 think we'll just get started with a few introductions. So my name is Matt Wilson and I'm the communications coordinator for the senior center here. I assist with the fee senior meals program. I want to thank you all today for joining us for the save lunch rally. If you're not familiar save lunch is a hashtag used by Meals on Wheels America to advocate for more federal funding for Meals on Wheels programs across the country. And this month is March for Meals which is our biggest fundraising month of the year for our Meals on Wheels program and we're so excited to have so much community support and as you can see from some of the information on the table out there we have a lot of events planned this month. So thank you again for continuing to support us and I think what we'll do is just kind of pass the mic around and just have everyone introduce themselves. So yeah just passing on here. Good afternoon. I'm Nancy Murray and I am from the Central Vermont Council on Aging and I am the volunteer coordinator for them. So it's very nice to see everyone. Hi I'm Caitlin Rosine also from Central Vermont Council on Aging and I also work primarily on volunteers recruitment and placements. Good afternoon. My name is Poa Mutino. I am the Feast Senior Meals program manager. I have been in this position since October of 2022 so about a year and four months and I'll make some short remarks and then I have some statements from a few different leaders in our community which I would like to find volunteers to read. They each take between 20 seconds and a couple of minutes depending on the length of the remarks to read. So just right now while I'm speaking about it does anybody volunteer to add their voice. The statements are from Feed Every Need organization out of the Woods Lodge who have as a mission to make prepared food available for our community that's ready to eat. Also Anne Watson from the state senator and former mayor of Mount Peulier and I had one more which I need to grab from the printer. Thank you Yona. Anybody else? Kara thank you. I'll read the third one. Nancy do I see a hand? Nancy thank you. So first for the numbers the feast yes okay and then from 12 to 1 there will be an hour for his speech. So look at the numbers. The feast annual budget is approximately $240,000 a year and that is made up primarily of about $80,000 that we spend purchasing food which has undergone inflation. Don't quote me on these numbers but I have been looking at the budget and if you do want to share any information about our budget please email me. My card is on the table but so about that a large amount of our budget goes to purchasing food and then also staff costs. We have a core staff who receives salaries of two myself at 30 hours a week and our executive chef Shalonda James at 30 hours a week and we are city employees and there are four months remaining in the fiscal year of the city of Mount Peulier or less. It ends in June and we're making headway. We from our sources of revenue have a smaller deficit this year this fiscal year of 2023 than we did in 2022 and we've got great ideas for revenue going forward. The two that I'm developing a business plan for are increasing rentals of our kitchen which a local chef said is the most beautiful kitchen in Mount Peulier and can become even more efficient through increasing the this beadiness of our equipment. We're interested in an electric range rather than a propane range for cooking and adding an additional convection oven and an additional meal sealer. We currently produce 23,000 meals a year according to a recent survey done by the city of the meal program of 2022 and those numbers are growing. We while we've stopped our grab and go outdoor twice weekly meal which was a response to the pandemic in large part. We have supplemented that with congregate meals which has been a challenge to bring those back with a staff of two both working 30 hours a week but I've been sharpening my skills and have been cooking those meals and leading volunteers to cook those meals for almost my entire tenure here so far and excitingly we will be offering them weekly beginning this coming Thursday or not coming but the first Thursday in April and they're served at noon here in the community room. We also have a budget to advertise for those meals thanks to a grant from Meals on Wheels America so we'll be putting the word out about them now that it's easier to remember. They're once a week on Thursdays. I want to thank everybody for coming. It's great to see most of the chairs filled. We've got at least one more chair to fill and that's our chef who is doing what she often does which is working very hard and unable to be there at the exact time that something is called for people who don't have a kitchen to manage. So thank you Shalonda. Maybe we can give an applause for Shalonda in the kitchen. Thank you Shalonda. So I look forward to what everybody has to say. Passing is always an option but when you get the mic if you could just introduce yourself with your name, if you'd like your pronoun and where you live and this may take us it's 11.25 so this may take us past noon if there's anybody that needs to go at noon sharp please feel free to excuse yourself and try to take between a minute and three minutes with your remarks. Again thanks for being here. Matt gave a good overview of the month that we're in. We're fundraising. We need to fundraise $20,000 this month so if you know anyone who hasn't donated yet and would like to they can go to the city of Montpelier's website Montpelier.org slash feast and make a donation or have a conversation with myself or with Matt or with Amy or a new director. Hi everybody my name is John Foster and I always thought it was important to give back to the community that then I was a big brother and that was a senior companion and so when Noah who's route I helped with asked me if I would give him a hand on Thursday. Thursday is a big day because it's four frozen meals and accompanying milks and fruits so it's a big load and I'm no spring chicken but Noah's got about ten years on me so so I was I was happy to because you know he's a friend he's a good