Boston Globe Subscribers: Redeem your enclosed GRANT voucher before it expires!

If you subscribe to the Boston Globe, we would ask you to consider the Franklin Food Pantry as the organization to benefit from your voucher.

GRANT: Globe Readers And Non-profits Together View web version Time's running out! Your $50 GRANT voucher expires soon. There's still time! Remember to take a minute to recognize your favorite charity through GRANT (Globe Readers And Non-profits Together). Exclusively for Globe subscribers, this incredible community initiative gives you an easy way to support the non-profit of your choice — at no cost to you or the charity you select. Here's how it works: Choose a non-profit organization in your area that you would like to recognize. Submit your selection by visiting BostonGlobe.com/GRANT and entering the following voucher number: (fill in your personal # here) Your non-profit accumulates GRANT dollars which it can later redeem for free ad space in the Globe (the more GRANT dollars earned, the larger the ad space provided). Please use on or before April 30, 2015. As a THU-SUN subscriber, you have $50 GRANT dollars to allocate to the certified 501(c)(3) of your choice. Stay up to date on subscriber contributions made to each organization by checking our 2015 Non-profit Leaderboard. For additional information on GRANT, please visit BostonGlobe.com/GRANT. Thank you for subscribing to The Boston Globe and joining us in supporting our remarkable community. Warmly, The Boston Globe To ensure you receive Globe GRANT emails, please add GRANT@globe.com to your address book. We value your privacy. . If you have any questions, please call 1-888-MY-GLOBE (1-888-694-5623). Address: The Boston Globe 135 Morrissey Boulevard Boston, MA 02125 ©Copyright 2015 Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC

"I saw people like me"

Catching up to the Boston Globe from earlier this week:

Dan Ryan looks at an empty plate the same way a painter considers a blank canvas: a starting point for something delectable. But what was once an exciting moment for the chef is now a symbol of anxiety. He constantly worries that he cannot put food on the table. 

After being diagnosed with advanced melanoma in 2010, Ryan, 48, a former chef at The Franklin Cafe in the South End and Gloucester’s Franklin Cape Ann, underwent several surgeries and chemotherapy that drained his family’s savings and forced him to quit his job. He and his wife, Tammy, slashed their budget to stay afloat, eventually dipping into the money set aside for food.

Almost 60 percent of Eastern Massachusetts families have had to make the same tough decision in the last year. According to a recent study conducted by the Greater Boston Food Bank, food insecurity continues to be a growing problem in Eastern Massachusetts, with food assistance agencies seeing more needy people in the last 12 months. The increase is mostly because of sudden illness or unemployment. 

Dan and Tammy Ryan turned to The Open Door, a food pantry based in Gloucester, to help keep their kitchen stocked and feed their three children, now ages 20, 16, and 8. Their situation transformed Dan Ryan’s perspective on who is hungry. “I saw a mother with three kids struggling, a 90-year-old woman,” Ryan says, “a guy who lost his lobster boat because he couldn’t make payments. I saw people like me.”

screen grab of the Boston Globe article "Food pantry closes the 'meal gap'

Continue reading the article in the Boston Globe here (subscription maybe required)
http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2014/10/07/when-tables-are-turned/Pt5rb7CHgbjyg4XKRkIDwN/story.html


Clients at The Open Door, a food pantry based in Gloucester, are very similar to those serviced here by the Franklin Food Pantry. Thanks to your contributions of time, food, and money the Food Pantry can help our Franklin neighbors.

Mobile food pantries hit the road

As announced earlier, the Boston Globe gets to talking about the mobile pantry that the Franklin Food Pantry has started.

In a move to serve residents who otherwise have difficulty accessing its services, the Franklin Food Pantry has launched a delivery service to provide assistance where its clients live and gather. 

Last month, the private, nonprofit operation began a series of weekly deliveries to three rotating locations — two at the town’s Housing Authority properties and one at the Franklin Senior Center. 

“One of the reasons we looked into doing a mobile pantry is that hunger can be very isolating,” said Erin Lynch, the pantry’s executive director and lone employee. “As much as possible, we want to make sure we’re reaching neighborhoods and connecting them to the resources they need.”

