season's greetings and welcome to the two thousand and eighteen the gifts of hope telefon presented by the belmont media center and the belmont citizen harold a grand tradition that has gone all the way back to two thousand and ten as a joint production between the citizen harold and the b m see my name is todd bloody arms joined along side for the next three hours or at least parts of the next three hours by joanna jubilance the editor of the belmont citizen herald and by laurie graham coordinator in a mess on the belmont food pantry and also serves on their board of directors we are going to be here live for the next three hours see that's something i'm very familiar and saying and we will be taking your phone calls if you'd like to make monetary donations the phone number is six one seven four eight four two four four three again if you like to make any donations to the belmont food pantry here on sunday december thirty first we're going to be broadcasting for the next three hours live again that phone number six one seven four eight four two four four three  you'll be coming in to bringing your food donations to the media center which is located on nine lexington street i just need to know which camera i'm looking at know what's going to be directions out here which camera to look at i do love live t v anyway  joanna this is a tradition for the year which can i will be looking at this camera thank you thank you very much our volunteer of the year joanna let's talk about the other gifts of hope telephone it is a wonderful tradition that goes  my time and that charity of choice has always been the belmont food pantry it's the local cars other towns also do the gifts of hope campaign on this one in arlington that benefits arlington food pantry there's also one  winchester so every community doesn't have hope campaign but belmont has always done the belmont food pantry i've been involved with it for seven years and it's very rewarding i i think it's grown since i got involved so i reached out to a lot of local businesses who support the campaign and you really by having fundraisers at their stores and giving a percentage of the proceeds to the belmont food pantry there's also  flatow nations that they make and if anyone gets the paper you'll see there's an ad that the campaign officially kicked off in our nov twenty ninth edition so every week through new years you'll see an ad that shows all the logos of the businesses that are supporting the gifts of ho campaign we have a lead sponsor which is patty make tag of kabul banker and then we have major donors and top donors and it's you know i really every year i don't even have to ask they actually ask me you as the calendar gets december we're going to be talking actually hearing seeing some live performances from among others the red herring morris dancers the fred astaire dancers and also going to have some singer songwriters in here and david deal does so well and you know every year the food pantry is such a big cause of course for the gifts of hope telethon all the food donations but this year's donations actually mean a little bit more that it's kind of a big year for the food pantry it's been going for which has been going for a quarter century but big news particularly this year coming up in the next couple of months big move coming for the food pantry absolutely we are hope everybody knows that we are going to be moving in february beginning of february to a space in the town hall and we've been looking for a very long time for a permanent space we've been in five different places through our time supporting people in belmont we were in the old fire station we've been behind the high school and smuggler units we were in the old like department we've kind of bounced around right now we're in the basement of mount hope church we've been there for a little over a year for a while we were in the  at town hall but we also want to thank two students former belmont high school students who as their capstone project were looking at food justice throughout the country but specifically about  belmont and they determined that one of the biggest issues we had was not support necessarily we we got lots of supporters joanna said from the town throughout the year but we needed to find a permanent space and they developed a project they developed a video oh presented it to the board of selectmen and i think that kind of raised the awareness amongst the town leaders about the crucial need for a permanent space so we're very excited that we're going to be moving and you should be it's great you know obviously you know you've been looking for a permanent home for many years and it's great that you know you guys have one now and you know the big move up coming course we also want to mention that so you can currently if you want to make donations you can bring them here to the belmont media center which is a by lexington street again at this if you're watching this live on sunday december the first if you're not you can always go to the the media i mean you can go to them i hope church and just what it should let us know again where that's located and it's  hours of operation when people can make either make donations or if they want to they need to what they want to stop by well actually at the moment the belmont food pantry is not open for we are in the process of moving so we are handing out gift cards to our clients to our patrons who come but we are not distributing food at the moment we're in the process of moving everything over so we have been at mount hope church on lexington street but right now it's not a place for dropping off food that's good to know i mean so right here as you say you're kind of in the transition mode right now we're in transition but that doesn't stop the residents of course from wanting to work you know  residents can still those and i think right now it's about two hundred residents today and residents who will use that approximately and those folks will be able to get their gift cards or whatever from where they still can come get yes get their gift cards were open four times a month we're open the first and second saturday the other side the first and third saturday and now we are going to go over to the studio and we'll be back in a few minutes to talk more about the food pantry ok we're back again that was the other red herring morris dancers and they are they've been performing as a group since two thousand and one not continuously just so you know i  love our waving camera people they're going to be they're going to make sure they get our attention regardless but i don't know we're going to hear from them again later the dancers they're not done right that wasn't their only performance was that you know we're going to hear more from the from here i keep seeing here more there dancers we're going to see more of the fred airing the red herring yes i'm sorry red herring marez danda red herring morris dancers they are from the belmont it's a belmont organization most of the dancers come from the greater boston area and we look forward to seeing more of their december first we accepted all food donations here at the b m c location at nine lexington street in belmont's waverly swear also you can phony and if you want to make a monetary donation phone number six one seven four eight four two four four three  joana you mentioned at the top you were talking about all the different local merchants in belmont that are have gotten behind the gifts of hope telephone cause it's more than just the citizen hero them the b m c and w here the telethon the talk about all the different merchants  ok so december eighth our cars are looking really dirty these days take your car to belmont car wash get it washed and a dollar for every car wash will be donated to the belmont food pantry that's the belmont carwash on december eighth if you still have christmas shopping to do which a lot of us still do save some of it for december tenth and shop local at several belmont center businesses who are participating they're going to be giving ten to fifteen percent of their proceeds from the sales on december tenth to the belmont food pantry and those businesses are couvade fine wines thirty paddles diedrich so local root the toy shop of belmont bells and i like i was enjoying at the top there he said you know we still have some shopping to do we still have some shopping to do who don't we start any other shopping yet i guess i'm