It is hard to believe that 2018 (and the start to 2019) was even busier than the previous year! We finally completed our 2018 annual report and it can be found here. We are in the process of placing paper copies around the district and can mail you a copy, just shoot us an email at info@friendsofmascoma.org if you want a paper copy!
A Look at our Mascoma Valley Regional High School Food Insecurity Program
We partner with the MVRSD to bring resources to our school district to eliminate food insecurity for our students. Look through all of our pictures to get an idea of the awesome resources available to our students.
This is a collaboration of many partner agencies with the New Hampshire Food Bank. This would not be possible without all of our wonderful volunteers, donors and supporters who come together to make a real effort to make sure our school community has access to food resources. Spread the word of good things happening in our corner of the world! Please get in touch with us if you have any questions.
The following pictures show our MVRSD pantry. Free table, recycling ,Snack cupboards, students helping unload, food meal items to take home in backpacks , cold refrigerated snacks, frozen meat and personal items. All available for our students if so needed. Want to help? Be a volunteer with us or support us through donations to our Friends Feeding Friends Program.
We also have an Amazon Wishlist for specific nutritional snacks which are hard to get! Thanks in advance! food@friendsofmascoma.org
Friends Feeding Friends Celebrate Volunteers
On April 12, we held a pizza and cupcake party to celebrate our volunteers who are the the many reasons our Friends Feeding Friends programs reached a Year Three Anniversary. These individuals from all five of our school towns give thousands of hours each year to help neighbors in their communities reduce food insecurity by helping us redistribute food resources and reduce food waste. They transport food by picking it up at the New Hampshire Food Bank, Willing Hands, Price Choppers, Hannafords and the TCCAP in Plymouth.
They unload, unpack sort and shelve thousands of pounds of food .They transport food to the MVRHS in-school pantry. They also operate pantries in Enfield and Canaan where shoppers can pick out food from a great variety of choices every week. We love our volunteers! Want to be part of our team? Please email: food@friendsofmascoma.org
Alan Ricard, Kerri Lazurus, Edie and Bill Bellion , George Lazurus
Dan Moore, Carolyn Cusick, Steve and Terri Russell
Kaylee and Beth Felix, Andrew Cushing
Annelisa West , Coralie and AJ Stewart
Around the table- Sharon Kiley, Holly West, Lori Bliss Hill, behind: Nahid Tabatabei
Dan Kiley-(King of Food Tranports) and Kate Plumley Stewart
Michelle Hemmerling and twins!
Sue Huntoon and Mabel McGranaghan
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth Students Help with Friends Feeding Friends
A community service group of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth sponsored a personal items and food drive to be included in our Spring Break boxes that were offered to 60 school families. A group led by Isabelle Yang, a medical student, brought their collections and helped organize the boxes along with Cynthia Collea, the MVRHS and IRS pantry manager and district social worker. Peg Vincent and Lynn O’Leary of IRS Helping Hands helped coordinate. Several MVRHS students helped with the organization as well. Friends of Mascoma Foundation supplied all of the resources for the boxes…..and we do this for every school break!
Town of Orange - Evening of Music & Potluck Supper
Have you ever been interested in learning more about the Town of Orange? It is the smallest town in our five-town school district and boasts 289 residents (at last count), one mountain, and 23.2 square miles. They are celebrating their 250th anniversary, which is exciting news!
As part of the Town of Orange’s 250th anniversary celebrations, they are hosting an evening of music and potluck supper on Saturday, April 27th at 5:30 pm. Music begins at 5:30 pm and the potluck takes place around 7:00 pm. The event is being hosted at the Orange Town House on Town House Road.
This is a free and family friendly event, we hope to see you there!
Word on the street...
Word on the street is that we have some tough competition for prizes during NH Gives this year! NH Gives is how we raise money for our scholarship fund and the cash prizes enable us to give an extra scholarship or two each year.
Please consider joining our NH Gives team by signing up as a fundraising champion on our NH Gives profile. We will be sending more information on our NH Gives campaign in the next few weeks, stay tuned!
Scholarship Deadline is April 1st!
Money, money, money!
The deadline for applying for the Friends of Mascoma Foundation scholarship program is Monday, April 1st. Last year we awarded $16,000 in scholarships to 15 students in the Class of 2018. We are planning to award a similar amount to the Class of 2019, but might not be able to.
Why is this? To date, we have only received nine applications! The Class of 2019 is smaller than classes in previous years and we are aware we will receive less applications as a result, however we really love to award scholarships to outstanding students each year.
Please help us spread the word so we get a few more applications before the deadline. Late or incomplete applications are not accepted, however if students have already applied for post-secondary educational opportunities and other scholarships, they should have all the information needed to apply already.
Thank you for your help and support!
Thank You MVRHS Student Council!
We would like to thank the Mascoma Valley Regional High School Student Council for collecting and donating 91 pounds of food, personal items, and warm clothing to our Friends Feeding Friends program this winter! The donations were sorted, inventoried, and placed in the MVRHS food pantry. There were many wonderful items that will be much appreciated by students at IRS and MVRHS.
Hannaford Supermarket West Lebanon Charitable Giving Program
In 2018 Friends Feeding Friends program was the charitable recipients of $505.50 from their Bags4Cause program. We are chosen again for the entire month of APRIL. Please keep us in mind!
Partners with the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
We are partnering with the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth on a Personal Items Drive for our Spring Break boxes for school families. We are collecting the items on the notice below at the DHMC Main Building. You can find our donation boxes by Auditorium G-look for the posters.
