Your Greater Boston Food Bank Update: Braving the Cold and Buried in Snow

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February 20, 2015
Follow GBFB on    New England winters are always more difficult for those in need. The cold results in higher energy costs, making it difficult to keep up with bills to stay warm and to buy enough nutritious food to stay healthy. This winter has brought frigid temperatures, unprecedented volumes of snow and more complications for all. At The Greater Boston Food Bank (GBFB), we are busy working around snow storms to ensure we can keep up. We are grateful for your dedication, and your continued support is needed more than ever so we can help our neighbors in need through this rough winter. Learn how you can help to End Hunger Here. Each year, GBFB and its network of supporters raise our voices to advocate for increased Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program (MEFAP) funding. In 2014, MEFAP funds provided more than 16 million meals, or 12% of all meals provided. This year, the Food Bank Coalition of Massachusetts (The Greater Boston Food Bank, The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, Worcester County Food Bank and Merrimack Valley Food Bank) is advocating for an increase in MEFAP funding to $20 million, which could enable GBFB to provide another 7 million meals. Learn more and how you can join our advocacy efforts to help End Hunger Here. As part of our continued efforts to assess our work, we are conducting a short survey. The survey results will provide insights on how to improve our messaging focus to better serve our community and to support our mission to End Hunger Here. We value each of our supporters who make our work possible, and invite you to participate. The survey will only take five minutes to complete and all responses are anonymous. Super Hunger Brunch 2015 On January 24 and 25, GBFB and restaurants around Boston hosted the 32nd Super Hunger Brunch. Thank you to all who joined us to Brunch for a Cause. We are still waiting for final results, but want to share some photos from the great weekend. Stay Warm with Chicken Noodle Soup These cold winter days are perfect for warm chicken noodle soup. Designed by GBFB's Registered Dieticians, this recipe is packed with protein and healthy vegetables. Also, ingredients are representative of common items distributed by GBFB. Get the recipe here and enjoy!

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"They work hard, but can’t protect their families from hunger"

How come the Franklin Food Pantry is busy?

“The poverty rate in Massachusetts is the highest it’s been since 1960. The inflation-adjusted wages of the lowest-paid workers haven’t budged in decades. Income inequality in the state has become greater than in the nation as a whole.” - The Boston Globe, November 2014

screen grab of Project Bread annual report 2014

The Project Bread annual report gets into additional details. You can read the full report on the Project Bread webpage
http://www.projectbread.org/get-the-facts/reports-and-studies/2014-status-report-on-hunger.pdf

Food and non-food donations can be placed in the bin by the Food Pantry front door at 43 West Central St. Please be mindful of what you leave given the weather conditions. 

Financial contributions can be mailed to Franklin Food Pantry, PO Box 116, Franklin, MA  02038 or made securely through our webpage:  

donate securely here

Annual "Fight Hunger" Paintball Challenge - 2013

Where: FOX 4 Paintball Field - 159 Milford Street, Upton, MA 01568

Email: Dave Painter (dave@fox4paintball.com)

Phone: 508-529-FOX4 (3694)

When: Saturday, September, 21^st 2013

Time: 9:00am to 4:00pm

RAIN OR SHINE!

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!!

A raffle for a Paintball rifle

A portion of the admission price will be donated to the Franklin Food Pantry.

We will be taking contributions of Non-Perishable items and Dry Goods the day of the event.

Donations can also be made directly to the drop off box at:

Franklin Food Pantry
43 West Central Street
P.O. Box 116
Franklin, MA 02038-0116
Telephone: 508-528-3115

Hunger Banquet - November 13, 7:00 PM

Losing power seems to be a random event. Your residence loses power and folks on the next block still have power. Frustrating? You bet. During the recent storms, you can drive around Franklin and see houses with lights and power, and then rows of houses in the dark.

Hunger can be like that too. It is usually less visible. The person next to you looks normal. How can you tell if they are hungry? Dean students have set up this event to discuss hunger and its effects.