talking speaking for myself i haven't done a lick a shopping so yes i'm going to check out some of those local belmont merchants i think what's nice is you're not just you no t just spending money in and buying a gift for someone you're helping a really good local cause the belmont food pantry on that on that date absolutely it's yeah is it it's of like say the buyout of merchants now i mean boy that's like of almost a dozen they are telling people that if you want to send a letter to santa they have a red mailbox it's a special mailbox with letters to santa you can mail your letter to santa in exchange for a donation to the belmont food pantry which is a be let's go over to that afternoon belmont we are good afternoon belmont we are excited to be performing as part of the don't telephone for the belmont food pantry a little bit about red herring morris morris dancing comes from  england the dances that we do is a style that comes from the part of england near wales it's called border morris because they're the border counties and the first dance that we did a few minutes ago was called the circle dance and this one is called jolly roger great performance very unique performances there by by the again the red herring morris dancers we thank them we'll have again a lot more entertainment coming up today here on the gifts of hope telethon for two thousand  to be sure that a lot of belmont businesses have chosen to give flat donations to the belmont food pantry and they are patty make tag with called caldwell banker lynn finley with caldwell banker she's to be coming by here today we have everybody and belmont savings bank and now i'm trying to remember the leading edge in man and julia jenkins will be coming by lara panos who's a local attorney she's also one of our donors this year and like i said if you get the belmont his and harold every week there is an ad and it has everybody's logos who have donated and we mentioned of course that you can both call you can call us live six one seven four eight four two four four three if you'd like to make a monetary donation to the belmont food pantry you can also drop off your food donations here at the b m c today while we're recording the recording live today on december the first right laurie also of course others appeal box of people want to still do the old school if they want to and want to mail a check or make their donation that way it's a post office box two ninety one in belmont that's right  also want to add though that many of these businesses that you referred to also donate to us during the year for instance mercantile often brings so it's an toiletries for doing mother's day and father's day to give to our clients they've also done collections for back to school things so so they do it throughout the year and that's really what really makes it a wonderful community cause that we are getting support from individuals but we're also getting support from businesses and that's what keeps us going because we are a volunteer organization and we are dependent totally upon donations and support from the community so we're very grateful for everybody well and speaking of those donations i believe we did have a someone here at the b m c anyway we're going to go back to studio a i get we still seeing and hearing the fred hearing morris dancers let's go to them now in the studio way ok many of you may recognize which we started doing years ago and i've never been able to stop well come back again we want to thank one more time the red herring more stance or is at is a dance troupe from belmont again most of the dancers come from greater boston that very unique stylings but it was wonderful to see them perform and see and hear the brand new well relatively one year old belmont newsmagazine great program that is thank you c e o and you also host your own pod cast a community conversations i do and thanks it sat it's nice to be over here for this great cause i do spend a fair amount of time at the media center now and there's a great staff over here helping to deliver hyper local news and through bit about my journal and helping to look more deeply into activities her and we're going to probably be seeing him a little bit later here on our coverage of the the gifts of hope telethon so it's nice to have both you and nice to have the belmont journal represented here today thank you thank you it's great to be here we're also very happy to be food pantry table donation we just want to make sure you're being heard and we collected items so we collected over two hundred items and today we have five hundred fifty dollars in checks from our company from  very generous donor in town karen giorgio we also collected names from all the people who donated items we collected over about five or i think three hundred items and we said that we were going to be wrapping up a gingerbread house sort of in keeping with the real estate theme here and i have our two winners that monica and i just picked jake fired jets and will be sending an email we have a phone number also is a winner and they could come to our office this week to pick it and where's your office located eighty four leonard street right next to the belmont cafe ok and we have diane wheeler is our other winner of this gingerbread house and we're hoping that people while they're watching this feel inspired also go on the web site give a donation to this wonderful institution of the food pantry which is really serving an important need thank you so much for having us although probably one of the two if you work for a leading edge oh for a long time but we're we're thankful for your donation i believe the fred astaire dancers are now available and ready to perform in studio way oh i'm sorry we're going to have more the freddie herring of the red herring red herring morris dancers the red herring morris dancers with one more last dance would like to do one that we wrote it's called clockwork because it has a lot of stick clashes that sound like the workings of a clock we're being joined by elizabeth who was the owner of the fred astaire dance studio here in belmont and we're going to sing some performances from them coming up in a few minutes so actually if you could pick up your microphone there and you can up please make sure it's turned on we do want to hear everything you're saying so i welcome tom for joining us living in belmont for twenty years and have been advanced student and decided to as a second career go in a local intrepid nor and i my goal is related create a growing community in belmont and also with lexington we have wonderful students in our community some of them are you know university professors we have local business owners like joe rank tori and his wife are students adam dash is taking lessons so it's a really wonderful community and you're in christian square right where in cushing square above the spirit gore may on the second floor present well welcome to welcome to belmont and thanks for stopping over today thank you yeah i mean we're going to be seeing several performances from your dance troupe a including i guess couple of them of latin valerie there are top editor world competitors so they they compete with all over the world and different various competitions are correct they just came back from the top u s competition and they'll be competing in england in january and they have you know amazing track records can you tell us you know are there particular types of dancing that you teach yes that's a great question thank you so we teach many of the social dances like swing salsa hustle but we also teach ballroom which is waltz foxtrot tango other things like marang a chalk what we're going to see from flat and valerie are examples of latin and jive and some of those dances we don't even see much anymore so it's great that you're you're teaching them and what do you tell to somebody like me who says i can barely chew gum and walk at the same time i could can i take dance lessons yes well you won't chew gum while you're dancing ok i only have to let you walk you can be a learn how to dance because well basically dancing is just moving in alternating your feet and i just talked a moment about the fact that we just had a donation dropped off  generic sappy and yeah so i do want to encourage people either to stop over at the studio today we are having a great time over here there's a lot of fun there are  there are treats here but in addition to stopping over to studio you