Thank you for your wonderful, expansive story on our beloved Franklin County Community Meals Program! Recorder reporter Aalianna Marietta did a fantastic job conveying the hard work that’s going into each day at our organization to make sure we are sustainable, and around for another 40 years of “neighbors feeding neighbors.”
It has been the honor of a lifetime to help steer this ship as interim executive director. I am so pleased to be of service and am learning so much about what it takes to really address, in an effective way, the magnitude of food insecurity in our region. When I started at FCCMP in April, there were three new, part-time people doing the Herculean work of keeping FCCMP afloat without an executive director: Nancy Boyle, who was handling personnel and grant writing, Kriss Shutta, who was managing the dwindling finances, and Mandi Smith who was handling operations and communications. There also was a new board chair, Keith Waters, who was desperately trying to get his arms around governance with absolutely no trail of breadcrumbs to follow.
If they hadn’t stepped up when they did, there’d have been no way for me to gain traction for what has become a successful transition. I need to shout these folks out, as well as the meal site and pantry staff who never wavered in their dedication to our mission or our customers. I am in genuine awe of this scrappy, passionate team and grateful for their contributions.
Isabel “Charlie” Spencer, interim executive director, FCCMP
Greenfield