If any MVRSD family would like to receive a box please get in touch with your school’s guidance counselor or email Cynthia Collea, our district’s social welfare agent and MVRHS food pantry at ccollea@mvrsd.org. by April 1. The first 60 families to register will receive a box of food and personal items. You can arrange pickup when you register.
Upper Valley Humane Society Partners with Friends Feeding Friends
Pictured here is Kay Hillinger from the Upper Valley Humane Society bringing their mobile pet food pantry to our Canaan site. Can’t forget about our pets and food insecurity, too! We so appreciate this added resource.
The UVHS does have a pet food pantry and we also keep pet food on hand. We love pet food donations!
MVRSD Winter Break Food Boxes
Lots of food support in our Mascoma Valley. Pictured is Carolyn Cusick, board member, pointing out 60 food and personal items boxes that were available to MVRSD families for Winter Break. The MVRHS pantry manager , Cynthia Collea spearheaded the project along with the district guidance department , Roger Hutchins and the Girls Volleyball team. There will be food boxes available for Spring Break also. Please get in touch with the school guidance department if you would like to be included if you have children in the MVRSD. We thank our partner, the New Hampshire Food Bank for helping us accomplish this.
The Snowball Fundraiser raised $400 for our Friends Feeding Friends program
Snowball report! In December Kaylee Felix hosted a fundraising dance at the Enfield Community Center for Indian River School students in December. All the proceeds ($400) went to our Friends Feeding Friends program . Our community youth have such community caring. Thank you also, Mom Beth Felix, board member.
News Flash! Co-Op Food Stores Pennies For Change program
The results are in! During the month of January, @Co-op Food Stores members and shoppers generously donated $4960.14 to us through this wonderful program. Thank you for “rounding it up” at check-out!
Scholarship Renewals - New in 2019
FOM has been asked about multi-year scholarships by many people and has come up with a way to make it happen! While it is not a traditional scholarship renewal program, our new program provides a way for past recipients to receive scholarship money from FOM for up to three additional years, while still allowing us to award a significant number of scholarships to the current graduating class.
FOM will leverage NH Gives as a way to help past scholarship recipients turn their one year scholarship into a multi-year scholarship. For more information please visit our scholarship renewal page on our website.
Empty Bowls - HUGE Success!
The past two months have flown by and we wanted to finally share an update on Empty Bowls in December. When we heard the plans that our district’s Art Teachers were making for Empty Bowls at Christmas in Canaan, we knew it was going to be an amazing event.
The planning, the prep work, and the community involvement was incredible. The night was even more impressive than we expected and we are truly grateful for the countless hours everyone poured into this event. At least 200 people attended the event and enjoyed hot meals in handcrafted pottery.
Jason, Cynthia, and Chris were excited to share that the total raise toward Friends Feeding Friends was $1,408.75! We are so thankful for their efforts. This is what the holiday season is all about, we love our Mascoma district! Thank you!
Enfield House of Pizza Fundraiser - Thank You!
The past two months have been a whirlwind of activity for FOM and we finally have a few minutes to share exciting news about our fundraiser at Enfield House of Pizza in December. Thanks to our many supporters, we raised $200 during our fundraiser. It was great to see so many of your faces at EHOP, we live in a great community.
A big thank you to Lori Bliss Hill and her wonderful employees for making this event a success.
Scholarship Deadline - April 1, 2019
Our scholarship deadline is quickly approaching and we need you to help us spread the word! We awarded $16,000 to the Class of 2018 and are looking forward to awarding scholarships to the Class of 2019 in June.
Please remind everyone you know about the upcoming deadline. The link to more information and the application can be found here.
Friends of Mascoma Foundation Scholarship Renewable for Past Recipients
Friends of Mascoma Scholarships Are Now Renewable Up to Three Times For Past Recipients
Friends of Mascoma Foundation is pleased to announce that, starting in 2019, scholarships will be renewable for past recipients up to three times. To be eligible for renewal, recipients must be enrolled in a higher education program, and must also be a fundraising champion for Friends of Mascoma during New Hampshire Gives. Only funds raised during NH Gives are eligible for scholarship funding, any other methods of fundraising do not count towards eligibility for scholarship renewal. Past recipients of Friends of Mascoma scholarships who wish to renew their scholarship are required to email scholarships@friendsofmascoma.org to notify Friends of Mascoma of intent to renew and provide current contact information.
Individuals pursuing the renewable scholarship should also sign up to be a fundraising champion on the Friends of Mascoma NH Gives profile by May 1st, Friends of Mascoma will provide fundraising tips to all fundraising champions by May 15th. NH Gives takes place from 6 p.m. on June 11th, 2019, to 6 p.m. on June 12th, 2019. Please note that it is crucial that donations are during NH Gives, not before or after, otherwise the donations do not count toward NH Gives prizes. After NH Gives is over, scholarship amounts will be calculated. Fundraising champions will receive 50% of the amount they have raised as a scholarship. The remaining 50% of the funds will be used to deposited into Friends of Mascoma’s scholarship fund to ensure the longevity of the program and to cover overhead associated with the NH Gives fundraising campaign. Past recipients must also provide proof of enrollment and scholarship remittal information by August 1st.
The Food Coop Stores Will Feature Friends of Mascoma in January 2019!
We are honored to be one of the 5 charities to benefit from the Food Coop Stores “Pennies for Change” fundraiser the whole month of January 2019. All you have to do when shopping at any of their stores is to say “round it up” at check-out time and your pennies benefit the chosen charities that month. Thank you for your support in the past for this wonderful community outeach.