can call the phone number and make a donation at six one seven four eight four two four four three so please please where performer who are currently is at juilliard and so unfortunately he's kind of busy right now with you know taking classes and whatnot so otherwise he would have been here again to perform for us at the gift of hope telephone he was on some of our a some gratitude to the business is and how supportive the business is are of the the public service activities that they go on do you do you have an opinion as of organizing events that give back to the community and certainly we hope that we will be part of the community in return that our local residents will support our businesses because as as we do you know you know running small business is challenging  particular when you're can competing against big box retailers and so we certainly you know want to be part of the community help the community supports us in return well is about what makes you what you said the relatively new business here in town will make you decide to choose belmont as a place to work to have your dance studio well i've lived in belmont for twenty years and i'm wondering whether was a little yeah exactly so i really love belmont i think it's a wonderful community i love that so much of it's walkable i have two kids in the school system one at the middle school at the high school and i just think it's a wonderful place to live i think we're really really fortunate and we're going to what we're actually going to go to this prerecorded clip hi i'm kristin  neighbor or the hard to find money to get for your boss's daughter or just that little something for yourself just because we've got the right gift for any nation we supported thinking through the whole campaign because we believe in giving back to the community over two hundred families involved that struggle to feed themselves and we believe that it's very important to wishing everyone in the belmont community a very merry they do so we're back from watching the dancers thanks for stopping over again elizabeth before we broke we had started to talk about your friday night to get togethers to dance and thank you and if you learn how to do that you can dance maybe not quite like that but we can all ok and enjoy that performance you should come to our holiday party we have one on friday december twenty first where valerie in black will be performing get we do have regular friday parties where we you know bring together our community of practice and learn to dance one last thing i wanted to mention is that if you ever anyone who's watched the dancing with the stars show we do have the celebrity tony dovolani coming in january to our studio and you're located in cushing square what's the address again for four eight common street above the spirit gore may and you know as you look into the new year dancing is a wonderful way to get exercise and meet new people so thank you for having a song do you also have like a website or time today they've been generous financially we thank you and again i do want to talk about her mention the fact that individuals can contribute to the telethon here to the food pantry through the tel on the phone number is six one seven four eight four two four four three and they can also bring their food donations to the belmont media center studios live on sunday december first we're here for three hours from from noon to three o'clock  and the v m c is located at nine lexington street in belmont you can bring your food donations here there's a supermarket right across the street from the b and c so you can always go over there some food shopping and then just bring the donations over here for the food pantry i notice  we were keeping a running tally here and we are now up to just short of one thousand dollars for the day we are at nine hundred eighty dollars and eighty one cents so thank you for everyone who has off to a great start again this year and again we're having a great time down here you might be able to tell there's a there are a lot of smiles going on there's we have food here at the media center studios that we're having a lot of fun please feel free to stop in join in on the fun yeah absolutely can i ask you a question ok go ahead rog you mentioned that how long the the telethon has been going on how long have you been doing sports for belmont media yeah well i was doing it before my time well know before they called it the belmont media center the studio is gone under various names yeah actually probably about a quarter of a five gift cards with fifty one dollars each that's good for detail in a wash and so the first five callers who make a donation over one hundred dollars are going to get one of these and then in addition to that we have ten wash books and these are good for there's five carwashes and each one and we have ten of those so the next ten callers who make a donation of fifty dollars or more after that will get one of those so in addition to the carwash is going to be making a donation i believe five hundred dollars and next saturday december eighth and rates we're going to have every every card that comes in we're going to donate a dollar to the pantry as well that's great and can tell us where the belmont carwash is you know where it here so you know it's and it's the only live show too so it's always fun growing on top of the show but you've done some great you know some great stuff for the belmont football team i know that's kind of a near and dear to both areas because i've done some play by play for him and interviews with the code and you've done a lot of kind of special videos like preseason season rap videos some really good stuff which is actually also won some local and regional aborts around here yeah that's right and you know when i was in high school i made a lot of videos for just question roger i did i just want to do the belmont carwash is one of the local businesses this seems to really give a lot back to to the community again can you tell us what your relationship with the broader community is i mean you're really more more than a business here in bell right so the carwashes been in its current location under the same ownership for i believe fifty fourth if you three or fifty four years this year and the owners the have been in the family through its entire duration and over the course of the years they've managed to do a lot of fund raising what they do often is we invite schools like such like a softball teens you know dance schools and whatnot and they have the ability to wipe down cars in the tips that they earn from wiping down those cars those are then donated and you know as busy as we are with this great location those those donations come in wash and while they were needed help the food pantry needed help relocating they generously offered some of the space so how's the food pantry temporarily while they need while they were relocating and you've been working for the car wash for media center here at six one seven four eight four two four four three we are raising money today for the food pantry you can either call and make a donation you can stop by our encourage people to stop by we're having  a great time we have food here you can see what's important to me we have food food here or of course you can just write a check and send it to the p r box p o box two nine one eight four two four four three yeah this is a wonderful cause that we all enjoy doing for sure and as well as all of the local businesses in belmont lucas thank you again very much for being here to represent the carwash and the b m c two you've been long there up the band eleven that performs here in the local boston area benji also is a member of the dirt us which is a european band they are offering their new cd so the next three people who come down and make a donation will receive a copy of the  feels good when you get to perform for a good cause those are the my favorite personally my favorite gigs which are most of them so they've it's going to play one of the s called diamond skies this is called diamond skies it's it's about being a parent all right we're back here again hope you are enjoying our live coverage of the gifts of hope telethon brought to you by the media center and the belmont citizen herald it's been a joy collaboration since two thousand and ten ninth year we've all been huge fund raiser in the doing this telethon and patty it's good to see you here well it's great to see