Drumlin-Farm to Open Table volunteer program news.

Every Thursday morning from late June through October, a team of FPL volunteers led by Bill Stason is delivering fresh produce from Drumlin Farm to Open Table, Maynard, Food Pantry, which serves clients in a half-dozen surrounding towns including Lincoln. Last summer, Bill ran this program singlehandedly. This summer he is working with a team including Gary Taylor, Becca Fasciano, Kathleen Dunlap, Monty Grob, and Deborah Youngman. Heartfelt thanks to all those early-rising volunteers! If you would like to join them in future seasons, please contact fplgiving@gmail.com

New Youth Service Grants

Outreach welcomes applications from children or grandchildren of FPL members up to 25 years of age for donations of up to $300 to registered charities in honor of service work or participation in bikeathons and walkathons. We hope to be able to fund 2-3 such projects yearly. Project descriptions of 500 words or less should be submitted to the Outreach Committee at fplgiving@gmail.com. Deadline for submission is May 1, but applications will be considered at any time of year at the monthly meeting after they are submitted.

Preston Grant competition

Candidate suggestions welcome. Thanks to an endowment created by the generous gift of Jean Wood Preston in the 1970s, Outreach is able to award up to 5 grants of $5000 – $25,000 each year to small regional nonprofit organizations for capital improvement or transformative innovation. (Winners in 2018-9 included GreenRoots Chelsea, Sudbury/Framingham-based MetroWest Free Medical Clinic, Acton-based Household Goods, Waltham-based Chaplains on the Way, and the Roxbury-based Refugee and Immigration Assistance Center.) We welcome additional nominations of worthy, well-run, small organizations to add to the list of invitations we’ll be extending on October 1. Please send nominations to Outreach Committee member Melissa Brooks at fplgiving@gmail.com

Call for volunteers

Outreach is looking for captains or co-captains to help organize some of our other traditional volunteer initiatives, such as the pre-Christmas sing at Concord Prison in early December and the Farrington NatureLinc work day in April. If you think you might be interested, please contact fplgiving@gmail.com or Outreach Chair Larry Buell. Please also let us know if you would like join an existing group volunteer initiative or FPL Faith-in-Action group, or if you might like to start a new one.

• Larry Buell, Chair, Outreach Committee