North Adams Pupils Construct Holiday Cards for Veterans

By John DurkaniBerkshires Staff
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Anna Saldo-Burke assists third-grader Zoe Ramsven with her card, which will be sent out to The Soldiers' Home in Holyoke. For more photos, click here to see the slideshow.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Third-grade pupils from Sullivan Elementary School spent Friday morning constructing cards for veterans at The Soldiers' Home in Holyoke.  

"They're going to the people that are in the war," 8-year-old Michelle Purcelli said.
 
Pupils from Anna Saldo-Burke's class made about 300 cards, with the assistance from  Drury High students in the English Advanced Placement class. They glued recycled card fronts on the covers of the red or green construction-paper cards. On the inside, the card contained the message "Happy Holidays! Thank you for your service."
 
Saldo-Burke said her class has never made so many cards in one session. She initially thought The Soldiers' Home hosts a 100 or so veterans, but later found out there were about 300. Her class rose to the occasion.
 
"It's really about thinking of others," Saldo-Burke said. "We just try to make a better world by doing this."
 
Saldo-Burke's third-grade class previously made about 500 cards that were sent to an array of troops around Thanksgiving, including international and American servicemen in Afghanistan. The Air Force responded by sending back a plaque, thanking the class.
 
Jaci Abin, a senior at Drury High School, worked with a table of pupils.
 
"We do a lot with community service that we attach to our books," Abin said. Her AP English class recently read "Life of Pi." She said the survival theme linked to the soldiers' life.

Tags: community service,   Sullivan School,   veterans,   

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North Adams to Begin Study of Veterans Memorial Bridge Alternatives

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff

Mayor Jennifer Macksey says the requests for qualifications for the planning grant should be available this month. 
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Connecting the city's massive museum and its struggling downtown has been a challenge for 25 years. 
 
A major impediment, all agree, is the decades old Central Artery project that sent a four-lane highway through the heart of the city. 
 
Backed by a $750,000 federal grant for a planning study, North Adams and Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art are looking to undo some of that damage.
 
"As you know, the overpass was built in 1959 during a time when highways were being built, and it was expanded to accommodate more cars, which had little regard to the impacts of the people and the neighborhoods that it surrounded," said Mayor Jennifer Macksey on Friday. "It was named again and again over the last 30 years by Mass MoCA in their master plan and in the city in their vision 2030 plan ... as a barrier to connectivity."
 
The Reconnecting Communities grant was awarded a year ago and Macksey said a request for qualifications for will be available April 24.
 
She was joined in celebrating the grant at the Berkshire Innovation Center's office at Mass MoCA by museum Director Kristy Edmunds, state Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver, District 1 Director Francesca Hemming and Joi Singh, Massachusetts administrator for the Federal Highway Administration.
 
The speakers also thanked the efforts of the state's U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, U.S. Rep. Richie Neal, Gov. Maura Healey and state Sen Paul Mark and state Rep. John Barrett III, both of whom were in attendance. 
 
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