you too tired i'm so glad that this is happening again and of course you just said it's because of me and i'm you know not really it's because of how much food pantry is here  serve and take care of the belmont residents and to have you guys put this together every year is just so much fun it adds such a different way of getting the word out educating you know about what residents about what the  why it was created and yes we can so basically i was in a position one of my entry level positions working over at saint joseph here in belmont and every once in while i would get do about would bring in people people from belmont would ask for assistance and food and they proceeded to tell me that all they can go to lexington and they can go to arlington and they can go to cambridge and they can go to waltham watertown because belmont doesn't have a food pantry so what we're having was belmont residents going to other communities and other communities were taking care of our grown since the first year it has the first year the day that we opened i had sixteen residents use the food pantry for this month alone just i have had one hundred seventy three belmont residents receiving holiday gift cards for thanksgiving and christmas and now the food pantries been going strong for a quarter of a century like twenty five years b what it's become a fixture here that has element that has definitely you know i found i've been part of belmont all my life and part of the minister pallium part of the community for a very long time and it  seems that belmont food pantry is the only organization that is one hundred percent supported by the residents it doesn't cause any controversy everybody willy supports and understands the needs you know that it supplies for it starts from one of the first thing that we do is that we actually distributed gift card for thanksgiving for christmas and during the spring easter holiday so that the families can go and purchase perishable items for their holiday meals so and then the next thing we do is we do stock our shelves we use the monetary donations to supply the food this year is special you're also going to be able to want to add some freezers and have the ability to be able to take in different types of food donations that you didn't before you know such as more perishable items yes there is a section there that we will be able to  get the right feet freezer because one of the other things that we've the new things which we've have done several different new things over the last couple of years is we have become part of greater boston food bank and they not only supply nonperishable contributions of more than twelve hundred dollars today one thousand two hundred thirty dollars that i can contribute by calling the media center here for a four to four for three again the belmont media centers telephone number where people can call to make a contribution to the food pantry is six one seven four eight four two four four three and building off that phone call roger if you call in right now you can if you if you make a donation of donation of at least fifty dollars you can get a book five free car washes and that's all from belle my car washed in a long time don't either of the other now patriot of course we mentioned also a former home a former space for the future and a short time as well  next song is a song off my latest album hold your own band the durga is it's called marching man it's a it's about the time we live in again we're so we are a big thanks to david de soleil and benji i think we're going to be hearing a little bit more from them in a bit but they are original songwriters and you know coming up with some very original music and they are here  contributing to their time to raising money for the belmont food pantry we are here raising funds let me once again encourage people to call in to make their donations we are here for a purpose today if people want to make a contribution to the bam out food pantry they should call six one seven four eight four two four four three and if they are making monetary donations they can we're offering a lot of giveaways right now so if you'd like to call us if you're watching us live on sunday december first lots of options for you to choose from so we're giving incentive to call in and make a donation to the belmont food pantry always happy to be joined here by patty mccallum the founder going on twenty five years here at the belmont food pantry there i did say quarter century that time i was trying to make i give up trying to give you more very successful food market i might add so our emphasis in the in the belmont food collaborative is to one of the emphases is to increase access to locally produced it sits on the board of the food pantry and many years ago shelley became aware of a new nonprofit in the area called boston area gleaners and the gleaners is an organization that works closely with local farmers when the farmer has finished harvesting a crop but there's still produce in the fields usually before the gleaners came along that food would be plowed under it would be composted it would not reach anybody's table the boston area cleaners go out with a van and a team of volunteers and they go through the field and they pick the remaining produce and that so over the years the belmont food pantry has been run by a very dedicated team of volunteers but they are volunteers they would get there just before the food pantry opened and the food pantry was open for than five hours a month so right so how to get all this fresh produce that's driving from the fields around us back into the boston area into the food pantry helly got in touch with them and said we want to get some of that fresh food to belmont here's the hours you have a half hour window basically every time the food pantry is open put this schedule on your dashboard and if you have produce drop it off that's how it started now patty works directly with the with the gleaners to let them know what she thinks she might need week by week but the food collaborative continues to underwrite the delivery of the fresh produce to the food pantry and can i throw a question over to patty to you patty it seems to me that having fresh produce in addition to having dry goods would be a big contribution is a big deal for the food pantry it actually is all of the residents that use the food pantry love it when they get all these choices and having the vegetables and it's always kind of really great stuff and i did you know learn about what blue hubbard was it's also a learning curve for everyone as to the different variety of vegetables that we do receive and everyone just loves doing it and once the season ends they all miss it it's if there's a day that's missed it was what is the vegetables coming in the coming but you know in the story i'm hearing is that people come in and see their benefits through the food pantry but be the work behind allowing the food pantry to deliver for fresh pope produce is the boston gleaners and the bell my food collaborative yes i get th does it participate in the gleaners actually i don't know the answer i don't know the answer is ok i'll have to ask have to ask them i don't know in general i think the farms that are participating in the program are much bigger  much more acres under production and and that's why they you know because they're producing so much food once they get to the end for instance of to the pepper harvest it's just not worth it for them to go back through and her this the last of the peppers because they're moving on to another crop or another field and in the absence of this sorry no it's ok ok in the absence of this did i understand that this food would just go to waste i here would be that if you can call the two thousand and eighteen gifts of hope telethon brought to you by the belmont media center and the belmont citizen harold at right now we're going to go back to studio a for more live performances from a david this next song leaked through the ceiling a couple of years ago and they whole lot like today very rainy sometimes you again thank you so much for having us and we're going to do one last song it's a song i wrote called carry on i spent a lot of time playing around conflict zones all over the world and one thing i've learned is that it always starts with events like these where people donate love food whatever they have it starts with these types of events and it's expression a nice when you can do it