film my wife will solve the thanksgiving every other year for the family and they came from all over the country we had seventeen people and we have small to bring something for the food pantry and i hope you all do the same thank you very much thank you paul very much and she is one of our gifts of hope donors this year she's having a fundraiser on december seventeenth at her store anything you buy ten percent of the sales will go to gifts a pope to benefit the belmont food pantries home and introduce car lot and she's knows the knows the neighborhood knows the area has been so helpful with the community and then reaching out he's here today to help support the food pantry telefon because he identifies people as well they could use help so you want to tell people the please come by bring food and team effort yeah we have a lot of good options out there doing a lot of good things and what they do is if they see somebody in need they get to the people and make sure they make the contact for the necessary to make that pitch it also the check from the so long and this is the cash we have a couple of customers they try to donate whatever they like to donate some cash so this is all going above eight hundred dollars total  this is jane she is one of the customer who likes to have a straight blog that i and her head it's king cake for a z we wanted to make a nice and straight microphone and where do you go to school area and what's the greatest town in all of the world good girl that's all the right answer and this is her dad gangs out was a good friend of mine i want to thank you  now i have with me today a person who is not only a dear friend but is the chair of the school committee that's not the most important thing in in your life i don't think but the chair of the school committee she's an active volunteer with the belmont food pantry is involved with the social action committee at the unitarian church we have lori graham laurie welcome to the belmont media center today it's wonderful to be here and it's especially nice to be here since i spent this morning at the food pantry where we had over sixty five families come in on our regularly scheduled first saturday of the month to   food we this is a very busy time of year for us as are all the winter months of people who come who need to have the food that we can provide to them and it's incredibly important that we have contributions made all year long because every time we have the food pantry open the shelves can be there and you know a matter of an hour we need to keep constantly be restocking those shelves and to be able to be able to keep it sustainable so that we the families that come in the subsequent weeks know that they'll be able and it's a time of year which we need to reflect upon those of us that are more blessed and others you know that there are a lot of individuals that are out there they're still struggling you know struggling with certain issues and we need to give more to these individuals so that they can you know better join their the holiday season as much as we have so far please call the number that roger indicated six point seven four eight four two four four three drop off food here you know the food ph does wonderful work for our community and me it's so surprising when patty tells me the number of families that are still actively using the food pantry it's really a surprise and so there's a lot of folks still in need but my son my son who is now  studying in italy was a jew as a junior at middlebury actually did a fair amount in community service did volunteer at the food pantry quite a bit and within the within the community as well is certainly it's a requirement of the high school for  kids to to perform community service so they're all active but he did a fair amount there and so it so certainly is sarah who's now a software about my high school to all the high school kids that are out there continuing your community service it's so important to give back to our community give more than what you're required to give which is so important as well r six weeks now i come from california and i moved here to be the head pastor and one of the first things i was told about was this church christmas fair that we do and the way in which it brings the community together the way in which it helps spread cheer and get not only the members of my church into the christmas spirit but also the wider community as well and so we have a video of this and can we show that video now the day during a lunch and baked goods by members of the congregation and several mission projects over suborning this year full disclosure my next guests just happen to be people that i care very much about they're from fitness together which is right around the corner here from the belmont media center and i've been with them for over three years this is paul and i have peter who's the owner they've both trained me they've trained my son john who many of you know and i have a special place in my heart for all that they've done for my family as far as keeping us in shape and reminding us of how porton good nutrition and health is j can you tell me a little it but now to to help out the food pantry telethon here today sure so for the last few months we've been doing our pounds for a purpose program pounds for a purpose program our clients pledge to lose weight in order to donate money and funds to the belmont food pantry so for every pound lost we pledge to donate one dollar to the belmont food pantry and for every percentage of body fat lost we pledge to donate three dollars to the belmont food pantry in addition to that clients