 So great. Thank you. So Phil, I'm not sure we met, but my name is Ben Bregramma planner for the town of Amherst and help with the administer the block grant program. So nice to, nice to meet you and what's your role with the survival center. I manage with tape and watch the money. Gotcha. Very important. Well, good. So the meeting today is kind of a combined one because it has a beneficiary for the 2020 grant and for the 2021 grant. This can serve as the closeout meeting for 2020 and the startup meeting for the 21 grant so trying to be efficient with time. And I think so for the, for the 2020 grant, I mean there's not that much to go over because you, you know, ended the grant, I think a few months ago and you know submitted your final report, you know, zeroed out the balance. You know, obviously I was just looking over the stated goals for the 2020 grant and then the services provided and it seems like you, you know, very much met or exceeded all of the goals which just speaks to the need that you're serving and the importance of the work that you're that you're doing for the town. So I think the 2020 grant as far as I'm concerned, you know, we've already filed with the state to kind of begin closing that out and, you know, hopefully Nate Nate has been great because he's, I'm going to slowly, you know, take over more of this work and he's handing me a blend. Hopefully, you know blank slate the 171819 and now the 20 grants are all closed out which keeps things easier, easy for me. And so are there any questions about the previous grant or any concerns or no. Yeah. And then. So for the 21 grant. I did. Obviously I sent the contract over a few weeks ago so I just wanted to check on that that you'll be able to have it signed and sent back. At some point because that that that would be the last step I guess and getting the grant up and running or that you have a contract up and running. If you track down Chris who is at a conference this weekend to get a final couple of signatures. Yeah, yeah, yeah that makes sense. Yeah there's a few few signatures required on that one so is the clerk. Okay, great, great. It's that authority to sign things. That makes sense. Yeah and so once the. I'm pretty sure this is the case because the contract starts June 1, you know if they're you can back date expenses to June 1, even if it's not signed and everything until for another few days or weeks. So we'll look, look for that from, from, from you guys and then get. Bill, can I just churn in you. We're going to send the original over to the town, but in addition to whatever paper copy we keep, you'll upload the copy to our SharePoint contract folder. Okay, thanks. I usually save the like unsigned version there and I just realized that I didn't so I just want to make sure that we get in the folder as well for easy reference in addition to the paper copy. Great. And so, just in terms of like, you know, documentation and administering the grant. Obviously this is you've done a number of these grants. But just wanting to make sure you're having in using an intake form for for, I guess for Amherst residents who are being served at this arrival center. Yeah, so similar to what we've been doing for a couple of years, or many years we have incorporated all of the city bg required information into our standard pantry registration. So we can collect the same information from everybody regardless of their town. Those that form has long been approved. Yeah. In terms of capturing that information. People fill it out. Once a year ish. So we're actually right now have been in the process of essentially getting like re upping everybody's registration so we have up to date information. We didn't get new registrations for in like the height of COVID though we had people that were new to the pantry we got all of those new. Anyway, and then yeah we enter all that info into our database and have a specialized report the custom report that the database company built for us to then like pull out the CDBG demographic reporting info so yes so that's definitely that gets captured. And basically in the event that somebody hasn't completed that form for some reason or if we didn't have the required information. We just don't count them in the numbers of people served, even if they did live in Amherst like we just effectively treat them as though as far as Amherst CDBG reporting is they would just not be counted if we didn't have a registration form for that. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Well good and I guess I think the other thing too and obviously you know, just the quarterly reports. This, the grant starts on June 1. So the first quarterly report would be, I would have to be submitted to me on July. Let's see July 11 is the Monday. So, you know that that might be only a few weeks of the grant actually being in place but so it could just be as simple as, you know, grant is up and running with no activity has started yet or something or no, you know, but just to have something submitted for July 11 would be great. Okay. Would it be acceptable to the full report the demographic reporting is significant on our end in terms of the work required. Could we submit a brief given that it is ongoing so it's not true that it's not up and running yet. Yeah, that's a brief narrative report for this first report that's a one month only. And then with the next quarterly report, provide all the demographic statistics for four months so June through September 30 with that be acceptable. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, understanding that yeah the demographic producing those demographic results would, you know that you're saying just that would be really tough to do by July mid July. It's not impossible but it would be challenging and given that numbers are always year to date. I'm just I guess asking permission from you if that would be. Oh yeah, just, yeah, yeah, we would submit a demographic report not with this first one in July we would do it in September or sorry in the October report for the four months as opposed to for one month and then the full four months. Yeah, yeah, no I that makes sense to me because like yeah like you said it's always cumulative anyway so you know, I think it's, I like to have agencies kind of just keep tab just to make sure they're keeping tabs along the way, so that at the end of the, you know, grant year that, you know, the numbers all add up and they've you know it's show that they've been documenting all along but I think that's what you just described makes a lot of sense I think it's fine if you do that beneficiaries summary for the September That's great. And we will submit financial reporting in July based on whether or not we have actually spent the CDBG funds in just based on our current needs and obviously the CDBG is a, you know, it's a, it's a percentage of the funds that are used to serve our residents in the pantry. And there are most recent conversations between Phil and I were anticipating