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Action Shelter plans efficiency units Gloucester Daily Times 7/31/06

Action Toy drive missing its 'Mr. Santa Claus' Gloucester Daily Times 7/10/06

Action 41st Annual Meeting Photos 6/14/06

Action housing advocacy Gloucester Daily Times,  May 22, 2006

Action Energy alternative energy programs Boston Globe 4/9/06

"Unity through English language" Gloucester Times editorial 4/14/06

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The Boston Globe Letters to the Editor 1/10/04

Plea for funding is urgent

In their Dec. 18 op-ed article, "Again, the poor go begging for heat," Citizens Energy Corp. chairman Joseph P. Kennedy II and Congressman Marty Meehan call for $2 billion in fuel assistance funding. This plea is ever more urgent as New England faces another bitter cold winter and rising world energy prices. We applaud their call for a greater commitment of public resources to help vulnerable Massachusetts residents stay warm this winter, and we appreciate the help that the Citizens Energy Oil Heat Program provides to the people we serve.

Another complementary approach is to make more people aware that they may be eligible for fuel assistance, energy efficiency, and utility discount rates. (Each of these programs has different income requirements.) To promote awareness, the Commonwealth's investor-owned utility companies have joined in a public/private partnership with the Massachusetts Community Action Program Directors Association (MASSCAP) and the Low-Income Energy Affordability Network (LEAN) to launch Energy Bucks. The community outreach campaign aims to help the approximately 733,000 eligible Massachusetts low-income households reduce their energy costs. Less than 30 percent of eligible households are accessing the programs available to them.

We agree with the call for additional federal funding. In the meantime, partnerships like Energy Bucks will help fill the gap.

JOE DIAMOND, Executive Director MASSCAP

ELLIOTT JACOBSON, Chair Low-Income Energy Affordability Network

Elliott Jacobson is the director of Action Energy and can be reached at elj@actioninc.org

This letter appeared on page A12 of the January 10, 2004 Boston Globe