001Hi, how are you today? My name is Bill Gath and we are here to talk about the Ashland Emergency Fund. We thought there were enough people in town that are new and haven't heard about it that it would be good good to get the word out about what we do. I have here on a panel tonight with me Terry Weiser, an Ashlin Emergency Fund committee member, Isabelle Harrison, one of the founders of the Ashlin Emergency Fund, John Ellsworth, another founder of the National Emergency Fund, and a newer member of the committee, Jim Zabrowski. I'm also a member of the committee. The committee is made up of volunteers, and there are officers and directors elected from that committee. Um, I thought maybe we'd start out by getting a little bit about the background of how the
002Ashland emergency fund started and what the purpose was. So, I thought we could not do any better than to ask Isabelle to say a few words. Actually, the emergency fund started after Ashland Day one year. The carpenters union made a wishing well and had it in the center of Ashland Day that year. After Ashland Day was over, it was put in front of Sunnyside Cafe and kind of forgotten about it. And coming on this time of the year, the owners approached Ben Montenegro and Rick Galani, who was a selectman at the time, and uh said, "You know, there's money in there. You better get it out. They had I forgot the figure was I think 130 something. Ben could have told you down to the penny. And he said, "What are we going to do
003with it?" And Rick said, "Well, why don't we give it to Isabelle? She's always looking for money." So Ben comes in and he throws the money on my desk and he says, "Here, that should keep you happy for the holidays." And he told me the amount. And I said, "Ben, that doesn't touch the surface." And he says, "What are you talking about?" He says, "How much do you want?" And I says, "Oh, I'd be thrilled with a couple of thousand." and he says, 'Well, I'll be back. About three days later, he came in and threw $2,500 on my desk and said, "There, you're happy now." And that was the start of the emergency fund. >> I think it would be good to explain that this money wasn't for you, but what you were doing at
004that time? >> I was >> What desk was that? I was the youth coordinator at the time and during Thanksgiving and Christmas we supplied families with uh dinners and we supplied youngsters with clothing and toys for the holiday. Um I think John was one of the ones that got hit up to donate the 25 $500 and uh do you want to go from there John? Yeah, the uh Isabelle talks a little bit about the myth of the emergency fund and it's important that everybody has a myth. Okay. The reality is that uh that Ben Montenegro and it basically came out of his head. Uh and it sort of resulted from Susie Misspelly Day which was uh happened just before Ashlin Day. Susie Miss Pelly had been badly injured and the town came together on a
005day on Stone Park and raised I forget how much money but it was an awful lot of money tens of thousands of dollars >> to help defay the the medical bills and Ben looked at that and the the Isabel's reaction to the hundred I think it was $127 Isabel something like that >> and he said uh we can do better and and he and and I sat down and talked just a little bit and uh and uh two things resulted basically from Susie Misspelly day. Ashlin Day was one of them and and the wishing well where the 127 bucks came from. But in a in a more serious note, Ben sat down. He said, "John, we need an organization." And we got seven co-founders together. Uh Jim and Lorraine Hickeyi, Isabelle, me, Ben, uh Jim
006and Denise, uh last names escape me, and uh and seven of us threw and it was $3,500, Isabelle, not 2500, but it's who cares. And we we started uh the is the foundation or the the the the emergency fund with 30 30 3,500 bucks. And that was in 1987. We were incorporated in 1988 87 as well through the services of a of an attorney who lived in town and from that we've grown to a $100,000 a year operation pretty much. >> How much do you think has been distributed? We won't hold you to the penny since it was founded in 1987. >> Over a million dollars. >> I'm going to say about a million five, a million six, something like that. We're way up there now. You raised this money. How? >> Oh, it was
007primarily donations from people at large. Uh we have no governmental funding whatsoever. Uh we get grants from major corporations through their corporate giving programs. So for example, John Hancock, there's about 12 or 13 people who live in Ashe and work at the Hancock and through them we receive a substantial amount of money and that just goes right down the line. Fedwall, Microsoft, Google, uh the corporate giving program, some of them are substantials like Hancock, some of them are small, but they're all the result of individual gifts from people who live in the town of Ashland. Another way to give is if you go to our website uh ashlande emergencyf funund.com it'll give the addresses and people want to sometimes donate money in memory of somebody and when we receive that money somebody sends out a
008thank you note that also sends out a note to the family uh of the person that passed. So, it's it's getting money from all sorts of directions and uh for all sorts of purposes. I would like to mention that on the end of the table here is Jim Zrowski. He is one of the newer members of the committee and has been involved in the town forever and has always donated. And I wonder if he'd say a few words about why he joined. >> Well, um my wife and I have been g Oh, excuse me. Uh my wife and I have been giving for about oh I think 27 years practically from the start. Excuse me. And um I think the thing that we've always appreciated about this fund is that 100% of what we donate