Taking a “can drive” one step further, Dean College invites the Franklin and surrounding communities to a public “Hunger Banquet” on Tuesday, November 13, in which participants will experience a meal either as an Upper Income citizen, Middle Income citizen, or Lower Income citizen. Dean Community Outreach students conceptualized and will emcee this learning experience where guests will be assigned a class upon arrival and will experience life as a member of that class for the duration of the program. Upper income class guests will receive a scrumptious meal served to them in an upper class setting at a roundtable. Middle income class guests will experience their meal middle class meal at rectangular tables, while the lower income class experiences their meal on the floor.

This event is free. Participants are asked to bring a canned good for the Franklin Food Pantry

Tuesday, November 13, 7:00 PM 

at the Dean College Campus Center

Info from the Dean College calendar
http://www.dean.edu/events/index.cfm?calid=4858

And Franklin Town News
http://franklintownnews.com/content/dean-college-hunger-banquet

D’Amato: The changing face of hunger

Catherine D'Amato is the President and CEO of the Greater Boston Food Bank (GBFB). She writes this column succinctly addressing the problem of hunger in MA. The Franklin Food Pantry sources a lot of the food we distribute from the GBFB.

Sent to you by Steve Sherlock via Google Reader:

D’Amato: The changing face of hunger

via Wicked Local Franklin Opinions RSS by Catherine D'Amato/Guest columnist on 9/12/12

Could you survive on $4 a day? For many, that barely covers their morning cup of coffee.  But living on $4 a day is the reality for millions of low income Americans who receive support through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the federal program formerly known as Food Stamps.

Things you can do from here:

• Subscribe to Wicked Local Franklin Opinions RSS using Google Reader
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2013 Ford Escape Hunger Drive

The Franklin Ford dealership is looking to help the Franklin Food Pantry as well as Feeding America with a program they are calling "2013 Ford Escape Hunger Drive".

For every test drive of a new 2013 Ford Escape on Saturday, Sep 8th from 11:00 AM until 3:00 PM, Franklin Ford will make a contribution to Feeding America that will provide 40 meals. Donations to the Franklin Food Pantry will be accepted at Franklin Ford.

2013 Ford Escape Hunger Drive

A test drive will

• gain a donation from Ford to provide 40 meals
• get an entry to win a 2013 Ford Escape

When you go for a test drive, you can drop off a donation for the Franklin Food Pantry!

Stamp Out Hunger - May 14

With 1 in 6 affected by hunger, they can be found all around us.



Help your neighbor.

Stamp Out Hunger - flyer2011


Help us help your neighbor.

You can contribute by leaving some non-perishable goods for your postal carrier on Saturday, or help volunteer as the donations are delivered by the carriers to the Food Pantry on Saturday afternoon, or make a monetary contribution on the Food Pantry website http://franklinfoodpantry.org/


Franklin, MA

A photo slideshow of the Stamp Out Hunger drive in 2010

Stamp Out Hunger - May 2010

About 40 volunteers got really organized to help the Franklin Food Pantry to process the receipts from the US Post Office letter carriers on Saturday, May 8th. As the letter carriers finished their routes, they drove by the Food Pantry to drop off the bags of food items they collected. Prompted by post cards and TV advertisements, as well as word of mouth, Franklin residents left out bags of non-perishable food to be donated.

With the new Food Pantry location in the middle of downtown, it was a convenient drive through operation. The trucks pulled up. A group took out all the bags of food stuffs.

Individual bags were put into letter boxes.

The bags and boxes were weighted.

The bags/boxes were opened and checked for "freshness dates". The good items were passed along to the sorters. The older items went into a waste box. Items that could not be determined by date when into a 'check later' box.

The sorters put like items together.

"flats" of similar items then stocked the shelves.

The shelves were completely empty early Saturday afternoon and filled up as the processing took place.

For those who did leave out a donation, the letter carriers left a thank you card:

Thanks to the many hands for helping to process over 5.000 pounds of food!

Weight In	4746.7
Spoils	877.2		18.48%
Net	3869.5

Strictly speaking, since the food was handled going in and then the spoils (waste) was handled again going out, we did go over 5,000. Which also excludes the multiple touches on a single item as it moved along the process.


Visit the Franklin Food Pantry online here: http://franklinfoodpantry.org/