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The group had 84 black balloons representing the equivalent of greenhouse gases emitted per day per member of the college community.
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Looking for the college president.
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Protest organizer Zoe Grueskin goes over a cheer for Wednesday's demonstration as environmentalist William Moomaw looks on.

Williams Students Call on College to Reduce Carbon Footprint

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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Williams students marched on President Adam Falk's office to demand the college do more to reduce the institution's carbon footprint.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — About three dozen Williams College students Wednesday took a break from final exams week to press the college president for action on climate change.
 
President Adam Falk told them that the college is working on the issue but that "patience" is required to make sure the job is done right.
 
"I want us to set goals we know how to meet," Falk told the students who climbed three flights of stairs to wait outside his office in Hopkins Hall.
 
"That means getting a process that involves the Zilkha Center [for Environmental Initiatives], students and faculty, that doesn't just have goals but has a path that we understand how to get down."
 
Wednesday's demonstration was organized by the student group Thursday Night Grassroots, an environmental action organization.
 
The group met on the steps of the Paresky Center and blew up black balloons symbolizing the carbon dioxide emitted by members of the college community. They then marched to the administration building while three members of the group presented Falk with a petition calling for stronger carbon reduction goals at the college.
 
The petition was signed by more than 1,000 people.
 
Wednesday's event had far fewer people, but the students were enthusiastic as they staked out a petition on the grass outside Falk's office in hopes he would acknowledge them at his window. When it became clear that would not happen, the group moved inside to wait near his office for the departure of juniors Alice Stears and Molly Pickel and sophomore Lucy Page.
 
After they emerged from their meeting, Falk stepped into the hall outside his office to share some thoughts with the larger gathering.
 
Pickel said the private meeting was encouraging.
 
"I think it was good," the Mount Kisco, N.Y., resident said. "He was receptive to the idea of reducing carbon emissions at Williams. But he is not ready to make any sort of commitment to that."
 
The trio said Falk told them what the told the bigger group: The college needs to have a more focused conversation bringing in different experts and interested parties.
 
"It's sort of slowly moving but in a fragmented way with different groups working independently but not cohesively," said Page of Winchester.
 
Billings, Mont.'s, Stears said TNG wants Falk to foster a more directed discussion.
 
"What we're hoping might come out of this is more of a push from, maybe the president's office ... more of an institutional focus on getting that work done at a faster pace," Stears said. "I guess that would be the hope going forward."
 
Stears, Pickel and Page said they all plan to carry the momentum of the anti-carbon movement through the summer and into next year, since all three will be back on campus.
 
One student who will not is Zoe Grueskin, one of TNG's leaders who led the march on Wednesday but who will graduate next month with plans to teach in Shanghai.
 
Grueskin said she plans to continue to stay involved with the college and is excited by the energy she saw from her fellow activists this year.
 
She provided one of the key elements of Wednesday's protest, a banner carrying a quote from Falk that he gave her and a now-graduated student in January 2013.
 
"There’s actually no more important issue that the world is facing. Nothing," Falk said then about climate change.
 
On Wednesday, Grueskin was happy to be able to use Falk's words to remind him of the issue facing Williams College.
 
"It makes sense that he would say that," she said. "He's a physicist. He gets it."

Tags: climate change,   environment,   Williams College,   

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Williamstown Select Board Awards ARPA Funds to Remedy Hall

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Select Board on Monday allocated $20,000 in COVID-19-era relief funds to help a non-profit born of the pandemic era that seeks to provide relief to residents in need.
 
On a unanimous vote, the board voted to grant the American Rescue Plan Act money to support Remedy Hall, a resource center that provides "basic life necessities" and emotional support to "individuals and families experiencing great hardship."
 
The board of the non-profit approached the Select Board with a request for $12,000 in ARPA Funds to help cover some of the relief agency's startup costs, including the purchase of a vehicle to pick up donations and deliver items to clients, storage rental space and insurance.
 
The board estimates that the cost of operating Remedy Hall in its second year — including some one-time expenses — at just north of $31,500. But as board members explained on Monday night, some sources of funding are not available to Remedy Hall now but will be in the future.
 
"With the [Williamstown] Community Chest, you have to be in existence four or five years before you can qualify for funding," Carolyn Greene told the Select Board. "The same goes for state agencies that would typically be the ones to fund social service agencies.
 
"ARPA made sense because [Remedy Hall] is very much post-COVID in terms of the needs of the town becoming more evident."
 
In a seven-page letter to the town requesting the funds, the Remedy Hall board wrote that, "need is ubiquitous and we are unveiling that truth daily."
 
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