You can continue reading the full article in the Globe West section of the Boston Globe edition on Thursday or online here   http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/west/2014/07/30/mobile-food-pantries-hit-road-area-communities/t16S85DPe8NLxg61FBioOJ/story.html

the Franklin Food Pantry's mobile pantry

Related posts on the mobile pantry
http://www.franklinfoodpantry.org/2014/06/franklin-food-pantry-announces-summer.html

Volunteers for the mobile pantry can sign up here
http://www.franklinfoodpantry.org/2014/06/looking-for-volunteer-opportunities.html

Reminder: Help the Food Pantry by participating in Globe GRANT today

Franklin Food Pantry 

The Franklin Food Pantry has been fortunate to appear on this list and would appreciate if more Globe subscribers would participate. If you misplaced the mailing, there are instructions on how to contact the Globe to cast your ballot.

To see the current listing of the GRANT awards check here

https://services.bostonglobe.com/grant/LeaderBoard.aspx

GRANT: Globe Readers And Non-profits Together. View Web Version | Contact Us/Feedback

Dear STEPHEN, To start the new year, the Globe would like to ask you to be part of our newest community program, Globe GRANT (Globe Readers And Non-profits Together). The GRANT program will enable you to support the 501(c)(3) non-profit of your choice by helping them get free advertising space in the Globe to spread the word about their mission, recruit volunteers, advertise events, and more. This program comes at no cost to you or your preferred non-profit. GRANT is a FREE benefit for subscribers; here's what to do: Open your silver envelope you received in the mail. Write your favorite 501(c)(3) on the enclosed voucher. Mail the voucher in the postage-paid envelope. Lost your envelope? Just email us at grant@globe.com. Please include your name, email address, street address and non-profit.

To learn more, go to BostonGlobe.com/GRANT or call 617-929-3198.

To ensure you receive Boston Globe GRANT emails, please add grant@globe.com to your address book. We value your privacy. If you have any questions, please email grant@globe.com. Address: The Boston Globe 135 Morrissey Boulevard PO Box 55819 Boston, MA 02205-5819

If you are a Boston Globe subscriber, you can help

If you are a Boston Globe subscriber, please read on. If you are not, you can skip to the next article.

If you are a Boston Globe subscriber, you may have received this letter in the mail recently. If you did not send it to the circular file or recycle bin, you can act and help the Franklin Food Pantry.

The Globe is allowing subscribers like you and I to cast votes for non-profit organizations. Those non-profits with the most votes will benefit from the largest ad. The Franklin Food Pantry would like to take advantage of this 'free' ad in the Boston Globe.

The ad would help is tell the Franklin Food Pantry story to a larger audience.

This is where you can help.

Find the letter, fill out the card specifying the Franklin Food Pantry as the 501(c)(3), put it in the envelope provided by the Globe, and mail it.

The Franklin Food Pantry thanks you!

"It’s a big building because it’s a big problem"

The Greater Boston Food Bank is a key supplier for the Franklin Food Pantry. The Sunday Boston Globe Magazine has an article on the Food Bank's operation that reads in part:

She’s a trendsetter. The very next shopper, an older woman in a dark red velour jacket, takes a Hubbard, followed a little while later by a middle-aged woman who grabs one, too. After two hours, the doors close. Twenty-seven people have come through the Canton Food Pantry. Three of four Hubbard squash are gone. 

Less than two weeks before, those Hubbards were still on the vine at a nearby farm. Over the course of 10 days, they were picked, sold to the Greater Boston Food Bank, and then distributed to food pantries like this one, and to other hunger-relief agencies in the area. The life of these Hubbard squash, from the field to the tables of the needy, helps tell the story of a bigger journey: the evolution and expansion of the food bank, which has matured into a state-of-the-art food distribution giant that now feeds more than 90,000 people a week. 

The food bank made a splash a few years ago by building a new headquarters alongside Interstate 93 south of downtown. You’ve seen it — the one with 565 accent panels on the facade that, viewed from a certain angle, depict a red ear of wheat. If you’re like me, you’ve driven by and wondered, what goes on in that cavernous place, anyway? The answer is this: a lot more than I thought.

Read more about the Greater Boston Food Bank in the Globe Magazine article here (registration maybe required) http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2012/11/03/how-greater-boston-food-bank-growing-meet-growing-need/8BWiUXroYzxBR5DR02sgEL/story.html

Or go to the Greater Boston Food Bank web page http://gbfb.org/