( Also known As The Chuck Turner Daylight Network )
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Go sledding, try out snowshoes, build snow people, and track animal prints with a Boston Nature Center naturalist. Bring your own cross country skis for park touring at 1:30pm. We'll have some sleds to borrow, but brings yours if you have one. You can warm up with hot chocolate and board games in the clubhouse. 
Advocate for Franklin Park Snow Removal
If you love Franklin Park, want to see it continue to improve, and enjoy programs like the Playhouse in the Park, skiing at the Snow Festival, or volunteer days - become a member today! FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Susan Kooperstein
February 3, 2011
617-875-3619 (cell)
Sophia Adolphe
617-348-6236
ABCD Neighborhood Programs Threatened
Reports of Potential Federal Cuts to Community Action
Send Shock Waves Through Boston and Nation
Society’s Most Vulnerable Placed in Harm’s Way
President Obama’s State of the Union address and subsequent federal budget requests cite “community action” as a program to cut by an administration that has been under attack for spending.
“This is backward, dangerous thinking,” said ABCD President/CEO John J. Drew. “Community action programs have significant pay back. The administration is placing the most vulnerable in society – children, families, seniors – at terrible risk if they begin to dismantle the network of antipoverty programs that provide housing, education, job-training and placement, child care, with an integrated approach to getting families out poverty and giving them hope for the future.”
Drew noted that community action programs have been in place for almost 50 years. “They’re institutionalized. They work. In Boston, ABCD makes a difference every day for thousands of people, for 80, 000 people and families every year. We have a network of hundreds of neighborhood offices, Head Start centers, Family Planning sites, Fuel Assistance sites throughout the city. ABCD is everywhere for people who need help.
He pointed out that ABCD gets people on their feet, in jobs, paying taxes, and that every CSBG dollar is multiplied 20 times over in private and public funds raised to support community programs and meet needs. “ABCD and the other 1,000 community action agencies around the country are the best investments in economic progress any administration can make,” Drew said.
Right now ABCD is helping more than 26,000 low-income families survive a bitter Northeast winter with its Fuel Assistance program, launching the Earned Income Tax Credit campaign that will help close to 10,000 working poor families access up to $6,500 each in tax credits, providing Head Start and child care services for 2,400 children and their families, and beginning recruitment for 5,000 inner-city youth for the agency’s summer jobs and education program.
National Network Serving Poor in Danger
Drew said that since citing community action for cuts in the State of the Union address, reports indicate that the Obama budget will request a 50 percent cut in the Community Service Block Grant (CSBG) funding that provides the base for vital ABCD programs in its 15 neighborhood-based centers. In addition the administration is expected to propose doing away with the other 50 percent of CSBG funding provided to community action programs through a state formula and substituting performance-driven grants modeled on the controversial “Race to the Top” education program.
“In effect, it’s a 100 percent cut for community action,” said Drew. “They will wipe out the network that has meant an investment in the future for America’s families and an ongoing boost for the nation’s economy,” said Drew. “These are the programs that Tea Party affiliates would embrace! These are programs that give a hand up, not a hand out. We are all about economic opportunity.”
CSBG funding for ABCD primarily supports the activities of its 15 neighborhood sites, each of which bolsters that money with a host of grants and fundraising activities. “CSBG is the seed money – we leverage it in a million, creative ways to build programs and opportunities,” Drew said.
Nationally, the CSBG budget is approximately $622 million with Massachusetts receiving $17 million which is designated to 24 community action programs including ABCD.
About ABCD:
ABCD serves more than 80,000 low-income Boston-area residents through its central offices and a decentralized network of Neighborhood Service Centers (NSCs), Head Start centers, Family Planning sites and Foster Grandparent sites. Programs and affiliations include Fuel Assistance; Head Start; Child Care Services; Child Care Choices of Boston; Education; Career Development; Housing and Homelessness Services; Health Services; Family Planning; Urban College of Boston; University High – an Alternative High School; Ostiguy High School for high school students in recovery; Weatherization; Foster Grandparents; Elder Services; Intergenerational Programs; Food Pantries in several Boston neighborhoods; management of the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), Commonwealth of Massachusetts Employees Charitable Campaign (COBECC) and City of Boston Employees Charitable Campaign (COBECC); advocacy and consumer services.
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THIS ISN'T THE END,
This struggle will continue!!!!
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Occasionally we receive information from people regarding organizations and businesses.
While we share this information with you, it should not be seen as an endorsement of their services.
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District 7 Boston City Council Office
One City Hall Square
Boston, MA 02201
Phone (617) 635-3510 / Fax (617) 635-3734
ChuckTurner ---> cturner694 @comcast.net Lorraine.Fowlkes @cityofboston.gov
Paulette.Tillery @cityofboston.gov Darrin.Howell @cityofboston.gov
Edith.Monroe @cityofboston.gov Angela.Yarde @cityofboston.gov
SOUTH END: Ward 4, Pct 4; Ward 9, Pct 2
FENWAY: Ward 4, Pcts 5, 8-9