With freezing temperatures settling in and the first outages of the season already in the books, the news that Gray and the GNG Community Connectors have secured a grant for emergency kits couldn’t be more timely.
The $10,000 grant is from the Community Connections project, an initiative of the Governor’s Cabinet on Aging. The funds will be used to purchase solar-powered/battery-powered radios with a light, siren and phone charger; windproof/waterproof mylar emergency sleeping bags; solar-powered/battery-powered lanterns; handwarmers, and other items essential for emergencies, winter storms, and power outages.
The grant proposal was a joint effort by Town of Gray staff, BLING (Building Livability in New Gloucester) and GNG Community Connectors Cindy Slocum and Lori Fowler.
With funding secured, the GNG Community Connectors will partner with the Gray and New Gloucester food pantries, the American Legion post in Gray and others to identify community members who would most benefit.
“It’s our community helping our community,” says Community Connector Cindy Slocum about the project. Volunteers from local groups will be invited to help assemble the items into kits for distribution in the new year.
Also helpful: shrewd shopping for the items that will make up the kits. The goal was 100 kits, but thanks to aggressive price-hunting, they expect to be able to provide many more, according to Slocum.
The grant to Gray and the GNG Connectors is one of 40 awarded across the state. Separately, New Gloucester secured a grant to provide house numbers to residents who lack them, with the goal of enabling faster emergency response. New Gloucester and Gray were eligible to apply due to their designation as Age-Friendly Communities.
Projects funded elsewhere in Maine by Community Connector grants ranged from a generator and heat pumps to establish a heating and cooling center (Danforth), to an amplification system to allow hearing-impaired residents to participate in public meetings (Monmouth), to tools and outreach for home chore volunteers (Sanford), to intergenerational art classes and exhibitions (Dover-Foxcroft) and more.
Along with their work on the grants, GNG Community Connectors Cindy Slocum and Lori Fowler have been active providing information about area resources and programs, answering questions, and helping people navigate services. Slocum mentions connecting GNG residents to fuel assistance and helping people enroll in Medicare savings accounts as among recent activities.
“If you know of someone in need, please contact us,” Slocum says. She can be reached at 207-572-2594 and fellow GNG Connector Lori Fowler at 207-572-6493, or by email at GNGConnectors@gmail.com. Slocum says they’ve fielded calls from folks reaching out on behalf of a friend. “It’s people knowing people. That’s what works.”
For more information about the GNG Community Connectors, see the BLING webpage or BLING on Facebook. To learn more about the Community Connections Project, an initiative of the Governor’s Cabinet on Aging in partnership with the University of Maine Center on Aging, Lifelong Maine’s Age-Friendly Communities, and Maine’s Area Agencies on Aging, click here. — Joanne Cole
