Katherine Stewart
2024 Scholarship Recipients
2024 Scholarship Recipients
Katherine Stewart
Mark your calendars for NH Gives 2024 ~ June ...
Mark your calendars for NH Gives 2024 ~ June 11th & 12th
Katherine Stewart
2023 Scholarship Recipients
2023 Scholarship Recipients
Katherine Stewart
Mark Your Calendars for NH Gives
Mark Your Calendars for NH Gives
Katherine Stewart
FOM Launches Reverse Advent Campaign
FOM Launches Reverse Advent Campaign

*NEW* Food Pantry Hours in Canaan & Enfield

Beginning the week following Labor Day Weekend, the Friends Feeding Friends Food Pantries in both Canaan and Enfield will have new hours. Thanks to positive feedback from both shoppers and volunteers, each pantry will be open one day each week.

Emergency contact and access will remain available to volunteers and first responders.

With school starting, we welcome donations individually wrapped snacks and treats for students. We will continue to post our latest "Most Wanted" list each week. Thank you for your ongoing support!

Watch for news on a third location coming soon!

Friends of Mascoma Foundation Receives a New Van

We are the fortunate recipients of a beautiful new van that will be climate controlled to better enable us to travel and transport food for our Friends Feeding Friends Food Initiative.  Thank you generous donor for investing in your community.   We proudly showed our new vehicle in Enfield's Old Home Days Parade and passed out water and candy to our spectators.  Please consider being a volunteer or donor to help support our many projects. 

Friends of Mascoma Garden Science Updates

Our Garden Science summer class has some updates and has been taking some fantastic field trips.  First picture was taken at D'Acres in Dorchester and gave the class an up close and personal time with their pigs. A very big thank you to the D'Acres crew who shared a meal with the class and taught them what is means to live sustainably.   The second picture is Dave Shinnlinger, a MVRSD teacher, showing off his meat chickens and learning about the permaculture movement.  Your donations help us sponsor exciting projects like this and provide opportunities for our students.  

Enfield Village School Community Garden in Progress

Participating Mascoma students qualify for ELO (Extended Learning Opportunity ) credit. The products from this garden will be consumed by individuals and families in our District. Thanks to Mrs. Heather Oliver for spearheading this great learning opportunity.  FOM is delighted to be able to fund this and so appreciative to our donors who donated materials to be used.

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Community Garden Science

Generations Mural Being Preserved!

Another one of our large projects in progress this summer! We are dedicated to preserving the generations mural at MVRHS. Thank you to MTD's Property Maintenance and Contractors and our generous donors who are making this preservation project possible.  The mural removal went well and we are looking forward to reinstalling and restoring it later this year.

Our First Ever Scholarship Recipients!

We surprised the crowd at Senior Awards on June 5, 2016, by announcing a total of $6500 to seven outstanding students.  We are new on the scene!  Thank you gracious donors for helping these students take steps to prepare for a successful life ahead.  Please consider donating to us to offer this wonderful opportunity.

Left to right are Winny Cheng, Kenneth Severance-Camp, Barrett Morse, Andrea Bailey, Patrick Howard and Ben Jones. Not pictured is Madison Dow.

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AttentionMVRHS students!

Are you looking for something to do this summer? Do you like gardening? Do you like science?  Do you want/need an extra 1/2 credit? All of the above? If so, check this out this Community Garden Science class being sponsored by Friends of Mascoma Foundation! As part of the class you will help construct raised garden beds at EVS.

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A First Look at this Beautiful Finished Cherrywood Bench

Our "Art All Around Initiative" co-sponsored by The NH Craftsmen Guild is delighted to show you the beautiful work of Gary Wood, master wood craftsman, of Canaan.  He worked with the advanced wood class (Dave Shinnlinger) to create this stunning cherrywood bench.  Look for this in our Renovated High School in a prominent spot.  

In our future, we hope to see several more created by our students!

In our future, we hope to see several more created by our students!

2015 Annual Report

We are pleased to announce our 2015 Annual Report is now available online. If you have subscribed to our electronic newsletter, watch for copies in your email. Printed copies will be available at locations in all 5 towns soon!

Please click on the report below to view the full text and learn about the generous donors and organizations who have supported Friends of Mascoma since 2014.

Friends of Mascoma is grateful to our many valuable supporters and volunteers. We welcome members of the Mascoma community across the country and around the world to start or renew their membership for 2016 and look forward to another eventful year. Together we are working to create a prosperous future for our students and community.

Mascoma Music Matters Exceeds Matching Gift Goal

Thanks to our generous donors - we did it!

An anonymous donor came to us with a challenge to raise $5000 to create an elementary school musical instrument bank to receive a dollar-for-dollar match. Beginning on November 1st, donations toward the match started to trickle in.

Our campaign received a huge shot of energy when two Mascoma Alumni, Brooks Hubbard and Hannah Hoffman, offered to play a concert that would also count toward the match. We knew they would draw an amazing crowd and needed a venue to suit. Luckily Mountain Meadow Golf Lounge and Event Center had just the place! Just when we thought things could not get much better, we found out Deciduous Brewery, co-owned by brewer and Mascoma Alum David Sakolsky, had sent up 2 kegs he helped craft. You can see a few of those brews in the photo below along with our two artist and many of the Mascoma Alumni who attended.

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Nothing could stop Mascoma pride, not even a snow storm that caused events throughout the Mascoma Valley to be cancelled. Over 200 fans turned out to see Brooks and Hannah and midway through the concert we were able to announce we hit our match. Our community rose to the occasion! We even took the great Mascoma Alumni photo above. Many thanks to Mrs. Nancy Grout for the idea and for to Greg Hubbard for humoring us all to take a photo without warning or the right lighting.