locally in your own community thank you for having us every thank you so much for having us for a great pleasure and we hope that all the shelves are filled by this end of this big marathon here and for those who are contributing and sending in food we and donations to the belmont food pantry phone number six one seven four eight four two four four three if you want to make those monetary donations again we're going to be here live until three o'clock on sunday december the first so we still got about almost half of our a telethon to go here you might notice roger colton has departed but we certainly want to thank him roger colton often does as producer of a community conversations as well as his co anchoring stint on the newsmagazine program the belmont journal which you can watch every ringing people need to be donating the food pantry is such in them touche american unity it absolutely is again if you make a one hundred dollar donation if you call and make a one hundred dollar donation right now you can get a fifty one dollar gift card to the belmont carwash right here in waverly square just across the street from our studios here at the belmont media center you can get that a fifty dollars donation get your five free car washes or you can the pick out one of the c d s from a david and benji or we've also got another performer coming up buy into apple another local songwriter he has a cd out as well and you can choose from any of those c d s if you want but again call in with your with your donations you can also stop by with food donations here at the belmont media center if you're watching us live on on sunday december first until three o'clock you bring your food donations here to the bellamy center for the food pantry it's all it's all a great cause and right now of course janet jobless she was here at the beginning of course representing the other belmont citizen harold of course and you have a very special guest with us right now thank you todd thank you everybody for tuning in i and very pleased to introduce my daughter and nat jewel is and she is the artist responsible for our back shop for today's gifts of hope  theme right yeah now tell you on how long it took you to create this masterpiece hours and how did you like doing it how was the experience it was your first time ever painting a window right oh yep that's right she painted the hollowing windows for belmont center for the hollowing painting contest and she won i think when your first prize that was exciting and you love art right well what do you hope to do after you graduate your junior now hopes to be an art teacher so she's got one moment one more year of high school my looking at art colleges and tell tell me about your experience of volunteering for the pantry you've volunteered for the pantry in the past for seven years right and seven years you've been coming by but i would say this is the most involved you've been and i'm really glad you got involved and that's also work and help him with the cameras today so thank you for for doing that and thank you everybody for for tuning it we're going to go back to studio now for more live entertainment grudge against lobster snakes i don't harbor ill will towards thank you ok this next song is about falling in love in the winter so the last song i'm going to play is about two strikes but it's not a baseball song it's about labor relations called garbage man strike for belmont and we should mention plenty of opportunities for you to either food or if you want to make a monetary donation call us the phone number here at the belmont he center six one seven four eight four two four four three if you donate at least one hundred performances david and benji who performed a little earlier and of course the we talk about all the local merchants to belmont carwash on saturday december eighth will be having a big fundraiser that day where everyone who goes to get their car wash that day a dollar from every watch will be going towards the food pantry and then the other big day coming up december the tenth lot of many element merchants will be joining ten percent of all their sales that they have that day and that includes places such as a thirty i think you mentioned the round yeah i think so i think so we'll be back in just a moment but first we've got another number from  more ok here's a song about a girl i used to date i met her on a plane to rome and you know let's go over here you know the holidays the holidays can be a great time to catch up with far flung family and friends and when you can't meet up with them in person one of the best ways to do that is to send a handwritten note on a fun holiday card but i know sometimes the holidays can be stressful and you need to multi task so with that in mind i'm about to perform my song bummer car which is the title track of my five song maxi single and as i'm performing the song i'm also going to write a note to a friend of mine so i hope you don't mind too much a little holiday multi tasking your bomber car into  midnight skylights you would think it was  we're going somewhere c and just from sitting in the passenger seat  a big thanks to andrew akhil a cigar songwriter from cambridge we are here at our third and final hour of live coverage of the gifts of hope telephone brought to you by the belmont media center and the belmont citizen herald and just give you an update a total of what we've raised so far for the bell about food pantry the current total up to two thousand three hundred and sixty dollars and a growing because patty ballot chef has a special guest here and i think we're about to get another donation i have here with me is lynn finley from caldwell banker lynn do you have something for us yes we sure do call the banker cares community outreach program that caldwell banker supports all of our agents to contribute to that fund and we wanted to give you a five hundred dollar donation for your for the food pantry and just thank you so much for all you do for the community it's really yes thank you to everyone falwell thank you on your ongoing support of the food pantry it's been a  broadcast and most certainly he said he loved working with you and coming in and being a part of that whole community and calling those marauder games both the feel a football team and the hockey team he loved it great yeah it's great thanks lynn thanks again for the donation well i guess i'd like to actually segue into that as a perfect example of what the belmont media center here can do for the community and for any students and residents it's a great place to come in and x you know find out what you could do in media and theater and on cable t v and also too is that this is an opportunity for everyone to help out here they've been great in doing the telephone for us for almost ten years and it's been another part of fundraising for the food pantry and it's fun it's maybe it's worth mentioning to that justice as lynn has stopped by we certainly an invite anyone to stop by with a donation during this final hour of the telephone your your efforts are so important in supporting the food pantry and the weather may not be nice but just grab an umbrella come on by we're at nine lexington street waverly square we'd be happy utilize the food pear tree just kind of elaborate that they will continue to be served as right now you're transitioning we talked about the big move to town hall coming up in february and in the interim time although the residents who use the food pantry will continue to be  d you know and talk about a little bit about that so at this point in time what we are doing is we are distributing gift cards to each one of the residents a common that will enable them to go to market to purchase food for the holiday meals we don't have anything in place with any specific food pantries in the communities because we have a lot of residents that utilize a food pantry here in town i have almost one hundred  eighty belmont residents have signed up for to receive the gift card from christmas and there's more people out there that have been utilizing the food pantry i had a few that have haven't needed it in about three or four years and have come back to approached me as to you know can we come back and do you remember me we are in need again and we would be able to help us out and of course we definitely can and we do the best that we can to so support the residents one of the things that you know everyone can you should know is