FCCMP COMMUNITY UPDATE
OCTOBER 1, 2026
A Note From Interim Executive Director, Charlie Spencer
Welcoming New Executive Director, Liza Eager
Meet Our Five New Board Members
Dear Friends,
When I stepped into the role of Interim Executive Director of the Franklin County Community Meals Program in April, I knew I was joining an organization with a long history, an essential mission, and an extraordinary community around it. I also knew that FCCMP was at a moment when it needed some steadying, some rebuilding, and a clear-eyed look at what would make it stronger for the future.
Six months later, as I prepare to hand the organization over to our new Executive Director, Liza Eager, I feel incredibly grateful for what we have accomplished together. We have strengthened our financial position, raised significant new funds, and secured a state earmark with the support of Senator Jo Comerford. We have brought more structure and consistency to our operations, adjusted staff and volunteer roles, improved staff wages, and taken a close look at our programs and how we use our resources. We audited and refreshed our website and communications, rebuilt and deepened community partnerships, and welcomed five remarkable new members to our Board of Directors, each bringing expertise and perspective that will help guide FCCMP in the years ahead. Most importantly, we conducted a careful and thorough search for our next permanent Executive Director. On Monday, Liza Eager begins this role, and I am truly excited to see what she and this strengthened organization will build together.
None of this would have been possible without the dedication and generosity of so many people. My extraordinary wingman throughout these months has been Nancy Boyle, our Interim Associate Director. Nancy has brought intelligence, good judgment, humor, flexibility, and an extraordinary willingness to take on whatever needed to be done. She has been my partner in nearly every aspect of this transition, and FCCMP is incredibly fortunate that she will remain as Interim Associate Director to help Liza find her footing and ensure a thoughtful handoff. Kriss Shutta, our Finance Manager, has been another indispensable part of this work. Kriss is hardworking, kind hearted, knowledgeable, and deeply committed to FCCMP. She has helped us understand where we are, make sound decisions about where we are going, and keep an enormously complicated little organization running smoothly every day.
I am grateful, too, for a Board of Directors that brought a willingness to embrace change; for our dedicated and incredibly hardworking staff and volunteers who show up week after week to chop vegetables, unload vans, wash dishes, pack meals, serve food, welcome people, and quietly handle the countless tasks that turn an idea like "neighbors feeding neighbors" into something real.
And then there are our patrons, the neighbors we serve: I have learned how powerful a simple meal can be. FCCMP provides nourishment, of course, but it also promotes dignity, connection and belonging. I have learned from the people who come to our meal sites and food pantry that community is built in the everyday moments: a hot meal, a friendly conversation, a sense of being seen and valued. Their resilience and gratitude have propelled this organization in its most challenging moments.
I came to FCCMP to help an important organization through a period of transition. Somewhere along the way, I became deeply attached to the people who make it what it is. So I leave this role proud of what we have accomplished, grateful for what I have learned, and very confident about what comes next. FCCMP is on solid ground, with a strengthened team, a growing network of partners and supporters, and a new ED who understands both the complexity of this work and the profound simplicity at its heart: people feeding people.
It has been a privilege to be part of it.
Onward,
Isabel "Charlie" Spencer (she/her)
Interim Executive Director
Franklin County Community Meals Program
Welcoming Liza Eager
FCCMP is delighted to welcome Liza Eager as our new Executive Director.
Liza comes to us from the Area Agency on Aging in southeastern Vermont, where, as Nutrition Director, she works with 23 community partners responsible for nearly 200,000 home-delivered and community meals each year. Her experience spans budgets, grants and funder relationships, staff leadership, food-safety oversight, volunteer programs, kitchens, and the administrative systems that keep large community nutrition programs working.
That experience impressed us. But so did something much simpler.
In her application to FCCMP, Liza wrote, “I want to be closer to the meals I support.”
She understands that the systems, reporting, budgets, grants, and regulations matter because they make the meals possible — but that the meal itself, and the human encounter surrounding it, is the point.
Liza has worked in kitchens and run her own. She has built volunteer programs and cultivated relationships with community partners and funders. She describes herself as someone who likes “supporting a team, feeding a crowd, having a plan, showing up on time, and making sure people feel seen and appreciated.”
