On behalf of the Milford Youth Commission and staff, we would like to thank everyone who attended, donated and supported to make the 12th Annual Fundraiser successful, raising $12,000 for Youth Center programs! The event was held on Friday, September 9th at CraftRoots Brewing from 6-9 PM and included great beer and food, live music, raffles and community awards! The Youth Commission selects businesses, individuals and/or organizations each year for our Community Appreciation Award! The awardees are recognized for their dedication and support of the Youth Center! The 2022 Individual & Community Appreciation Awards were presented to Francoise Elise, the Hockomock Area YMCA and the Milford Public Schools Food Service Department!
Our first of the three awardees of the night went to our volunteer grant writer, Francoise Elise! Francoise is a retired grant writer with over 20 years of experience in many sectors and with much success, so it was a no brainer for us to welcome her aboard when she reached out over a year ago to help out and volunteer for us! After multiple meetings with the Director to learn more about the Center and how we are responsible for raising funds for all of our programs, materials and part-time staff, Francoise got to work! With her help our capacity to submit more grants has increased so much over the last year. Already, she has helped us with securing grants for STEAM programming, to purchase a new AED machine, to create a social emotional learning curriculum and hire a consultant, life-skills programs and finally for summer camp scholarships, amounting to over $25,000 worth of funding so far! We would like to extend a HUGE thank YOU to Francoise for donating over 75 hours of her time to work on these grants and help the Center to continue to grow!
This second Community Appreciation Award was awarded to the Hockomock Area YMCA! The YMCA has partnered with the Center for years on fitness programming, grants, food security initiatives including grab N’ Go, free breakfast and lunch over summer and free snack and dinners during school year, remote learning over COVID and most recently allowing our summer camp program free access to their indoor pool twice a week this summer while Fino Pool is being renovated! Those are just a few ways the YMCA has shown their support and shared their resources with us over the years! We are so lucky to have their team as community partners and the Milford Community as a whole!
Our third and final awardee of the night was the Milford Public Schools Food Service Department tomorrow! Carla Tuttle and her amazing team has partnered with the Center for years to make sure our program kids always had food provided during the summer camp and after school programs! Over COVID, we partnered with Grab N Go meals and last school year, due to this collaboration, we were able to serve 4,752 snacks and 5,541 dinners during our free 10-month after school program, amounting over $22,000 worth of food distributed to our kids through state reimbursable programming in partnership with the YMCA. This summer we provided 361 breakfasts and 909 lunches to our summer campers! All of this work is in addition to this departments normal job responsibilities and with the mission to make sure no child is ever left hungry!
We would also like to recognize some special guests who attended the event and/or gave out citations to the awardees including Joseph D. Early Jr., Worcester County District Attorney’s Office, State Representative Brian W. Murray, Senator Becca Rausch and Select Board Members Michael K. Walsh, Thomas J. O’Loughlin and Paul Mazzuchelli. Thank you to all our Board Members who attended and/or helped to make the event a success, including: Brendan Rickert, Stacy Darling, Steve Sousa, Sandra Caproni, Ariea Bryan, John & Darlene Dulude (thank you for the extra help with raffles), Chuck Calagione, Esq., Jason Vaz (special thanks for all the help with set-up and clean up) and Christine Crean!
We would also like to thank The Pub Kings, for allowing us to use their microphone and speaker for the awards and raffles, along with their awesome performance throughout the night! Thank you to the Rail Trail Flatbread Co. for donating 10 flatbreads and hot tots for the event! Finally, thank you to the entire CraftRoots staff for your amazing hospitality and for arranging a food truck, Mac N Cheese Please Mobile for additional food options to purchase! Thank you to our MYC staff for all the help with the event too (esp. Joanna Abrantes, Sam Bonvino, Maddy Bonvino, Emily Stienstra, Jaime Hill, Ciana Desena)!
We would like to thank every individual, organization and/or businesses that contributed to this fundraiser with a monetary donation and/or raffle prize! Thank you to the following individuals or businesses who made a monetary donation amounting to $5,000 of donations: Amazon ($2,000), Steve Manguso and his Basketball Charity Tournament ($1,000), CrossFit Never Doubt ($500), Milford Police Association ($500), Door Systems ($250), Chris Cicciu ($200), Haven Beauty ($100), Area Glass Co., Inc. ($100), Meineke ($100), Paul & Barbara Boisclair ($50), Dolores Ivester ($50), Kim Mu Chow ($30), Ann Hill ($30), Phyllis Foley ($30), Danielle King ($30), Celeste Salley ($30) and Cecilia Stienstra ($25)!
Thank you to the following individuals and/or businesses who helped us complete 50 raffles, valued at over $5,000 worth of prizes: The Ward Family, Ariea Bryan, Craftroots Brewing, Boston Beer Co., Chuck Calagioni, The GYM Milford, John and Darlene Dulude, Stacey Holland, Milford Nutrition, E-Z Way Car Wash, Worcester Red Sox, Haven Beauty, Valerie Tessicini, TDA, Chrissy Lacerra, Infinite Pawz-ibilities Dog Training, Salon Richard Anthony, Jay’s Classic Barbershop, Patty Miles, Deb Kilcoyne, Sandy Caproni, Joshua Parker of Baystate Marketing, Olympus Training Lab and Ken Rosa!