not expensing CDBG funds until July one. Okay, yeah, sounds good. Align with our fiscal year. Yeah. Yeah, that kind of covers my questions just in terms of administration and implementation, I guess. In terms of the program itself. You know I was just looking through some of your short term and long term goals, you know in terms of food. Access you know you're thinking you, you're, I guess you actually probably wrote this, these goals in this time last year almost, but you know you're thinking of, you know, going from one, one week to two week of groceries, I'm still aiming for 2000 residents. You know, providing different access, you know, onsite curbside pickup delivery evening and weekend hours, I guess I'm just curious between when you apply for the grant and where you are now like how, how are you faring in terms of accomplishing some of those goals and obviously COVID come up and down and up and down and I'm sure you've been, you know, resilient and trying to accommodate. I would say that at this juncture. It's interesting because I think when we wrote this application which was almost a year ago. I believe that at that time we were actually anticipating that it was based on some information from me that it was going to be a 2022 calendar year because we're all writing it projecting and January to December contract whereas now it's a June to June contract. But it actually has kind of because of the rises in COVID and other various challenges. The goals of our advancement on those similar priorities have been pushed back a little bit so actually the short term goals as outlined in the contract are still a really perfect fit for this coming contract here in terms of what are what our goals are. And so, you know, very actively, you know, in the, we are very actively in the planning stages and moving along with this what will be required in order to increase to two weeks. And our anticipating doing that within this contract here we're hoping to do that by basically the end of 2022 or 2023 so and some of the other pieces are more ongoing work that we're continuing to, you know, work on and make progress on. And we have definitely solidified our commitment at this juncture of maintaining the curbside pickup and delivery and actually expanding delivery further into the onsite pantry. We're really, really seeing strong, strong programmatic food security impact of those two pieces. Right. That makes that makes a lot of sense and I think to like, you know, do you find also just geographically being up in the corner of town you it's for its heart makes it difficult for folks in, you know, downtown area or South Amherst access services and I guess that there's a bus line but Yeah, I think that the geography certainly plays a role, but I think that almost in some ways for the pantry, regardless of where in Amherst somebody is located just their access to a car or reliable transportation is really significant because even if someone lives very close. If they don't have access to a vehicle, especially as we've increased the allocation of groceries. It's a lot to try to carry home. So, certainly we have long seen the challenges for folks trying to get us on the buses from South Amherst. Well, I think, you know, for a town as rural as us we actually have pretty decent transportation. So what we really see there is that the fact that someone would have to, for example, from South Point apartments actually take three buses with various weeks. That is pretty impossible to do, like with groceries and kids and toe. The other problem that we have continued to hear from people is the bad limit that PBTA has, which I just will mention this because I think this is actually an important equity consideration for the town to have influence on and whatever negotiations are coming up that and so far PBTA's answer has been that, well, it's up to the driver and they don't have to enforce it. But what that the experience of that from the rider standpoint is that they can't depend on being able to get on the bus with groceries. And people do also definitely report, not always equitable enforcing of the rule and so, you know, someone really, if they don't know if they're going to be able to get on the bus with their groceries that's really not a viable. Yeah, that's not okay. Maybe not be allowed on to the bus with them so I think that's a really, really important food access issue for us to for the town to consider advocating around with the PBTA bus system. But yes, absolutely the delivery program, I think has just or I don't think I know has made an enormous access improvement for people all throughout town. In terms of saving time just the scheduling of it for folks to have kids that are with them. It's really hard to come here and we didn't line in with the increased numbers that we're seeing you know just lines are longer and so that's been a really, really positive for a lot of folks. When we reopened choice pantry, almost a year ago for people to be able to come in and again just off the shelf. We were expecting a more significant drop off from delivery than what we saw. And so, while we certainly had some folks that if they had access to a vehicle or could get here they wanted to come in and be able to choose their own groceries or even some folks initially like a small house. It could take the bus, but a lot of people have just said that the delivery, it means they actually get the groceries every month, whereas before when they were before coven when they were having to come here and that was the only option. They might only make it every other month or every three months or whatever it was because that was when they could get here and so this has really increased that reliability of their access to food. Great. Yeah. It kind of speaks to the, you know, the service that like, like the mobile market is providing to just to bring food directly to people or closer to people and just to cut down on those transportation barriers. Absolutely. Yeah, I've heard a few times this issue with the bag limit on PVTA also just just for people to even, you know, there are buses to, I think big YN stop and shop, but just the bag issue becomes bag limit becomes an issue as there as well. So, yeah, I think it is worth like discussing that with the PVTA and a better understanding I mean I imagine it might be like a emergency like egress kind of thing if there's too many bags in the way that's all I can really think of but but yeah, I don't know. It is not a policy in public transportation and many other towns, cities, large cities, emergency concerns. Yeah. All right. So I think, I think that's about all in terms of questions that I had. I think I'm curious to, I guess it's been a while but I know that you were having some staff turnover. Maybe it was more so last summer but do you feel like you're fully staffed up at this point or still have some openings that you're trying to fill. Yeah, I mean I would say like everybody. I mean, honestly, I think we're doing