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Gift bags for senior citizens were decorated by elementary school pupils.

Taconic High Students Play Santa To Seniors At Hillcrest

By Andy McKeeveriBerkshires Staff
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Taconic High School students Eukeria Asamoah and Adjoa Boateng helped Angelina Flynn open one of her presents at Hillcrest Commons.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Santa didn't forget the county's mostly isolated seniors.

Home Instead Senior Care has led an community effort to bring gifts and cards to more than 300 seniors across the county. The annual Be A Santa To A Senior program has "exploded" and this year involved schools and the highest number of gifts it's provided in the last 10 years.

"This is the year it exploded," said Dorsey Hydon, one of the organizers for Home Instead.

Each year, names of seniors who are struggling financially or who have few family remaining are collected from human services organizations. Those names are placed on four trees and residents purchase gifts for them.

This year, schools jumped on board. Children from Crosby, Capeless and Williams elementary schools decorated the gift bags. Stearns and Williams elementary pupils and Hillcrest Educational Centers students made cards and, on Tuesday, students from Taconic High School helped deliver some of the gifts to seniors at Hillcrest Commons.


"This is the first year the schools are jumping in and it's awesome," Hydon said. "We've sponsored 300 seniors this year. It's grown immensely."

Taconic health science teacher Amy Green said many of her students have worked at Hillcrest Commons as part of the class and it was nice to be able to bring the students back.

"They are students who are interested in health careers," she said. "They have worked here as part of the program. It's nice that they can come back and see the residents again."

Taconic's English department also jumped in on the action with students taking up a collection and shopping for some of the senior citizens.

Home Instead has been delivering gifts this week to seniors all over the county — from Williamstown to Great Barrington — and hopes to finish by Saturday.


Tags: holiday event,   nursing home,   senior citizens,   

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Pittsfield CPA Committee Funds Half of FY24 Requests

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — A few projects are not getting funded by the Community Preservation Committee because of a tight budget.

The projects not making the cut were in the historic preservation and open space and recreation categories and though they were seen as interesting and valuable projects, the urgency was not prevalent enough for this cycle.

"It's a tough year," Chair Danielle Steinmann said.

The panel made its recommendations on Monday after several meetings of presentations from applications. They will advance to the City Council for final approval.  

Two cemetery projects were scored low by the committee and not funded: A $9,500 request from the city for fencing at the West Part Cemetery as outlined in a preservation plan created in 2021 and a $39,500 request from the St. Joseph Cemetery Commission for tombstone restorations.

"I feel personally that they could be pushed back a year," Elizabeth Herland said. "And I think they're both good projects but they don't have the urgency."

It was also decided that George B. Crane Memorial Center's $73,465 application for the creation of a recreational space would not be funded. Herland said the main reason she scored the project low was because it didn't appear to benefit the larger community as much as other projects do.

There was conversation about not funding The Christian Center's $34,100 request for heating system repairs but the committee ended up voting to give it $21,341 when monies were left over.

The total funding request was more than $1.6 million for FY24 and with a budget of $808,547, only about half could be funded. The panel allocated all of the available monies, breaking down into $107,206 for open space and recreation, $276,341 for historic preservation, and $425,000 for community housing.

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