009is actually given to the people in need. And uh when I actually joined the board back in March, I was amazed to see how seriously that the board takes that that even if they need a postage stamp, it doesn't come out of the donations. It's comes out of somebody's pocket on the board. So that 100% of all the donor's contributions actually do go to the people in need. >> That's one of the main reasons that I fully support this charity. I know I live in NICT and I'm a out oftowner but I get involved a lot in Ashland and I know of no other charity where it's towed the line not one penny will go to overhead. In fact the process of seeking some of our funds is usually carried out at the uh community
010center through Cara Terrell who's what we call the tip of the spear. If somebody has a need, they will go to her and she'll ask them a lot of questions and she'll fill out a form and then that form will be assigned a number and that will be passed on to three members of our committee who are called the screening committee and what they do not knowing who the person is, no names or anything, they assess individually whether they think it is a worthy cause. If it is two out of the three, it is passed on to a distribution committee. The distribution committee's responsibility is getting the funds to help that person. Now, as a general rule, we do not give money out to any individual. If it's an electric bill or an oil bill
011or a gas bill, goes directly to the company. If it's to help out with somebody's rent, it goes directly to the uh landlord. If it's uh to get a car fixed, it will go to the company that fixes the car. There's a lot of different reasons we give. I couldn't list them all. I would say that in raising money, many people do not know, but if you buy something on Amazon and when you go to Amazon, instead of going to Amazon, go to Amazon Smile. You will still pay the same amount that you would paid on Amazon. However, a very small portion of your purchase can be designated to be donated to the Ashlin Emergency Fund. We do not receive a lot of money that way, but it's another good venue to give to the
012fund. Um, operating costs, we've talked about the food pantry. We help out an awful lot with the food pantry. So does the Ashlin Firefighters Association. We actually have a charge card at the food pantry. if they run out of food, they can go and get it at one of the supermarkets and they'll be covered. We never want them to be in need of food. So, the the food pantry is a big part of what the National Emergency Fund does. We are all volunteers. If we're doing an event and we have coffee and donuts, one of the committee members pays for it. Never comes out of the emergency fund. if uh well anything you can think of that we do no money comes out of the emergency fund. It's all used 100% towards those who are
013in need from Ashland. Um I don't know if you want to add anything else to that, John. No, it u it's just been a wonderful thing to to see how the a the town has responded and as the um as with the as the economy got into trouble, how donations sort of magically increased, they needed to all we needed to basically let people know was that hey, things aren't good anymore. And uh and in 2007208 2009 they turned really really bad and and we went overnight uh the previous year I think it was about $60,000 in donations to the the following year a little over h 100,000 uh and it's all through the the giving and and the caring of the people of town of Ashlin. Uh, I guess the other thing I would say
014is that I was asked about 10 years ago to sit down with with some people from two different towns to talk about what we had done. And in in in an hour and a half over coffee, I laid out the structure and the charter and the expectations and and and who received the monies and how we controlled it and so forth. And there are now two, they're not called national emergency fund. Obviously, they're not even called emergency funds, but they're operating in two different towns based on on what we started, what Isabelle and Ben Ben Montenegro effectively came up with. It wasn't by idea. It was I got sort of draoned into into being the the guy that kept the money for the the first time out of the box, and I kind of stuck
015around. The other thing is both the Ashlin Fire Department and the Ashlin Police Department have contact numbers so that if something occurs even on a weekend or at night or what have you and we need to help out somebody, they can contact us and it will be done. We'll get somebody there to put somebody up in a motel or do whatever it takes to make them whole. If uh somebody needs winter coats and everything, we'll have one of our people go with them and buy winter coats for them. It's uh it's an organization which I can't be more proud of. Um I'm chairman of the Ashland Day committee and uh this is uh being on this committee is more of an honor than that is. Terry, do you have anything to add? Um I'm just
016thankful that we have this organization in town to help people. Um it doesn't just help poor people. It helps emergency for any person >> in our town. Um it doesn't have to be somebody that um is poor. It can be somebody just like me or you. Um cancer, loss of job, um someone dies in your family. Um, this emergency fund helps helps you get by and through sometimes difficult situations. And um, the board does never knows the names of the people that we're helping. And um that's one of the reasons why I joined because it's confidential and it's honest and it has integrity and there isn't a lot of that left in our country. So I'm very thankful for the emergency fund and the people that volunteer and we're always looking for more people to