guy and he did the driving and all I had to do was the lugging and so I spent about two years and since we've been together and what a list of characters we have a couple you know you get to know the people and you know and some of these people you know you might be the only person they see you know for a week and so we have a couple in their 90s Donald who's like 98 and he can tell you the whole history of my Ben and Montpelio his whole life you know then we have honey who's was the youngest ever to make a transatlantic crossing during the war to her and her and her sisters were I think 9 and 11 respectively you know and so it's you know it's an enriching and fulfilling little job and it's fun and I look forward to it every day thank you thanks I'm Yona I'm a trainee here actually through associates for training and development which is a non-profit and grant funded program and I help out with meals on wheels and also do assorted other things here you might see me at the reception desk or my desk quote-unquote which is at the side entrance anyway you know when I was first told about doing this position coming on board and it basically said I mean one of the things was communicate with the drivers how much can there be to that well there can be a lot depending what day of the week it is and you know sometimes we have to find a substitute driver we have more or less amount of notice for that and but everyone you know especially the recipients are so positive about meals on wheels and there are a few quotes from people on that wall or that door if you get a chance to look but people say positive things all the time and it's wonderful when the food comes from you know locally from the feast farm or otherwise anyway I'll pass the mic along and here's a statement from Senator Peter Welch meals on wheels is a critically important program that not only provides nutritious food but also a sense of community the work that meals on wheels does in Montpelier and across the state to support seniors every day is essential with more than 20,000 seniors experiencing food insecurity meals on wheels couldn't be more important as a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee I will continue to fight and protect the programs that support our farmers and feed our communities thank you everybody my name is Chris I'm from MVP and I'm a program manager and partnership with the University of Vermont Health Network happy to be here this is my second time back and full disclosure the first time I was in the back kitchen and luckily put up with me long enough to not get rid of me we partner with and second and the feast program and we come here on about a quarterly basis and hopefully we can we can increase some of those numbers because the the time I was here was a great it was really fulfilling to be here and get to work alongside you pose so thank you for having us we think that in our communities it's not just about when you're at your doctor's office it's it's your whole body and really the food is medicine so it's something that we were really happy to be a partnership with here and we're we're honored to be here and thank you very much hi I'm Nancy and I'm from unpeeled you're and I've been doing this for a couple of years and I actually delivered meals on wheels when I was a teacher it because I had a very light load in the summer and so I would deliver than in New York State and so I'm a long time and it's it's in my DNA to want to feed my mother my grandmother and me and I want to feed people with nutritious delicious meals and thanks to our feast program and a wonderful chef that's exactly what I do and it's a joy the other joy and my delivery is the people I deliver to I never get through a delivery route without a lot of laughs and a lot of conversation and you know they're part of my family now so it's that this route is very important to me and I will read and Watson's statement she was our mayor and is now a Vermont state senator meals on wheels represents the very best of Vermont's community spirit through the tireless dedication of her volunteers and staff they ensure that no senior citizen faces hunger alone they don't just deliver meals they also bring companionship and care and by the way that's mutual the volunteers with meals on wheels embody the values that make Vermont such a wonderful place to live everyone regardless of age or circumstances deserves dignity and nourishment a huge thank you to everyone who volunteers with meals on wheels you nourish both body and soul thank you for your dedication and service to our community and I just want to say in our society nobody should be hungry I'm Kim Cheney I live in Montpelier I've been a driver I think almost two years now and I don't get lost often but one day I got desperate and I did a U turn on Barry Street because I had missed a meal and I had to find my recipient I was clever enough to destroy the tire on my car and leave me completely unable to deliver my meals but I sent out an emergency session and pretty soon somebody showed up took all my meals and got them delivered and helped me get away it's the spirit of this place and like all drivers I think you you get very fond of the people that you that you see and from day to day and wonder how they're doing even though they're only short conversations it's part of the rhythm of life for all of us and that it's it's a pleasure to volunteer hello everyone my name is Marcy Crites and I also work for the council on aging I live in Barry but this is just one of this is one of 13 meal sites that we do partner with and I'm so honored to work with my role at the council on aging is mostly data management and I also do a lot of the signups for our meals on wheels recipients so when folks call here looking for meals on wheels they're gonna end up having to talk to me so and my background is in social work so it's a wonderful fit and when I retire I plan on being a meals on wheels driver thank you hi I'm Kim Lapinski I work for the council on aging as the director of nutrition and wellness and thanks for inviting me Poa I appreciate it I want to speak to Poa's leadership he is really grown