that all of the other surrounding communities do have food pantries and you are welcome to go to that if you will find that you really in need in january you can go to that food pantry you have one time use of any food pantry in the state of massachusetts so that can at least balance out with our i guess our situation where we won't  be have any food or anything coming up distributing in january so so how in terms of numbers you're currently helping about one hundred eighty individuals this does not fluctuate over time have we seen that growing we've seen it staying about the same it has stabilized to a certain extent one of the p populations that we do help out are so those that fluctuates because says they pass you know it does we miss them sure but you know that's can fluctuate in that certain extent and then when you have also the families that we help those who help at the beginning and they might use it for about three or four years and then things get stable and then they're ok and they can they don't need to use the pantry or they don't use it as often they only come when they're really in need to help out you know the food pantry only what we do do is we were nonperishable food items that we also actually have that used to be bread and circus but now it's whole foods and we do go the night before they were open and we received bags and bags of food for people that we can you know a bread lot of bread and distribute  way and then as we were talking about earlier is the boston area cleaners drop off the fruits and vegetables for sin then we have different individuals in town who have their own gardens that have grown too much tomatoes or too many cum groups out there that support the food pantry but are there any particular food items or any other kinds of items that you're looking for more don't you like people wanted to make a food donation or i know we brought up i think toiletries in the past well anything like that  maybe more over that you might be looking for for more of in the future so basically it's more so of staples a few of the items that people are always asking for is like even chicken broth we don't need soup but we need chicken  broth the dried beans that you know something that you have like here those are other items that people utilize you get the basics of rice and tuna fish and pasta and spaghetti sauce in the tomato paste  and then we always love it after the holidays like halloween and christmas and easter is the candies that left over i'm surprised at how many holidays that we have that  isn't but it's a nice a treat for you know the elderly the cause they are you know they don't buy it from selves and so it's nice to having them snacks and food items like that you know the juice boxes we even have from par powdered milk to now you can get the milk in the regular containers that is not you know i don't think it is but yes yes so you know those are items that are always very helpful and  today with cash or a food donation but how do you accept so do you have some sort of schedule or organized way in which you accept donations throughout the year from people so that if people can't can't make a donation for this event they can know that coming up either next weekend or or at some point in the future there are some place where they can drop off items for the food pantry well one of the things that one get one free so you know you get a box of cereal get the other kind and you put that free item into the into the barrel that they've kind of strayed from they don't do that but you can always go in  and some of your you know any items that are on your list your family your list if you have little kids but they're like union include that so and the other thing that we have is you know we have donation you know you can drop off food everywhere and of course still accepting donations here you can call in live on a sunday december first six one seven four eight four two four four three is our our studio number and again we can get your donations are accepted there we've  gotten over close to three thousand dollars so far today so you can make your your monetary donations that way i believe this might be close to the end of our segment two so i guess i want to use this opportunity to thank all the musical guest said and dancing performing gets no we're back at the gifts of hope telethon big data put on your calendar circle it right now monday december the tenth many merchants throughout the town of belmont will be donating a portion of their proceeds that they make that day to the belmont food pantry and  one of them is right here rob representing us stonehearth pizza hi how are you yeah we're incredibly excited to be able to do that and your name and you to thank you know absolutely my name is nathan delano self i'm one of the owners that's owner of the pizza and we're incredibly excited to be able to offer a donation under some or tent or anyone who comes in between the hours of five to close which will be incredibly exciting and are staying with the them one food pantry there are over two hundred families in need and if we have just a small portion that we can donate we're incredibly incredibly excited to do that yeah in every step of the way and it's so good to have it is good to know it's great and thanks to all the belmont businesses for the support of the belmont food pantry also want to thank again we thank our entire crew we're signing off from our segment but the telethons going to go on we've got to slip in adam dash and patricia garvin are going to take us through the final segment of our live coverage of the night the annual gifts of hope telephone from the belmont media center in the belmont citizen harold so thank you nathan thanks patti as always for for being here michel thank you for joining us as well and thanks to all of our performers today we've had many we're going to wrap up with one of our old standbys always a favorite the belmont high school madrigal performers  song love them they're like magical and it wouldn't be a holiday season in belmont without seeing the belmont high school magical i am thrilled that everyone's tuning in to this gives hope telethon to benefit the belmont food pantry it's my seventh year participating in this event it's a longstanding tradition between the belmont media center and the belmont citizen herald and the gifts of hope campaign to benefit the belmont food pantry to i'm very pleased to introduce our next co host he is our selectmen he's the chairman of the selectmen adam dash serving his second term and also joining us is our year for second year first you and also joining us is town administrator patrice garvin who drove here all the way from new hampshire today and she is going on one year as our very first female town administrator in belmont and she has accomplished so much in that first year and she's here to talk about one of those major accomplishments i'm going to put adam on to take over as co host thank you joe and welcome back to the telephone here at the bell my media center nine lexington avenue next is street in belmont is a wonderful rainy afternoon but we're having a good time in here we have raised so far two thousand eight hundred sixty dollars eighty one cents i don't know who gave the one cent but we appreciate all of them no matter how many cents they are if you want to come down come on down i guarantee you i will put you on t v if you come down with money to give to the food pantry you can also call in your money to six one seven four eight four two four four three certainly better yes the check would be to the belmont food pantry and the p o box to nine one a bomb what is to the food pantry thank you thank you that is why patty's here correct me every time i make a mistake the we also if you there are some promotions here if you come in you bring up to fifty to one hundred dollars there are coupon books to the belmont carwash worth fifty one dollars and for fifty one dollars for fifty dollars to one hundred dollars you can get these coupons we also have c d s and on the performers you've seen we have the durga hold your own very colorful and we have a call bumper car but was not a bummer is donating money to the belmont food pantry because what would be a bummer is going hungry  fantastic so one of the reasons why why we're here and why patrice is here this morning is because this afternoon is to talk about the move of the belmont food pantry and this all started when i was