Florence Bank to Present Customers’ Choice Community Grants

FLORENCE — Florence Bank will present the awards in its 16th annual Customers’ Choice Community Grants Program at an event slated for Wednesday, March 21. Contributions through the program will reach the $1.05 million mark in terms of grants made to community nonprofits over almost two decades.

Representatives from 57 nonprofits receiving funds will be present at the Garden House at Look Park from 5 to 7 p.m. to accept the grants, view photographs and displays from previous Customers’ Choice events, and sample hors d’oeuvres by Seth Mias Catering. The grant amounts will be announced that evening.

The Customers’ Choice Community Grants Program is an annual offering founded in 2002, through which Florence Bank customers are invited to vote for their favorite local nonprofit in hopes it will receive a share of grant funding. In its early years, awards of $50,000, and later, $75,000, were offered each year by the bank; in more recent years, $100,000 in grants have been disbursed each spring.

The following are slated to receive an award: Pelham Elementary School PTO, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampshire County, Dakin Humane Society, Friends of Forbes Library, Friends of Williamsburg Regional Library, the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, Cancer Connection, Northampton Survival Center, Amherst Survival Center, Friends of Lilly Library, Easthampton Elementary Schools PTO, Jackson Street School PTO, New Hingham Regional Elementary School PTO, BARC Inc., Northampton Senior Center, Northampton High School PTO, Emily Williston Memorial Library, Hospice of the Fisher Home, RK Finn Ryan Road School, Safe Passage, Friends of Hilltown Cooperative Charter Public School, Belchertown Day School, the Edward Hopkins Educational Foundation, Friends of Clapp Library, Amherst Regional Public Schools Parent Guardian Organization, Kestrel Land Trust, Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School, Grow Food Northampton, Williamsburg Firefighters Assoc., Friends of the Amherst Senior Center, Tapestry Health Systems Inc., Friends of M.N. Spear Memorial Library, Cooley Dickinson VNA & Hospice, Leeds Elementary School PTO, Hampshire Regional High School, Easthampton Community Center, the Hartsbrook School, Northampton Community Music Center, Easthampton Band Boosters, Northampton Community Rowing, Hitchcock Center for the Environment, ServiceNet, the Belchertown Police K-9 Unit, Hilltown Community Health Centers, Whole Children, Bright Spot Therapy Dogs, Bridge Street School PTO, Cooley Dickinson Hospital, John F. Kennedy Middle School PTO, Mass Audubon Connecticut River Sanctuaries, Our Lady of the Hills Parish, CISA, Belchertown Firefighters Assoc., MANNA Soup Kitchen Inc., the Center for Women & Community at UMass Amherst, the Center for New Americans, and the Granby Senior Center.