Thanks to everyone who contributed by December 31st, 2015 and came to the concert we will be able to purchase, not just the original 10 instruments we set our sights on, but 11!

  • 2 flutes
  • 2 clarinets
  • 2 trumpets
  • 2 trombones
  • 2 saxophones
  • & 1 bonus instrument!

This means 11 students who many not have been able to afford to play an instrument will get a chance!

Did you miss this great event? Subscribe to our Newsletter and occasional updates [here] and follow us on [Facebook] and [Twitter]. Want to help? We are always looking for [volunteers] and [donations]. Liking and sharing on social media helps too! 

Announcing: Friends Feeding Friends

FRIENDS OF MASCOMA FOUNDATION is pleased to announce our latest initiative designed to combat food insecurity: FRIENDS FEEDING FRIENDS.

Friends of Mascoma Foundation (FOM), a 501(c)(3), was formed by a group of community advocates committed to supporting the needs of the Mascoma Valley Regional School District (MVRSD). FOM provides financial support to the MVRSD on initiatives that foster educational development for our students.

Core areas that FOM focuses on are:

  • Supporting students by funding supplemental educational opportunities and scholarships.
  • Providing teachers with "mini grants" enabling them to offer additional educational programs to their students.
  • Enhancing and improving the reputation of the District by helping highlight our community’s commitment to education.
  • Supporting successful existing programs to include more students or enable more financial support to expand.

The FOM Board of Directors and other community volunteers have been busy donating time and raising money to provide teachers and children access to opportunities that are currently beyond their reach. Over the past 20 months, they have implemented student scholarship and teacher mini-grant programs (officially launching in January/February 2016), supported collaborations with community artists and craftspeople in the schools, successfully fund-raised for an elementary school warm clothing drive, instrument bank, obtained funds through grant writing, and supported previously established programs. The School Board and Administration have been very helpful in allowing FOM access and supporting their agenda.

During FOM’s fundraising and community activities, it has become very clear that the Mascoma Valley Regional School District (MVRSD) has a problem that plagues many rural and urban schools: food insecurity.

While there are many definitions to food insecurity, City Harvest (http://www.cityharvest.org/hunger-in-nyc/food-insecurity) describes it well:

“Food insecurity refers to USDA's measure of lack of access, at times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members; limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods. Food insecure households are not necessarily food insecure all of the time. Food insecurity may reflect a household's need to make trade-offs between important basic needs, such as housing or medical bills, and purchasing nutritionally adequate food.”

Over 40% of the Canaan Elementary School children and almost 30% of the Enfield Village School children qualify for free or reduced cost meals. The percentage is less in our middle and high school for many reasons, not the least of which may be children may not want to admit they lack adequate food at home.

The wonderful teachers and administrators of these schools have tried to assist by raising money and using their own money to help food insecure children get extra food to combat this issue. There are also various organizations in our 5 towns that try to make up the difference not only for children, but seniors, unemployed, disabled, and those with jobs that do not cover their food needs. In working with the teachers, administrators, and community organizations, it has become clear to FOM that this is not enough to move the District into a food secure state.

FOM, along with community volunteers, decided to take the steps outlined below to try and fill gaps where they exist:

  1. FOM became an agency of the NH Food Bank, which distributes low and no cost food to 400 agencies in NH. As an agency we established three pantries that will service the five towns.
  2. We have permission from the Enfield Selectmen to manage the Enfield Food Pantry located in the town office. This will relieve the town management of the day-to-day responsibility and recordkeeping at no cost to them.
  3. We received permission from the MVRSD to utilize a room in the renovated high school to serve as a food pantry and provide access to the children of the Indian River School and the Mascoma Valley Regional High School. This food pantry will allow teachers and administrators of these schools direct access to stores of food for at risk children at no expense to the school district.
  4. MTD Property Maintenance and Construction of Canaan has donated office space located at 9 Mechanics Street in Canaan as another location.

We hope to be operational by the beginning February depending, of course, on the second most important factor: VOLUNTEERS!

We have many people that need our help and we are asking people to donate time. We have two locations that need to be staffed currently. Our intention is to have volunteers fill the hours of operation. We now feel, upon consultation with the NH Food Bank, the Enfield and Canaan food pantries should each be open four hours per week. This entails two hours during the day, perhaps 11:00 AM until 1:00 PM, and two hours late afternoon/early evening hours, perhaps 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM. We also need the volunteers to be there 30 minutes before opening to make sure shelves are properly stocked and organized.

We know that you are very busy, but we hope that with sufficient volunteers the effort can be kept to a minimum and the results maximized.

If you feel that this issue is important to you and you want to VOLUNTEER or have questions please email FOM: at food@friendsofmascoma.org. Please indicate the days and times you are available. This will allow FOM to structure the times of operation. Please let us know of any ideas you have to help improve and expand this new and evolving initiative.

How to Donate

You may also go online to donate to FOM Food Initiative at www.friendsofmascoma.org/donate. When you check out, select "Gift in Honor or in Memory of Someone" and write in “Food Pantry” as the designation. You may also mail checks to:

Friends of Mascoma Foundation, 340 Grafton Pond Road, Enfield, NH 03748

outline Of The Problem

In September of 2014, the Economic Research Service at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its most recent report on food insecurity, indicating that 48 million people in the United States are living in food insecure households, 15 million of whom are children.  While the magnitude of the problem is clear, national and even state estimates of food insecurity can mask the nuances that exist at the local level.

NH Food Bank Data

Learn more about food scarcity here in the NH Food Bank's"2014 Report to Our Community:" http://www.nhfoodbank.org//public/documents/Reporting%20to%20our%20Community_FINAL.pdf

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