given a tour of the food pantry when i was first running in tw seventeen by laurie graham when it was a back over at the church here in waverly square about and to see the conditions of the food pantry was in and they seemed substandard for what the food pantry should be doing over crowded and sort of dank and down in the church basement and sort of started some thinking about maybe we could move the food pantry to better digs and then came the trees came into office and patrice actually has done it so why don't you tell us what was in one exam so when i first arrived in belmont in january i did hear some of the discussion about the conditions of the food pantry be given my background in social service i really passionate about things like that so i wanted to try and find a home a permanent home for the food pantry one of the things that would charge me with was to to do that sometimes as adam and i talk about it sometimes if you wait a little bit the solution will just kind of happening come to you so i started looking around what we had for buildings at town hall i started asking some questions and what i realized was the great thing was where when my offices in town hall would be the perfect spot for the food pantry it is centrally located it is a public building it has bathrooms and we actually had some available rooms due to the vacancy at the time and board that moved down the street on to conquer death there was another room in there in town hall which is the i t room the i t room is for trainings for town staff and some other things that go on throughout the town i felt that it was something that could be moved equipment usually can be moved and we started working with the gallery and the people that occupy the gallery space the home a building if we could figure out a way to use the back room and once we pretty much got all the people talking and everyone kind of was on board of yes this could be an exciting opportunity  everyone kind of just pitched in and we figured out a way to get the food pantry in town hall so they'll be taking up the time employed old office and with the i t room used to be in the ground full of the town hall in february so we're very excited i also saw it as an opportunity for employees to get involved if they wanted to be involved in the food pantry so it just was a really good solution to a problem that was long overdue to be solved absolutely in the food pantr been sort of a vagabond of sorts i mean it was at the high school before that it was also where it seems to just be moving around from place to place and to be able to find a more permanent home in a public building where it can be accessed by public transportation in the for the food pantry the other thing that is very helpful where it's located is that no one has to cross the street it's much easier and safer for everyone to come into the building just park in the parking lot and come directly and it's at street level i have a lot of different people that are elderly that are on walkers that have difficulty to get in and out of even though we had a lift at the old place it still was a difficult place to get  into and of course i do have a few other people who had to stop coming because they use the electric wheelchairs in the motorized scooters and they can't really maneuver to get into the building so this will enable them to get the ri selectmen approved the memorandum of understanding with the food pantry to get them into the building so at this point we're going to take a break from our little discussion we're going to throw it to a clip for you to enjoy and we'll be back i am erica and this is store thirty paddles and we just celebrated our twenty fifth anniversary and we're just thrilled to be a part of boma center and we specialize in women's clothing  jewelry and accessories and we are so happy once again to participate in the gifts of hope campaign we look forward to it every year and so we just hope that many much that you do this for us every single year what are we doing here tonight girls we're selling bracelets for pantry because guys it's a wonderful time of year for families but it's a tough time for some people who are struggling and we want to make sure there's enough food on the table for our whole population and welcome back we're here at the gifts of hope telephone here in beaumont down to media center in waverly square nine lexington street please feel free to come on down say hello i would say i'd offer you some food but i think it's mostly gone at this point but in spirit we can have a good time we're here raising money for the bomb and food pantry if you'd like to donate the phone number b six one seven four eight four two four four three or you can come down and we'll put you on t v and you can make the donation live or you can mail it in if you're shy to the belmont food pantry p o box two nine one belmont mass otu four seven eight we've got some good goodies here if you give fifty to one hundred dollars and we would prefer the hundred dollars we do have  carwash gift cards for fifty one dollars so if you donate over fifty one dollars you get something back also we have belmont car wash books of five free car washes again for the fifty to one hundred dollar donations and we have c d s we've got andrew ec bomber car and we've got the derg us hold your own these are performers who are on earlier on the telephone and you can come down and get some of the c d s so we really a prefer if you guys would come on down but we'll take the money any way you want to give it we've got up to two thousand eight hundred sixty dollars and eighty one cents on the board and we want to get that up because the telethon is winding down here talking with patrice garvin from the time minister for the town of belmont and patrice i guess you've been here almost a year now what do you think well i would say the first thing because i mind is i'm very busy that's good there's a lot going on anyone knows i'm usually matches pretty early in the morning and i'm working on a lot of things getting things that were discussions for long periods of time to now actually getting some things done a lot of people know that the path just got some money special town meeting when to start designing the alexander avenue underpass we're going to be working on obviously the three hundred million  ninety five million dollar high school project is going to probably keep my office busy for the next few years so we have we have a lot of great things going on for the residents of the community yang dominance on the move it's a good thing i got a lot a lot of good stuff going on here talking about the belmont food pantry if you weren't tuning in earlier with the propane trees being moved into town hall into some space in the first floor which is fantastic i guess a paddy was just talking to us about what that means we're kind of ours you're looking for and how would people get involved well basically all of our hours ago to go back to the way they were we had to make adjustments in our present site because we were in a residential neighborhood and so we had to go you know open a little bit later so saturday the first and third saturday echoing to be from eight thirty to nine thirty for people to use the pantry all volunteers are asked to come a half an hour earlier so it would be eight o'clock  it's a tendency that we're should be done between nine thirty to ten so you can allow for two hours when you volunteer in that way on the first on the second and fourth tuesdays the food pantries open from five thirty six thirty again volunteers come in at five o'clock and they you know those evenings six thirty we're done we're definitely are and then we had another edition it's been a couple years now is the plymouth congregational church opens on the food pantry on the fourth sunday and they're opening from one thirty to two thirty and they're volunteers arrive at one o'clock so again the food pantry is for belmont residents if you want to volunteer we have another new addition that we are doing is that we are now working and we have signed up genius with coming into the twenty first century and we have so if you go to our website the website you just google because it's it is another product of a high school student developing something that's really it was a need for the food pantry and that's our own website if so if you just google belmont food pantry the first thing that will come up and there's a  section where