picking up books it's you know i don't think i've used the library as much since i was in high school many years ago fact but it is amazing the amount of things and activities that go on the  computer the access to the internet to the computer the programs tell us about some of the programs that are on the internet or i mean that at this point we kind of feel like libraries it's not just about books not a books and d v d s right that's why a lot of people come in but we love to do programming we love to get people into the library just to kind of be part of the community right so we just finish our two thousand and sixteen one book one belmont i'm not sure if you were able to participate  ok we had a needed diamont come she wrote the red tent and then her most recent book the boston girl she came and talked about that it was wonderful so now we're kind of transition into summer and we always do summer reading program for children and teens this year we're also going to do one for adults so it'll include prizes you're going to get to log in what you've read and recommend what you've read to other people talk about the about a new library expanded library i guess that's that's continuing as well so yeah i think so i think in you know we're trying to to make our current library the best library it can be so which  a seven year old five year old and two year old and then six years later i have another child but a daughter but this is a labor of love really i really enjoy having the music down there on wednesday evening june june is sort of like mid point in june is rainy i'll let you get past that then it gets dry and you don't have to you don't have to cancel any or reschedule the concert first one is belmont savings  jr i think i'm forgetting seso as i said lee lundy they're all well known in their own right the love dogs the love dogs that that has always been a perennial absolutely we are down here today trying to talk to parents of the younger kids about when they're going to play sports at the high school because everybody knows right angelot winning teams winning town everybody's in this together we're supporting our student athletes we have a get some of those stars down here today to remember last night was prawn over here a little trouble get a hold of our juniors and seniors luckily we do have some good sophomores and freshman who are representing some great teams at the high school today would love to  belmont winning more sports and that's why we're here we've done we've had a phenomenal year boosters is up owner over three hundred percent in our fundraising while we've run redid the weight room at the high school we put some nets in out at the field so that lacrosse can be played at the same time people are using the rest of the track we actually have a very big thing coming that i you'll be hearing about in the news very soon but i can't i can't even tell you leave it alone even though you are the go to guy  patriots in they were just here last week but we do a golf tournament that's getting to be very large but our biggest fundraiser is our door to door fundraisers when we go to the people of belmont and we say please support our athletes and that is our biggest we send the kids through the door and all of you out there all of you people obama give to that can i tell you we are humbled and we're we have so much gratitude for that being our biggest fundraiser and that's a dollar here and there but again now you can look and see this is what my money brings me and we're going to have the winning teams just like he said the baseball team they're huge and we're so proud of them and one more thing and of a for a go no matter what the sport is pete watertown and a lot of non profits houses of worship police and fire activities and of course to share volunteer opportunities it provides a way a one stop shopping kind of approach to meeting everything that you can possibly want or need involvement from schools to religion to volunteer to signing up for registering your pets and everything else jennifer page and sarah have been doing this for fourteen years now they're stepping away from me hellman to two growing up if you will and they've passed the torch on to a group of us who have been heavily it's a great opportunity especially for new residents yet to come to to to comment and learn about the town i mean virtually everybody that has something to do with the tile is there and that's the building the a couple that i've been able a really good layout it also has air conditioning in response to your kind of question or issue with the day i would have to say it's actually times pretty strategically because most  new residents to help out are parents whose children are entering the school system and when you buy in belmont you're certainly not probably having a ton of extra cash and a ton of extra free time  so it's the always the tuesday before the first day of school and it it has been successfully attended mainly by the newest of the new resident i know that it is tough for a lot of people because vacation of course happens in august but if we were to wait until september a lot of families wouldn't have opportunities to find out about school activities how to sign up for aftercare how to sign up for all of the programs that are available on second soccer starts the second week in september  never been to me and i've been here nine years so i'm excited to go this year anybody who wants to learn all about one stop shop certainly come along it is this year august thirtieth it will be held at the cherry and it is have with us martin plash is with the the go solar project belmont go solo and they have a booth here at the at the show what can you tell me about this effort and i'm seeing a lot of publicity that's for  dollars so that fifteen thousand dollars becomes maybe ten thousand dollars and then with what you say it's in electricity and what you get begs is this other problems called s rank solo renewable energies right jessica it sets the stage provides for ten years that's essentially the green value offices clean power you generated that pays him back for ten years to the individual the individual home homeowner takes advantage of always absolutely yes but it's not like where somebody will come in put a lot of their cost you know have a little dog  last year my first i started on may fourth the twenty fifteen and one of the first things i did last year was come to town day talk about the library and after our interview was over i realized i didn't know enough about the library so i wanted to come back in and celebrate  it every time i go to other i walk around and see it's it's changing it's becoming more active and more vibrant and we've have we've had a lot of turnover of staff a lot of retirements and one hundred some new staff and some fresh ideas and you look on the way that we provide service in the community and have proven that all the ideas have been very successful every every almost every group that we can judge the statistics we've seen improvement there's more people coming to the lab or the door count is up more people taking out books materials or circulation is up more people facility facility and one of the things that's happening there that i really appreciate as a belmont resident is this been so much discussion about the new library and that work needs to continue what to to to to make better use of our existing facility and you've done a tremendous job i think that we are doing you very much really think we're