as a leader in this program and it's been such a pleasure to watch I think today is a really good example of what he brings to the program and we've worked through all kinds of things together around data around you know now you're establishing weekly meals again the congregate meals so so many things have grown here under your leadership and I'm really proud to be able to work with you and watch this growth and look forward to everything that's up upcoming for you and the program I want to encourage everyone to partake in the fundraising efforts particularly the online auction that's over there I think those are really really fun things to you know to participate in and and everything else the volunteer days your open house and other fundraisers thank you hi I'm Pitten I'm the new director of program and membership here at the Montpelier senior activity center and it's been really fun for me to watch what happens in the Meals on Wheels program and in the Feast program and to begin to learn about all the awesome things that are happening in that in those programs and I too am excited to see the congregate meals come back and and to be able to work with Poa and Cholanda as we try and meet the needs of people in our community thank you hi my name is Beth Stern I used to work for the Council on Aging but I don't anymore I now I'm an outreach representative for Senator Bernie Sanders so I want to just send his greetings to you all and his thanks for the work you're doing so right now the older Americans Act which is the funding source for the meals both congregate and Meals on Wheels is being reauthorized that's happening this year and the senator held a hearing earlier this month about the reauthorization of the older Americans Act and his the staff in DC on the help committee which is health education labor and pensions are in charge of the process of the reauthorization so they're working really hard on talking to stakeholders getting information and seeing about how we can reauthorize the older Americans Act in a way that meets the needs of today's older Vermonters and older Americans Act older Americans because you know since it was last reauthorized which was I think five years ago things a lot of things have changed and there's new ways of doing services that I that the older Americans Act needs to recognize so there's opportunities for people to give input into that you I can give you information about how to do that right now there's a it's called a request for information that's been sent out to anybody who wants to give some input can do that you can also just talk to me I'm glad to forward on information but really the senators focus on this in terms of meals especially is doubling the funding for the older Americans Act that's the one of his focus areas now unfortunately the reauthorization doesn't actually set the funding levels but but they can make recommendations and and he routinely asked to to dramatically increase the funding and also looking at ways to make the Act more flexible to again to meet the needs of seniors and service providers today so whether that's funding grab and grow meals or finding different ways to increase the variety of food make sure about other things finding more ways to partner to get fresh and local food you guys do a great job with that already and all of that you know all of those things are things that the Old Americans Act is is really focused on so I do need to leave it noon but if anybody you know wants to contact me I can leave some cards so thank you thank you for all your work hello everyone my name is Charlie I use he him pronouns and I am the feast farm manager I love any opportunity I get to spend time at MSAC the feast farm manager I kind of fall under the parks department and I'm a very direct close collaborator with everyone here at the Montpellier senior activity center I love coming here not just for the food for the people but as you mentioned the spirit of the place is something that's just really special so I actually moved here for this job I moved to Vermont with my wife a year or so ago now with the hopes of planting roots somewhere and we landed somewhere else and liked it in many ways but there was something missing and part of that was the work that I was doing and saw this job listed and thought it might have been too good to be true like a city program that has a farm that feeds a social program here in town and I immediately applied and was very happy to get the job and moved to Montpellier for this and kind of in the greater context of like just really hoping to find somewhere to plant my roots and one of the reasons that we moved to Vermont was because of the reputation for it having being a very community-minded place and just being very welcoming to agriculture and very agriculturally minded and then it didn't take long maybe like one or two days of spending time with the people that I'm working with to like really feel like yeah like I think we found home and it's just been growing ever since and I have a good time talking to some of my friends from the state that I moved to which I think is also pretty agriculturally minded but I like he's so surprised it blows his mind that there's a city-run farming program that feeds a senior center it's just like it's really incredible I think it's a special and unique program and I'm very happy to be a part of it and I'm very inspired by the people I work with and what could be better than working outside and working with people and feeding people and being in a good community so I feel very grateful hi I'm Cara I use they them pronouns I am employed by the city in the parks and trees department which supports the farm and is under the same umbrella as the senior center which I am a member and I'm here as a guest reader so this is from feed every need feed every need a newly formed nonprofit organization based in Northfield Vermont that has recently begun providing nutritious prepared meals for distribution to those facing food insecurity throughout greater central Vermont including the Montpelier senior activities center for the past three years Jonathan and Lisa Burr owners