Five Local Non-Profits Making a Difference

Each Thursday, Hamilton-Wenham Patch runs a weekly column called Patch Picks, with five picks for anything from businesses and destinations to services and organizations in categories such as romantic restaurants, places to watch the big game, charities or boutiques.

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This week's 5 Patch Picks highlight non-profit organizations making a difference in Hamilton and Wenham.

1.

Acord offers basic food supplies to those in needs in the two towns. The food pantry, at the corner of Railroad Avenue and Willow Street in downtown Hamilton, will soon has a new home in a new building.

It’s open twice a week, where those in needs can come in to get food.

The pantry also becomes a rallying point for volunteerism at the holidays and is the recipient of the largest food drive each year organized by the public safety departments in both towns.

2. Hamilton Foundation

The Hamilton Foundation was established to help Hamilton residents with “unexpected, urgent, and short-term” needs. The foundation provides up to $500 at one time and helps with referrals to social service and government agencies than can also help.

The foundation’s coordinator is Loretta Cusick and she can be reached confidentially at 978-922-3301, ext. 3

3. WISSH

WISSH, which stands for Wenham Issues of Social Services Help, is a town committee that helps residents “in need of temporary financial or social service assistance.”

Any Wenham resident is eligible to receive emergency assistance from the group if the help is available nowhere else. All assistance is kept confidential. In many cases, the assistance is sent to vendors.

You can reach WISSH confidentially at 978-468-5520 X9.

4. Hamilton-Wenham Open Land Trust

The 26-year-old land trust is the group responsible for many open areas in the two towns such as Chebacco Woods, off Chebacco Road near Chebacco Lake in Hamilton and Manchester-by-the-Sea.

In all, the group says it has preserved more than 100 acres of land in 13 separate “reservations.”

There so much about the two towns that is defined by the natural beauty and this group has been part of preserving it.

5. League of Women Voters of Hamilton-Wenham

The League, as it is often called, has a mission to educate the residents of the two towns about government affairs.

Unlike League branches in neighboring communities that have disbanded in recent years, the Hamilton-Wenham group remains active. For example, it just organized a to help residents understand the real estate assessment and abatement process by bring together the full-time assessors and the members of the Board of Assessors in both towns last week. In advance of the fall Town Meeting, for example, the group also organized a “dry run” of the Town Meeting presentations that before the full, larger meeting at the high school.