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Runners head east on Main Street for the first annual Bunny Run.

Bunny Hop Raises $4,000 for Louison House

Staff ReportsiBerkshires
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The Mario brothers showed up for the race but not, oddly enough, Elmer Fudd. See more photos here.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The first annual "Bunny Run-Walk-Hop" to benefit the Louison House shelter attracted nearly 200 participants and at least that many spectators Saturday morning.

"We really didn't anticipate more than 50-75 people max. We doubled that easily," said Executive Director Paul Gage after the first wave of walkers — many sporting bunny ears — took off from Holden Street. "I don't know exactly how many at this point, but around 160 to 180.  ... It's beyond imagination."

Organizers of the one-mile walk/5-kilometer run (followed by music and refreshments) started the event as part of a more aggressive fundraising campaign for the homeless shelter.

Fundraising has become more and more important as the agency's operating budget continues to be level-funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Family Life Support Center is the only homeless shelter for families in Northern Berkshire. It's helped more 3,500 families and individuals find temporary and permanent shelter over the past 20 years.

"Each year, we have to raise more money, find more grants, hope more contributions come in," said Gage. "It's events like these where you can really raise a great deal of money, but it takes a great deal of work."


A new board and a new chairman in Mark Farrington has made a committment to fundrasing that hasn't been there in the past, he said.  

Farrington previously said the event came together in a few short months and that officials hope it will become a major fundraising event. Gage saw it as a way to bookend the seasons — the Bunny Hop in the spring and the Fall Foliage Festival 5K in the fall.

"We're trying to make it so its more than just the race," said Gage. "It's a walk, it's fun stuff for the kids, we're working on expanding that.

This year's event raised about $2,500 $4,000, which Gage hopes to double next year.

"I think that will help us tremendously over the next few years," he said. "If we can increase fundrasing from about 10 percent of our budget to 15 it will provide some stability we need in the short term and the long term."

 


Tags: benefit,   homeless,   race,   

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WCMA: 'Cracking the Code on Numerology'

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) opens a new exhibition, "Cracking the Cosmic Code: Numerology in Medieval Art."
 
The exhibit opened on March 22.
 
According to a press release: 
 
The idea that numbers emanate sacred significance, and connect the past with the future, is prehistoric and global. Rooted in the Babylonian science of astrology, medieval Christian numerology taught that God created a well-ordered universe. Deciphering the universe's numerical patterns would reveal the Creator's grand plan for humanity, including individual fates. 
 
This unquestioned concept deeply pervaded European cultures through centuries. Theologians and lay people alike fervently interpreted the Bible literally and figuratively via number theory, because as King Solomon told God, "Thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight" (Wisdom 11:22). 
 
"Cracking the Cosmic Code" explores medieval relationships among numbers, events, and works of art. The medieval and Renaissance art on display in this exhibition from the 5th to 17th centuries—including a 15th-century birth platter by Lippo d'Andrea from Florence; a 14th-century panel fragment with courtly scenes from Palace Curiel de los Ajos, Valladolid, Spain; and a 12th-century wall capital from the Monastery at Moutiers-Saint-Jean—reveal numerical patterns as they relate to architecture, literature, gender, and timekeeping. 
 
"There was no realm of thought that was not influenced by the all-consuming belief that all things were celestially ordered, from human life to stones, herbs, and metals," said WCMA Assistant Curator Elizabeth Sandoval, who curated the exhibition. "As Vincent Foster Hopper expounds, numbers were 'fundamental realities, alive with memories and eloquent with meaning.' These artworks tease out numerical patterns and their multiple possible meanings, in relation to gender, literature, and the celestial sphere. 
 
"The exhibition looks back while moving forward: It relies on the collection's strengths in Western medieval Christianity, but points to the future with goals of acquiring works from the global Middle Ages. It also nods to the history of the gallery as a medieval period room at this pivotal time in WCMA's history before the momentous move to a new building," Sandoval said.
 
Cracking the Cosmic Code runs through Dec. 22.
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