of the Woods Lodge have been developing and perfecting systems processes and recipes designed to meet the needs of those being served by the Vermont everyone and emergency eats programs their involvement in these programs allowed for a firsthand look at the incredible impact that making prepared meals available to the community has had and also revealed to them that a reliable and sustainable resource was needed to address this now and well into the future in response to this the burrs established a new nonprofit called feed every need to do just that because feed every need relies solely on grants donations and financial contributions for its operations the organization is currently looking for grant opportunities and other sources of support to ensure its longevity and sustainability many Vermonters who are unable to utilize food shelves items such as canned goods and fresh produce due to their living situations or merely due to lack of time or ability to prepare prepare meals can find themselves empty handed prepared meals are a key component in the ecosystem of food security work be it post crisis or day-to-day feed every need is now working with partners that serve low and moderate income Vermonters to fill that gap feed every need currently delivers 800 meals per week in various formats to more than 10 different organizations in Washington and the Mojail counties who then distribute them to their communities there are plans in place for feed every need to expand outreach and assist more communities in need explore the possibility of adding home delivery for those who may not have access to current distribution sites and scale at production to reach more households feed every needs mission is to help fight hunger and food insecurity and Vermont pride providing prepared meals solutions for distribution to communities in need more information at feed every need.org hello my name is Layla I use she or they pronouns and I work for the Parkinson's trees department as well I was around at the inception near inception of the feast farm and have seen that program through it's now into its fourth year of growth and change and I also like see the core of city role as providing food for citizens and public spaces to be where you don't have to spend money to have community and I see NSAC and parks as like yeah just the spirit and heart of what a city should do and provide I think Meals on Wheels is the beating heart of that parks and trees public spaces yeah so I'm so grateful to have this job and to collaborate with the feast meals program with the feast farm and to be part of this community yeah I'm Ron Merkin I'm just happy to see Poa in the hallway and he asked me to play the piano that's why I'm here but I'm not working at any any of the ways that people have described I just happened to be here one thing that occurred to me though when Poa was talking about attracting more people if there's been any outreach to people other than seniors has there been or have you publicized that to encourage younger people to come you might get a lot more people in that case I don't know okay sure all right thank you I didn't come to talk I was invited he told me I I have I get the food from this place it's something new for me I live on the third floor and I always made my own food but I I get the food here I enjoyed the people that are getting it ready they're nice people I've lived here for quite a while and it's I've changed in many many people doing work here and it's wonderful that they can get people here to take care of us because there are so many people that need to have food and it thrills me that they have a man and women that bring it to people's houses because I have lived in Montpelier all my life and there were a lot of people back when I was a child and a woman they weren't getting any food they didn't have any money there was no food they were on the streets and everything has changed and it's wonderful I'm I was asked to come and I thought no I don't think I will and I thought no I need to know what's going on I live here and you're doing a wonderful job I must say that I have I've met people who get the food and they really enjoy it so I'm happy and co is doing a good job we love her all the women we all love her okay that's it I'm today I live upstairs thanks it's so immensely aspiring to hear from all of our stakeholders here and I'm gonna pass it over to Shalonda now and also Caitlyn and Nancy if you wanted to say a little bit more I know we kind of got rushed and David as well so yeah hello everyone my name is Shalonda James and I'm the executive chef of the Meals Wills program and I go by the pronouns of she and her and working for Meals on Wills for the past three years has been an honor to be in this position to be able to help strengthen the outreach of our community to know that what we are doing is having a direct impact on community members that needed the most the simple act of performing chopping onions peeling carrots washing dishes has improved in quality has improved the quality of life of so many individuals in our community having the ability to create an environment for joy learning self-improvement and companionship sharing good stories laugh me laughter music and of course good food the most cherished outreach that we have developed would be our mentorship through our partnership with surrounding high schools that helps them grow through leaps and bounds the students come in and gain knowledge from myself and other volunteers who are in our program and the farm is the highlighted and championed the farm stand and farm are the highlighted and championed programs for the Meals on Wills program collaborating with parks department and bringing in a fresh nutritional food to our community by providing the farm stand individuals can come to receive the full benefits of the harvest each each program that we have is helping to end food scarcity with one meal at a time I am David I volunteer in the kitchen it's as I say in Ireland great crack which means a lot of fun but when I think about it I think about my wife has worked in gleaning for years it's part of a larger continuum