and people in the community could bring in food to fitness together here in waverly square in the watertown savings bank building and we're proud to say we raised over about one hundred pounds of food for the belmont food pantry over the last couple of months and through our clients hard work and monetary donations from the community we raised about two hundred fifty dollars this and fitness together we pledged to double that donation so today we have a check for five hundred dollars yeah it was really important so here it is you're getting people to take the pounds off though we're trying to put it on paula real quick i want to say hi she's got the cutest face she's a personal trainer but you know i still beat you up in the gym and yell thank you for every minute am here with david rogers he is the state representatives but well thank you very much joanne it's great to be here at the belmont media center for such a good cause and yet as you said hopefully people will call and i think the numbers right here is that six one seven four eight four two four four three that's six one seven four eight four two four four three and you could call in and in this season of in the spirit of the season make a contribution to help those who who need the services the belmont food pantry i'll just briefly introduce a couple of santa's stopped by and introduce hi my name's annette giving to those in need and david i'm going to throw the microphone over to you so you can talk about why the belmont so important and why people should donate sure thank you again joanna and the food pantries important  for a lot of different reasons but i think it's important for people to remember that although you know we live in a an area that has a lot of folks who are relatively comfortable there are others of modest means who may be going through difficult times and there has been cuts at the federal level to food stamps and other programs so it's particularly important that people be aware that that we reach out to help those in need and i think the other thing to really remember is that it could happen to anyone you know even in my own family my father was very prosperous birhan had a very successful and thriving business middle upper middle class choose your term and then he unfortunately died suddenly in my family had a precipitous decline in income in ghana it really can happen to anyone and so you know no one should feel any shame to get some help and the wonderful thing is this is one of the most warm hearted giving decent communities anyone can imagine and there are so many wonderful people in that's wonderful really thank you so much for your support for this event the many many contributions your whole family makes to this community thank you for all you do so let's see i would i would we're going to continue on here for thanks again for the contribution thanks for coming in we've got brit joined us today thanks so much for coming in thank you for having me i wanted to donate because i realize that people don't have as much as me so i want to help that's good what  pantry and a lot of all right all right will somebody be going to be very glad to pick up that bag at the food pantry thank you so much for coming in thanks for what you're doing that's what that's what we want everybody think it's the next person can just keep on come and keep on coming hello everyone we have very special guests visiting us from eight hundred sixty three believe it or not live in the flesh from eight hundred sixty three i am pleased to introduce the aunt and uncle of wins low homer they own the home or mansion on pleasant street which is currently managed by the belmont women's club and i'm very pleased to introduce the miss miss mrs adeline wellington homer and her husband william hi nice to be here we didn't have all of these clever devices back in eight hundred sixty three but it's a pleasure for us to be here to support the belmont telethon we're grateful for the opportunity to appear i am william flagg homer i am the uncle of winslow homer famous artist of the nineteenth century but a lot of people don't realize that when slow really got a significant start here in belmont he was a resident of belmont he visited my home on pleasant street many times and the several of his paintings are actually completed on the grounds of the house now we've just completed today a great experience a celebration of christmas eight hundred sixty three and it was a great turnout i believe it is now time to say hello to warn next guests here in the studio we've got stuck and reynolds with with a special guest hello i am hi thank mahoney who is the president of belmont savings bank i'm sure you're all noticing how beautiful my hair looks and i just want to say thank you to salon de perigee did my hair and makeup today is also a big sponsor of media and they are terrific  leader here in a understand you brought something you brought a donation today what we brought some food over by my wife and kids put together a great bag of food and i want to know why i was invited to go to the hair salon ahead of time to get spiffed up a little but i was he didn't get the  is interested can drop off food at the bank to leonard street over the next two weeks up until december twenty first but look to make a special announcement bellman savings bank would like to donate one thousand dollars a day to the food bank to continue the wonderful work they do you know in a town like belmont you think do we really need a food bank to be answer is yes we have to leave the food bank there's plenty of people who need help at this time of the year