just getting started out appreciates where we've just kicked off a few months ago of visibility study to judge the capabilities of this building and see what the future holds and going against try to run it into building or possibly create in addition i would like to stay on the property bill as long as it's viable but no matter what happens whatever the outcome is we're going to be there for some time and you know the building has its  organisation in town what could you tell us about this group mothers up front is a state wide organization we are a climate activist group we have eighteen here in belmont and we are working to pressure our elected officials to act on climate change ok what are some of the issues that you're working with well right now we have a gas leaks campaign going on because the gas that is leaked from pipes is eighty five times worse a greenhouse gas than natural gas when it's burned so we are one of the things we're doing is to try and get those gas leaks fixed belmont has eighty gas leaks and only seven are scheduled to be fixed this year so one of the things we're going to be doing is presenting a petition to the port of selectmen to ask them to pass a resolution in support house bill that would require a national grid to fix the gas leaks in any road that is already open for repairs right now there is no such requirement they can look at an open road  we have leaks as old as nine hundred ninety six and no two states texas and florida passed laws that require the gas companies to pay for the leaked gas their leaks are getting fixed at a fifty it's certainly something that makes a lot of sense yes and what other issues are you work on sort of so we work on climate change in general trying to transition our economy from a fossil fuel based economy to one using renewable energy like wind and solar hydro and we're really trying to pressure our officials to do that because our children are going to be living with the effects of climate change it's not something that's one hundred years in the future it's it's in the next twenty years the impacts are already being felt with massive storms rising sea levels  two thousand and sixteen we have bob mahoney with us the president of the belmont savings bank welcome bob nice to see you again and you guys have been very instrumental in helping this this program grow yeah and it's just this was a very exciting town day and we thought we could add some things to it so we thought some face paint the might be fun for the kids we thought pony rides might be fun we thought a car show might be might be fun for the adults and so each one of those is closely with glen and when david kale in town to make sure it was safe and comfortable for all the residents they've done a very good job in this project i know there's a bunch of people who tried to get into town day that were all sold out yeah right right dominance going to really be a game changer i mean it's painful during the process never goes as fast as it like it to but when it's done i think the center of belmont is kind of the you know something that everyone will want to have down observed making watching sausage in the middle is never never good this is a better better to head but so many of you one down it's it's a beautiful day it's a lot of activity lots of good food i have sworn i am not going to touch one piece of sarah from eighty toddlers up to kindergarten ok so we do have kids a garden kids in the class is this your first time coming to town day yes this is my first time ever ok i've three kids have gone to the belmont schools to still in high school i have served on the belmont cultural council six years about five years ago and i'm just newly back on work here at town day which is a great day and a great event by the business center in downtown belmont and the cultural council is trying to increase our visibility about all the great cultural opportunities in town well let's talk a little bit about that i mean i don't think a lot of residents really understand what the cultural council does what what what is like an average thing that you guys work on and how do you how do you better community ok well so we have a cycle were funded by the massachusetts cultural council which is a state agency and we get between five and ten thousand dollars a year there was recently a little tussle at the state house about how much money we were going to get and there's an organization called mass creative which has an email list it makes it really easy for you to stay up to date and know about funding levels and how to get in touch with your senators or your state reps and to let them know that the cultural programs are really important to you we have a funding cycle so we have a grant deadline that's a cobra fifteenth annually and right when everyone comes back from the summer we publicize information in the belmont tony and maybe we'll make sure to get you some information about the grant applications you can go online we have a little bookmark if you happen to be a town day and want to stop by our our tent but this tells you what website to go on with the mass cultural council download the grant form we funded the schools so we have a lot of programs that are going on theater programs science education programs we had one about machines i'm a former high school science teacher and i we really liked it when they had the machines come in we were studying work in energy and it made the academic study come alive more recently we funded the belmont world film festival they're actually having a book signing coming up in june and we funded the habitat habitats having oh and i find at the belmont media center and i find that out tavia when i'm not remembering all the different grants that have happened in so many years but the great clearly you guys have done a lot in the community and it shows so you said that there's a way for people to file grants or if somebody has a project to share if we have a facebook page spelman cultural council and that's probably the easiest way to get in touch with us look for belmont coutts cultural council you can also get in touch with me julia jenkins i am actually a real estate agent in town at century twenty one adams k c so if you want to find my name or my facebook page but that's in the twenty first century the easiest way to find  and you have openings if somebody was interested in joining the cultural current seler how to how does that work our meetings are open to the public so we'd love if anyone wanted to get involved and get an idea of other programs that would help him enrich the cultural community of belmont you don't have to go into boston you know want to go into cambridge to have fun and to be creative so yeah you can get in touch with me there also to the selections office because we're appointed by the selectmen so there's a formal application that you can fill out that's great to hear and it's a three year term as i understand their term great well thank you for stopping by i mean certainly i think we learned a lot and it's clear that there's a lot of good cultural opportunities i mean we've been talking all day about what a great community belmont is and thank you for your hard work  so thank you for stopping by ok great we have with us now little shop i don't know if you've had a chance to stop it and they have tremendous selection of all sorts of things washers and diamonds and jewelry earrings and bracelets right here you make a lot of your old yeah we make a lot of for customers