we have farmers that donate food we have volunteers and some paid all rightfully so out there picking produce bringing it here bringing it to other sites so people can feed themselves I can't think of anything more meaningful than to help in that larger sense in in the midst of so much confusion and so many things that are wrong with the world it's nice to go in and cut carrots and know that you're doing something that's meaningful and with great people who are supporting that effort thank you sure thank you for the opportunity to redo so I'm Caitlin Rosine I use she or they pronounce I do live in Plainfield although I arrived in Vermont in Montpelier and was a Barry Street resident for about four or five years I also before working at the Council on Aging I worked with Community Harvest a central Vermont and I'm imagining Cynthia is your spouse one of my most favorite volunteers but so I have had an opportunity to see many of the different parts of the system and in my new role at Council on Aging I'm it's I'm thrilled to get more folks involved from a volunteer perspective and I'm so hoping to meet the current volunteers and hear a little more about your personal stories and I'm just honored and inspired from everything I've heard from folks today hello again Nancy Murray she her pronouns and the role that I play at CVCOA is one of looking for the younger partly recruiting some of the younger volunteers so I can maybe focus a little on that for the Meals on Wheels I live in Brookfield so I'm actually Orange County but I've been in Vermont now for almost 50 years way back when I moved here I was told if I made it 50 years that maybe I could call myself a Vermonner but I have my I have my third generation here so my kids and then moving forward grandchildren here I've really enjoyed hearing everything everyone has shared about the Meals on Wheels Randolph is the senior center that I would be most connected to and I know that they have they serve meals four days a week at the noon hour haven't yet really in gotten down to experience them yet but it inspires me to do so from here and it's been wonderful hearing all of the things on this it did bring me back to when I first moved to Vermont I used to direct people to my house by how many dairy farms they passed along the way there were actually eight to get to to where I lived or where I still live and watching the change over the decades of what has happened to our dairy farming family farms industry I also have been an educator at Vermont Technical College and loved my association there because of the agricultural things that I was able to be a part of as in picking my apples from the orchard for the last 45 years or so that the the connection between agriculture and community in Vermont is just something that's always been a treasure to me in terms of my local farmers that supply me with a good amount of what I have the number of farmers that I know but it's just made for such an enriching life here in Vermont and community for all of us that I think things like meals on wheels program and the commitment that we have as a community to feeding our neighbors is a pretty special one thank you and Nancy yeah thank you Nancy and I think that's a great start to a response to Judy's question I'm aware of time it's four minutes to noon so I'll keep my comments to four minutes and then when I'm done speaking please if you have time stick around we have great refreshments representing our kitchen thank you Shalonda always and I think I want to tell a personal story to finish our time here I'm Polo Mutino I use he and they pronouns and I'm gender queer and working at a senior center is a lot of fun in terms of how people perceive my gender and it's been very affirming to be referred to as he and accepted as a man I always thought everybody thought I was a young gay man I'm not sure really what they think I'm but I'll leave that a mystery I'm gender queer and I have a background that goes very deep in food and cooking and farming all the way to my ancestors from Italy and Ireland and other places in northwest Europe and when I was 15 I entered a science research program at my public high school in Westchester County New York and we were told to study popular science for a summer and then come back for our first year of the program and talk about what caught our passion and I read a book called the science of Harry Potter and in it there was a chapter on herbalism as the equivalent to potions so I researched the New York Botanical Gardens and found a wonderful graduate student named that Blutter who took me under his wing and told me well ethno botany is just the study of people and plants so what do you want to focus on within that and gave me a book called coming home to eat by Gary Knobhon who does work in the Southwest and I wrote that book in about 36 hours one weekend and I decided that my science research project would be the health effects cost and feasibility of a 100-mile diet I knew that Westchester County directly north of the Bronx used to be the bread basket that served New York City and well before colonization it was a rich area where indigenous groups such as the Lenape lived so I'm looking around me and I'm not seeing people eating local food but I'm determined that I can get a full diet within a hundred miles so for three months foolishly starting in May I ate only local foods and there were not many vegetables in May I remember making a sandwich with thinly sliced rutabaga as the bread and I extended my range to 250 miles so that I could get grains from the Penyan region and fell in love with buckwheat then I recruited people because there's no statistical significance to one person doing anything when you're a scientist so I recruited six people and had them do this diet for 30 days and at that point I was able to give them a resource list of all the places to get local food we studied their labs they all went to a primary care physician and had blood work drawn before the diet and after the diet and we discovered that their triglyceride levels decreased and they overall showed signs of health their cholesterol decreased my subjects