unfortunate circumstances bad luck and we're very happy to support those family is that right the reynolds or something right yeah i've heard of that so that's great that's terrific points thanks and thanks to the members of the belmont watertown pop warner league for their generous food donation and i'm sure belmont high school football coach kevin guild is going to be very belmont savings bank so we were donations are just coming in fast and furious i mean you know monetary alone we've come up with close to four thousand dollars in cash and then there's been all the food donations to as you just saw the pop warner team bring it in there are their bags of food and again you know food money however you would like to make a donation carwash tickets from c g at the car watch whatever you'd like tell me why we're very pleased to have the republican candidate mr frank out of a centers that need actually to reach the citizens that live in the community so it's very important to someone takes the responsibility to facilitate that so citizens can participate by giving donations and helping those that are less fortunate hello everyone again i have with me to my left danielle mclean she's a citizen harold's newest reporter so everyone give a big round of applause for danielle i think you started with me when again about a boma it was unbelievable i've never seen anything like the one in the morning and there's hundreds and hundreds of people dislike sitting there waiting sorting through food bags and i thought that was amazing in itself and and i also want to introduce in my right i have belmont resident elaine  bank unfortunately it's something that's needed pretty much everywhere in bully and it's very happy to do its part too you know but you know as a mom you know with a child in the school system everywhere it doesn't really matter what use a coat is and so you know unfortunately this even a lot of suicide that's happening because of it so what do we do how do we get money for programs for bullying that is so crucial and essential when this cutbacks even for art you know with things like that so you know sometimes a necessity is the mother of invention and when my daughter was really being bullied quite a bit it just this whole thing just kind of came to me and the shirts are actually the whole product line is in production right now the websites live but i brought a couple of drawing on what the shirts are i don't know if we can get a closeup but what it is is they're very they're cool slogans they are empowering sayings and some of them a little little tongue in cheek and funny but the reality is when the kids all buy these in the schools and they have like a zero tolerance to a bully and day the empowering feeling that the kids get being the majority that's not going to put up with that anymore bully and pledges money from that big whole school sale back to the school to fund their bully initiatives and believe programs i am so fortunate to be to be introducing and rojas a selectman for the town of bell mine and leave l youth of belmont i would say were you all you're doing see the points from the belmont watertown popcorn and so we've been exploring a lot of things again to try and bring taxes down in the town of belmont to see what we can do it maybe you could tell some more things that boosters this is looking at is primarily to support the high school and every year it gets harder and harder to maximize the amount of money that goes towards athletics because there are other needs within the system that schools obligated to spend money on so fortunately for the last few years we've had a split forty percent of the operational budget has gone towards x and the rest of it is funded by this piece which have remained fairly constant his concern is that fees will have to rise as programming costs rise and or the school budget won't be able to contribute as much as they have in the past and quite frankly if they aren't able to contribute that amount of money the programs will be in jeopardy before i go i have to say a personal message too that i have been here at belmont media for a year now and i cannot tell you how great it's been that about six months ago i was told that i had a interned coming in from northeastern university and that she was going to be helping me with my show and this kid has been the greatest thing that has ever happened to me and my family that is  so she has been so great and so helpful and let me tell you if this is what the future of our country looks like in their young people this is it this is a young lady who was dating someone who said to me i broke up with him because he didn't realize how awesome i was so but gifts of hope is designated you know from thanksgiving through new years and i want to thank everyone who's participated today it's been a great time everyone's had all that and it's been wonderful and the food has been coming in to m display so it's been a great job for everyone thank you both of you the belmont so i hear all the put this on every year at the belmont media center every year but really you know none of this everyone is going to be possible without having who was the one who started this she was the one who realize that we can't let our community word team like the patriots out there right we have to go into fighting we take care of each other and we play to win and win in order to we take care of the whole will be from the belmont high school sharon quartet once again thanks to all of you to donating to this wonderful caused food pantry and the fourth annual gifts of hope we will see you again next year happy holidays