The Pelham Good Neighbor Fund Committee has just completed 44 years of helping our Neighbors In Need. The committee had a another busy and challenging year in 2013 but we were able to take care of 56 residents in Pelham throughout the year for their household expenses including rent, heat, electricity and food amounting to $45,728. This also included donations to Bridges Women’s Shelter and Southern New Hampshire Rescue Mission. During the Christmas season, we coordinated our 24th. Annual Sponsor-A-Child Program where residents in town purchase gifts for the children. We were able to provided toys, clothing and food to 33 families including 76 children. In addition, we provided food for 25 families of which 10 families were provided with food from the Salem Elks. During the year, we awarded two scholarships to two high school seniors who had a financial need and had been accepted to a college and over the past fourteen years, 18 scholarships have been awarded amounting to $43,000. We coordinated the donations for the Wilkins’ Memorial Fund Drive which amounted to $5927.We participated in Enterprise Bank’s 4th. Annual Celebration of Excellence, St’ Patrick Parish’s Shantytown for the Homeless and Hungry and the Great Mac and Cheese Bake off sponsored by the First Congregational Church. We also had the honor of being the Grand Marshals at this year’s Old Home Day Parade. Our fundraisers included the 20th. Annual Golf Tournament and the 44th. Annual Christmas Drive. We also received donations throughout the year from individuals, families, churches, schools, organizations and the business community. These donations and our fundraisers have made it possible to provide financial assistance to our Pelham residents throughout the year for household expenses. Our 44th. Annual Christmas Drive was only held on Saturday December 13th. instead of two days because of the snow storm but the good news is that we collected more food in one day than we have collected in two days in the past years. We would like to thank the various organizations including: The American Legion Post 100, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 10722, St. Patrick Knights of Columbus Council 6902 who collected food and cash donations at the Pelham Plaza and the Pelham Firefighters Association and the Cub Scouts Pack 25 who were ready to collect the food and cash donations on Sunday, December 14th but was canceled due to the storm. We would also like to thank all the sponsors who brought the true meaning of Christmas to our Neighbors In Need. A special thank you to Karen Genoter who developed our website and makes all the changes that we request throughout the year and Steve Ziokas who takes care of our annual state and federal tax returns. I would like to share with you an email that we got from a woman who was having a lot of family problems. These were some of her comments. “I was completely taken by surprise by the outpouring of compassion and generosity that came our way!!! When I started looking through the bags and bags of gifts given to my family from the generous donors… I cried my eyes out (but for a good reason)- - - they were tears of gratitude! And in between those tears… I was doing the Happy Dance! I was FILLED with such warmth! Christmas spirit was back!!! I was glowing with excitement, happiness and gratitude, thanks to the absolute kindness and unbelievable generosity bestowed upon my family from complete strangers with huge hearts!!!” The Pelham Good Neighbor Fund Committee is made up of sixteen volunteers who are dedicated and committed to helping our less fortunate residents in Pelham and your donations have allowed us to reach out to touch someone to let them know that we care. The committee would like to thank you for your support and we look forward to being of service to the community in the year 2014.

Frank Sullivan
President