Where is the Franklin Food Pantry? (video)

Thanks to Eagle Scout Zach Zollo, the Food Pantry now has a couple of videos to share. This one answers the question: Where is the Franklin Food Pantry?

Turkey Trot - Family 5K Fun Run - photo essay

The Turkey Trot Family 5K Fun Run held by Feed the Need drew over 300 participants on Thursday morning. The event benefited the Franklin Food Pantry filling the van with food and a donation of about $5,000.

The entry fee was 20 cans or $20. Part of the entry fees collected:

At the end, the Franklin Food Pantry van was filled with all the contributions:

The view of the group before the Start

One happy group running in costume on the course:

On behalf of the Franklin Food Pantry, Many thanks to Hayden Whitmore, the Eagle Scout who organized this event. Thanks to his family and the many volunteers who helped. The contributions to the Food Pantry are deeply appreciated.

This was also posted to Franklin Matters
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2012/11/turkey-trot-family-5k-fun-run-photo.html

Turkey Trot Family 5K Fun Run - Nov 22

If you are a runner, or walker you can help the Franklin Food Pantry.

Registration, course map and additional race information can be found at http://www.feedtheneed.org/

If you would like to organize a collection in your neighborhood, you can print out this flyer to use

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

"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/