She also likes systems that run well, expectations that are clear, and teams in which everyone understands how to participate and contribute. And, importantly, she likes to listen.
That combination of practicality and humanity made an impression on us.
Liza joins FCCMP at an exciting moment: with firmer financial footing, more organized operations, renewed partnerships, an expanded Board, and an opportunity to think ambitiously about what FCCMP can become over its next decades.
We are so pleased that she has chosen to take that journey with us.
Meet Our New Board Members
One of the most encouraging developments of the past six months has been the arrival of five new members of FCCMP’s Board of Directors.
They come to us with very different professional backgrounds, which is precisely what makes this group so valuable. Together, they add expertise in operations, public health, nutrition, food equity, finance, entrepreneurship, community engagement, and the practical business of feeding people.
Kate Seaman
Kate Seaman brings more than 20 years of experience in operations, project management, and executive support across healthcare, financial services, higher education, manufacturing, and media production.
Through her consulting practice, Partner With Kate, she helps growing organizations bring order to complicated work, improve processes, manage projects, and turn priorities into action. Her earlier roles included supporting senior leadership and boards at Cooley Dickinson Health Care and The Yankee Candle Company, as well as managing HR operations projects at MassMutual.
A graduate of Greenfield Community College and Western New England College, Kate brings an organizer’s eye to FCCMP: the ability to see both the big picture and the many moving pieces required to make it work.
Sarah Marotto
Sarah Marotto is a Greenfield resident whose career has centered on nutrition, diabetes, community and public health, and healthcare innovation.
At the Rhode Island Department of Health, Sarah worked with colleagues and community partners on health equity, food access, and food deserts through WIC, SNAP-Ed, Health Equity Zones, and other public-health initiatives.
Sarah brings a valuable perspective to FCCMP: an understanding of the relationship between food, health, access, and equity — and of the partnerships necessary to address those issues meaningfully at the community level.
Amy McMahan
Amy McMahan has spent decades putting her belief in the power of food and community into practice.
As the founder and longtime owner of Greenfield’s Mesa Verde, Amy built a successful restaurant while also using it as a vehicle for connection, fundraising, and service. During COVID, Mesa Verde fed essential workers and pivoted to takeout; Amy also created pop-ups and fundraisers responding to needs in the community.
She has since founded NOM Meals, a home meal-delivery venture created with the goal of partnering with a nonprofit to raise money to address food insecurity. She also chairs the Community Reinvestment Act Committee at Greenfield Savings Bank.
Amy brings an entrepreneur’s resourcefulness, extensive food-service knowledge, fundraising experience, and a longstanding belief that a meal can do far more than feed someone.
Jillian Lang
Jillian Lang is a public health nutrition specialist focused on food security and access to nutritious, culturally relevant food.
As Community Outreach and Education Coordinator at the Franklin Community Cooperative, she works to broaden the Co-op’s reach, promote healthy eating and a sustainable local food system, and build trusted relationships with organizations serving low-income families, seniors, and immigrant communities.
Jillian holds both a Master of Public Health and a Master of Science in Nutrition Communication from Tufts University. Her work is grounded in a principle that matters enormously to FCCMP: the people most affected by food-access issues should have a voice in shaping the programs and environments intended to serve them.
Mary Pomeroy
Mary Pomeroy comes to FCCMP through Greenfield Savings Bank, a valued community partner of the organization, and brings years of banking and financial-services experience.
Her background encompasses management, consumer lending, credit analysis, customer service, and business development, along with specialized training in financial services and lending.
Mary has been energized by FCCMP’s recent work to stabilize the organization and strengthen its financial foundation. She brings a fiscal lens to the Board at exactly the right time — helping us protect the progress already made while thinking responsibly about the investments and choices that will shape FCCMP’s future.
Five people, five distinct sets of skills, and five new voices around the table.
We are grateful that Kate, Sarah, Amy, Jillian, and Mary have chosen to give their time and talents to FCCMP — and excited about what this expanded Board, together with Liza and the rest of the FCCMP community, can build from here.
If you have questions or comments, feel free to contact Liza at executivedirector@fccmp.org or Keith Waters, FCCMP Board President, at kw2012@gmail.com.