were between the age of 15 and 55 I presented that research at the United Nations I went to college I went to college in Iowa because I wanted to see the heartland of conventional agriculture I didn't want to do local farming in Vermont because there's so many local farms in Vermont but there's so many soy farms and corn farms and hog farms and chicken farms that are highly industrial and poisoning the land so I left after two years it was an uphill battle the the kitchen at the university I went to or the college Grinnell College would refuse foods from local farmers because they didn't fit into their slicing machines the potatoes weren't perfect like an Idaho potato the carrots weren't perfect like a carrot from California and I transferred to Sterling College in Craftsbury Vermont because I was desperate for community even though there was more queer community at this liberal arts school in Iowa there was community in in Craftsbury and I self-designed a major in farming and social justice and graduated in 2010 in 2021 I started a master's in social work program with a focus on geriatric social work and intergenerational programs as well as youth work and work with queer youth then I found this job position and put energy into my altar and energy into my cover letter and said please let me get this job I was living in Plainfield at the time and I moved to Montpelier and I got the job at the same time and it has been an uphill battle to manage this program we saw the fierce leadership of Sarah Lipton who hired me and then her departure left me without a director or a supervisor and there was a flood and we lost our farm under six feet of water and out of that came the local foods purchasing assistant grant and we opened up a farm stand for ten weeks in which we gave food around away to everybody it was Mark AmeriCorps member of the parks who said this farm stand shouldn't be siloed it shouldn't just be for older adults and the the mandate of the grant was that the food would not be sold and it would not be cooked and it could not have been cooked and then sold so we were talking about low and it had to be six two-thirds local so we had beautiful food and partially thanks to Kim's help we had a ten or eight or ten CSA boxes from Goodheart Farm in Worcester we were buying local meat local cheese local vegetables which anyone shopping at Hunger Mountain Co-op buying a week's worth of groceries would have spent seventy five dollars on to bring home and we were sending them to people for free and we were advertising at the food shelf here at Just Basics and people were coming in and crying and laughing and there were two-year-olds here with their young parents who lived in the Berry Street neighborhood there were 80 plus year-olds walking with their walker to have groceries put on the seat of the walker and we did not get funding to continue that but we will reapply for the next grant cycle so it's amazing to partner with Shalonda I she was part of my interview team she and Sarah interviewed me and I'm grateful that they agreed to hire me Shalonda and I share an office and a lot of the behind the scenes work of this program before me the program was empty there were somebody who had who was unable to work so there was no feast program manager for five months and Shalonda took over probably half of the program manager position in addition to all of the volunteer management and producing 350 meals a week and Sarah took over the other half along with Matt is my I don't know if they would say that those numbers but that that seems to be the case and it in terms of the amount of work for this program that Matt and Shalonda do and it's it's taken me till now to feel like feast is the future of feast is like walking with all of you and a meadow in the sunshine on a Vermont farm with picnic baskets like we've got this this is a world-class program and as Bernie said a few years ago as far as he knew we are the only capital city with a farm that feeds a meals on wheels program and that may have changed and I hope that's changed and my vision for revenue is to rent our kitchen more and to start a cafe here in the mornings that's volunteer led and I'm the manager of so I hope that comes to pass I've heard countless times from members of the senior center that this place isn't what it used to be and that's partially because there's less people using the space whether it's for computer labs or socializing or drinking coffee so I hope to continue to be part of the heart of the Montpelier senior activity center and to be here for a good while at least until we balance the budget and my position could be neatly handed over to the next leader of the feast program so I've taken us six minutes longer than I meant to but I really appreciate you hearing my story and thank you for coming today thank you for taking over an hour out of your time to travel here and I hope you all have a great weekend enjoy this mid-march weather I do need to scoop but I just want to let people know that the congressionally directed spending your mark process has just opened up so if you are looking for funding take a look at that and see if that's something that you might want to apply for it is a long process it's not like you know you you can't apply today and think that you're gonna get money in a month or it's probably gonna be two years but and it's a competitive process but innovative programs like these are things that the senator is always looking for so take a look it just came out on the burning buzz and if you have questions people here know how to reach me thank you thank you are there any other logistics or burning things that people want to say before we make this casual and network and eat refreshments and drink refreshments hi again I just thought it'd be good to mention that the farm stand will be starting up again in sometime in June depending when we start having produce available I guess and these these pictures are they really do tell the story and that will be on Wednesday mornings in front of the building okay maybe we could I'll say at the same time at the count of three go feast okay one two three thanks y'all