpr.fm) online  http://franklin.tv/programguide.pdf 


Watch Listen Read all things that matter in Franklin MA
Watch Listen Read all things that matter in Franklin MA

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

What's happening in Franklin, MA: Tuesday, July 8, 2025 ???

Tuesday, July 8


11:30am Free Summer Lunch Program (Bellingham Library)

5:00pm Youth Summer Track Meet (Franklin High School)

7:00pm FBRTC Rail Trail Cmte Mtg (Franklin TV Studio)

7:30pm Smart Phone Trivia (Teddy Gallagher's Irish Pub)



For additional details on Library & Senior Center events ->   

** Town Meetings today   **

Design Review Meeting

Tuesday, July 8, 2025     7 PM



------------


What's happening today in Franklin?
What's happening today in Franklin? 
Find the full Community event calendar  https://bit.ly/FranklinCommunityCalendar

If you have an event to add to the calendar, you can use the form to submit it for publication:  https://bit.ly/Submit2Calendar