017volunteer. If I could add a little bit to what Terry just said, Bill, it there are many, many different kinds of needs. There's a little daily need. Uh a child that arrives at school without mittens on a February day and needs mittens. I mean, that's what that's 10 bucks, 15 bucks. I don't even know what mittens cost now. But you compare that to a a bread winner of a family with a mortgage and couple of kids and cancer. Uh the the the strategy of the board, the directed objective of the board is to be able to handle as many emergencies as we can or be in a position to raise enough money to handle it. And at the moment, the way our board is set up, we have balance on hand. we can handle a
018continuing flow of of cash out on the order of about $50,000 50 to 60,000 you know and I don't want to make it sound minor but it it kind of goes out in small amounts dribbling out is the image but that's not fair to the people who need it they really need it and in addition we want to be able to handle at least one major emergency at any one given time and a major emergency for us is $50,000 And when you consider a bread winner without any money coming in and a mortgage and a family to feed, you can go right down the list. $50,000 may be what it takes to keep that family whole. And in all of these cases, and we've had a number of them over time, and I'm not going
019to enumerate them because if I were to describe even one, people might know who it was. But we don't know the names. We don't know who's getting it. Uh all we know is they need it and it's determined in the social services office by Cara Terrell. Now it used to be Isabelle who did it and uh and the money just goes out and $50,000 we can do that. That's kind of what we're all about. >> I'd like to add here too. If there is a state agency or federal agency that can help out, we always look for that and we have all so worked in partnership with St. Vincent de Paul, the Salvation Army and others, the Federated Church so that we all try and make the most use of a dollar. We're also a
02050C. Is it >> 501c3? >> They know it. But that uh gives us a status that you can uh put it down on your taxes as a charitable organization which does help. >> I know you've mentioned those other groups, but the Ashlin Emergency Fund is really a real quick response team. we can respond >> very rapidly. >> Now, I know we mentioned some things here tonight and you won't remember them all and we may not have answered all your questions. If you would like and you could email me, Bill Gaff bllatgmail.com. I can send you a sheet called frequently asked questions about the emergency fund and it might answer some questions that we haven't. If you have more questions that can't be answered by this sheet, please get in touch with us through our website
021and we will get back to you with whatever answers we can find. >> Also, tell them about the meetings and when we have them so that if they want to come and volunteer, they can join us. >> We have uh emergency fund meetings on the second Thursday of every month. Where do we have them, Terry? Well, right now we're having them at um Oak Realy on Main Street, the new building um the corner of Pleasant in Maine. Uh Steve Greenberg's office right now. That's currently where we're having our meetings. Um >> we're also seeking a larger place because >> We're hoping for more volunteers and it's a little cramped the way we have it right now. So, that may change, but you can always get in touch with us through the website and we will
022let you know where we're meeting and when. The second Thursday, 7:00 every month. >> I thank you for Anybody else want to say anything? >> Did you want to talk about the fundraisers that we do or nothing? >> Sure. What are the fundraisers we do? Well, right now we're in the process of um gathering change with the children uh through our Halloween drive and um I believe they went out this week to K through five maybe and they um the children um fill their baggies with change and they bring it back to their teacher and one of us picks it up and brings it to the bank and um then we tally it all up and get let the kids know how many pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters And um this was uh the chairperson
023of the emergency fund who couldn't be here today. Rosemary Fedorichek was her idea several years ago. And um each year we've raised around 3,3500 through the coin drive which is every October. We also have other fundraisers that we do. Um we've done a couple of auctions. Some of you have participated with that and we're very thankful. And we do food drives. So you'll see us sometimes at Market Basket and we you'll see us at Shaws looking for food to fill our food pantry with. So we have lots of different activities that you can get involved in. >> Terry, how much does $3500 and pennies weigh? Um, that's also another reason why I have a bad back because I'm usually the one who collects the coins and um brings them to the bank and stands at
024the coin machine for hours. But I'm very thankful that the children and the parents are willing to give us their coins so that we can help somebody in need, somebody with an emergency. That's what we're here for. I'd like to just add too that other groups in town have done fundraising for us. There's high schools students have done it. Various groups in town have uh undertaken something and raised money for us. And the seniors in general are very giving to us. Individual gifts have been the backbone of our organization. Well, I think we've probably covered it and uh we're probably taking up enough of your time, but I hope you'll keep us in mind, especially with the holiday season approaching. There are many needs that occur at this time of year, and there are many
025organizations asking for your assistance. All I can ask is that you put us on a list and realize that every penny you donate goes directly to one of our clients. Thank you for listening to us and we hope to hear from you.