better than a lot of organizations and businesses, as I talked to other colleagues about the hiring but yes, certainly I think workforce stability is a challenge that a lot of businesses and organizations are facing. So, we do have, we have a really, really strong team of staff in place. We do have some turnover, you know, to some extent as is to be expected with these positions. So we have definitely had some right now we're hiring for, we're in the final stages of hiring for another pantry assistant. That was a result of an internal promotion then of a kitchen assistant we had an employee who left and we're anticipating hiring for one of our coordinator positions connected to the pantry within the coming weeks. I do, I know that Gail had brought this up in the committee meeting and I did just want to mention to you because I think it may have played a part in her consideration of it that we shifted to a model of having we have three coordinators in the pantry right now we have a source in an operations coordinator someone who coordinates the on site pantry and someone who coordinates the delivery program, as opposed to before COVID we only had one. And so I do just want to mention that that that obviously has increased the number of times that we have indicated that we're hiring for a coordinator but it has not been that like someone only was here for three months and then left it was that but you know like Okay, yeah, that's that's really good to know. Okay. Gotcha. All right, well that's yeah that's helpful that's good to know. And yeah I totally understand the workforce. Yeah, just being, you know, being flexible and understanding that people are there is turnover and I only asked just to like get a better sense if there's, you know, any about ability to implement the grant or meet meet the goals but it sounds like you know there's it's a normal level of turnover and obviously I do agree you have a you have a strong staff and at least normal for now. I don't know if it's normal, you know, five to seven years ago. Yeah, a new normal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well good is there any anything else any other questions you had or I think just briefly I'll let you know about the for the next round. I feel like I'm every day I grow more convinced that they're going to push the application deadline back to March. And I, you know our program there's also been turnover at DHCD with the state. We have a new a new intern like program representative he's worked for the DHCD for a while but it's kind of a new role for him but he, he basically told us, you know, gave us his strong conviction that the applicant they would be releasing the, what's the one year action plan pretty soon and that would specify the new application being due in March. So we'll, you know, as soon as we have that confirmed we'll, you know, look it over because that one year action plan also outlines like how how much, how many, how much in funds each many entitlement communities going to get how many social service agencies they can fund and, you know, what are the state's objectives and, you know, there's some talk of maybe this being a two year grant, but maybe it'll just be a one year grant so I think we'll have to just obviously review that summarize it and then get that out to the agencies as soon as possible so you all can plan accordingly. Okay, so if it is due to the state in March, that would which is how it used to be that would trickle back to probably our application being due to you in December is that correct. Yeah, yeah, I think that's what Nate and I had discussed so the, yeah, we would probably be somewhere around December and then the committee would have, you know, January to review and get questions back and then give us February to get it all ready to be paired and submitted to the state so yeah that that was kind of my understanding as well. It does mean that the public hearing we had last month it's not, you know, we'll have to hold another similar type hearing probably in August or September, you know, it can build on what we learned in the May hearing but the state wants to see like okay you, you know, kind of progression of like they released the one year action plan, but their priorities this the town then here's local priorities and then you build from there so because we didn't have the one year action plan. In May they're, you know, suggesting we hold another hearing which I think makes sense because it'll be, you know, four months later potentially so. Do you anticipate collecting additional responses, as far as the needs survey that you did in that case. Um, I hadn't thought of that. I think we, we've already closed the survey. And I think, you know, I did have it open for, I think four or five weeks. At that point. So, I think, yeah, I guess it would be a conversation I would have with the committee about, you know, just what would be the, you know, purpose of that and you know are there more, you know, different avenues for outreach we could, we could. I guess I would just advocate for that it seems like, while there were, you know, not an insignificant number of responses there in a huge number of responses in terms of the population. Most of the responses really came through the school. So I think it would be. Yeah, I know I think in the past there was a time when there was a survey like that. And you know, I just feel like, I think it's a big angle like letting folks at the immerse survival center, you know, no, that's a large population of who are low and moderate income in Amherst, and it's an opportunity for folks I mean, you know, they may choose to weigh in on food insecurity but they also have lots of other needs as well and can kind of address that so and I think other organizations could also help put that out. And there would be other, you know, various ways to get it out. So, I think, I would encourage the consider getting a broader response. If that is indeed going to be informing the need selection. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah, similar to, you know, there's something to be said about the, you know, that I ran that survey and like March or April. And, you know, things can change between, you know, that would be six months before, you know, proposals are put out so if the if it's pushed till September, or, or even later so yeah just having a more because this process is now being extended. You know, having a more, you know, timely, I guess collection of priorities from from residents. I think there's justification for that, certainly. So, yeah, no thanks for that suggestion and we have the committee meeting in a few weeks so I'll discuss that with them. Okay, that's great. Thank you. Yeah. That sounds good. Well, I appreciate you taking the time to chat and nice to meet you virtually, Phil, and yeah, I'll look for the email from you guys for it with the contract. Yeah, any other questions. Thanks so much, Ben. All right, awesome. Take care. Have a good one.