you just click on volunteers it goes to our page and then there sign up genius with all of the four dates times to actually sign up and then once you get into our system our e mail system then whenever are needing extra help we that's how we put out the call to have people come and help so everyone who's now in our e mail system to be a sign of genius if whence were ready to move that we will put that call out  we set up our system to go about three or four months in advance and we will be needing you know making sure that all the days are covered for february march and april and this is a great way for students to aim for over the summer of also volunteering it gives it you know it's great community service everyone loves to volunteer if you know from three years old if you're three if you've got a child is three years and i would love to do something you do have to come with them but they have a great time doing it high school students they develop their own way of volunteering and they whatever section they're  many people do you serve well for this holiday season i had one hundred eighty people actually i just got new numbers and it's almost one hundred eighty belmont residents signed up to receive gift card for for the food pantry for the christmas so it's basically what we're looking at is you have a sick people to come on this saturdays and then you have another set a different group of people that come on tuesday so saturdays they average out between fifty five  and seventy and the tuesday nights are from you know from forty five to sixty and we're trying to push you know anyone who's new the best time to come is actually on the fourth sunday because there's it's not as overwhelming there's less people as nature goes people do catch like to come ahead of time away line so the sundays for sun is a perfect first time to sign and neighbor or the hard to find money for your boss's daughter or just that little something for yourself just because we've got the right gift for any occasion we support thank you for the whole campaign because we believe in giving back to the community here over two hundred families in belmont that struggle to feed themselves and we believe that it's very important to give back wishing everyone in the belmont community a very merry christmas and a very wonderful holiday season here raising money for the gift of hope for the belmont food pantry today it is winding down so this is your last chance to donate the phone number is six one seven four eight four two four four three you come on down here to the belmont media center studios alive we will  you on the air and we'll take your money there or you can wail it into the food pantry p o box to ninety one belmont mass otu for seven eight we've got gift cards here from the bomb a car wash we've got does c d s and belmont  wash coupon books if you donate fifty one hundred dollars they can be yours tony also donate more than one hundred and you can donate as much as you would like and we will gladly take it but i want to turn over to join a jew list is the senior multimedia journalist for the say give kudos to both of you because you know i've been covering belmont for seven and a half years now and i can honestly say that adam is the most responsive selectman i've ever dealt with and patrice is the most respons minister that i've ever dealt with and by response of i mean if i email them i get a response so far it's pretty well i guess but but no i mean honestly i think it's important to support the local press and people don't know what we're doing if we're not on the belmont media for or for not in the in the paper or on the media websites that no one will know what's going on in the local government so i think it's important to have a one to communicate well you also respect the media you respect what i'm trying to do which is basically deliver the news to the people belmont that's that's my job you're not avoiding me you're giving me the answers to the questions that i'm asking i think government expects when it's open and transparent and really t this for twenty five years the gifts of hope campaign has been a tradition since more than twenty years ago and you know i only took it on seven and a half years ago and it's been it's been great we have so many businesses supporting this year we have twenty local businesses that are supporting it and there is off fundraiser december eighth to front that the belmont carwashes hosting get your car washed and they'll donate a dollar for every car wash on december eighth and then december tenth several local businesses which we've been highlighting throughout the telethon on december tenth they're having a fundraiser where they'll donate ten or more percent of the sales of that and the entire day to the belmont food pantry and those businesses are thirty ped fine wines dietrich's local route bells and whistles belmont books champion sporting goods oh well we just up i just was handed a note to say that we just got a donation from the family i want to thank the attala family for donating you just got yourself a free car washes it to the belmont car wash if you would for the gift card just let us know so thank you thank you i want to hear to the belmont car wash and we also have c d s here from performers who have been on the telephone today all these can be yours if you donate over fifty dollars although we would certainly like one hundred dollars or more this is wonderful the phone is ringing yes you keep on hearing where it's winding down we want to add some more digits to the chart over there so i don't want a free gift card from belmont car wash if you don't want your car anyway you don't need the money you pay you get the car wash give certificate for things you were going to do anyway there's really no reason not to and our cars get so on down but by the time you got here in the traffic you probably would be gone but nevertheless i think it's been going really well i really appreciate all of you and the belmont media center for hosting it and everybody it's not just us who's here on a sunday it's all the crew and everybody behind the scenes who if you're watching at home you can't see them but we can see them as we're staring at them right now but all of them who are here who've taken their sunday to do this for the belmont food pantry i think it's tremendous says a lot about the town about a month that everyone turns out for this and it's it's also sad that decorations up all we just got a donation thank you neal rosenberg for donating one hundred dollars you just got yourself a bell carwash card it's not too late to call six one seven four eight four two four have been calling in and you can also e mail it even though we're going to be ending the telephone shortly to the belmont food pantry appeal box two nine one belmont mass otu four seven eight and we can still make sure you get some of these car wash gift cards and some of these c d s if they are left but it's all quite as you know for quite a good cause and you haven't been keeping track of where the number is now because money keeps coming in and we haven't been able to change the whiteboard over there but something tells me  about three thousand dollars well yes you're right we are if i don't have horrible yeah that's fantastic so we are going off in two minutes so you still have a little bit of time to call in and us to acknowledge you on the air while we're still going on december tenth they're going to come in and update us on some work that we've been doing on the five year forecast for the budget as well as coming in to discuss the financial policies that we're trying to kind of develop and have approved for the town and what this would be is a comprehensive set of financial policies that would really show up the financial situation the town where we're going away we'd like to go you know this is something that we that patrice got us  funding from the state to hire the collin center at u mass boston to come and help us financial plan for long term to help fix some of the structural issues that we have budget wise so we've got things on an even playing field moving forward and it's going to be great so we are now being told it is about time to end the telephone i'm sorry to say but it's been good time and we've raised a lot of money we've helped a lot of people get some food and i thank all of you for watching and all of you for donating if you have a donated you can still mail it in it's