Emotions Run High at Williamstown TV Forum

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Tremus Thompson knows she cannot keep her home, but she would like nothing more than to stay in her adopted hometown.

Thompson was one of more than a dozen residents who lined up to address a panel of town leaders in a community conversation sponsored by the local community access television station on Wednesday night.

She has lived in the Spruces Mobile Home Park since 2010, one year before Tropical Storm Irene wiped out more than half the park and started the town on the road to a federal flood mitigation grant that ultimately will close down the rest. Thompson is among the 66 residents who will be removed as a condition of the FEMA grant if, as expected, the town and landowner Morgan Management accept the money.

On Wednesday, she told her story to a jam-packed meeting room at Mount Greylock Regional High School and a live television audience.

"I am one of the families that lost everything," said Thompson, who appeared to hold back tears through much of her remarks. "I believe I saved a couple of pots and pans. ... I believe that taking 10 acres in a safe area - not trying to obscure anyone's view ... I'd like to go out and rake my lawn and plant my vegetables. I'd like to go to my neighbor's house and mow her lawn because she's feeble and can't do it. That's the kind of community we lived in.

"I fell in love with Williamstown, and I don't want to leave it. I'm sorry it's caused so much tragedy for you all that you have to think about, 'I don't want to lose 10 acres,' or 'I want to hay there.'

"I want to stay here, but I don't want to stay here if I'm not wanted."

There was a plenty of anger and frustration on all sides of the issues being discussed at Wednesday's event, but no moment was more emotional than Thompson's appearance at the microphone.

After the meeting let out, she talked about just why she is so emotional about Williamstown.

"The thing that sold me wasn't the Spruces," said Thompson, who moved here from Greenfield with her husband. "The thing that sold me was the police department."

It was October 2010, 10 months before Irene changed life forever for Spruces residents, and Thompson was taking her grandchildren trick-or-treating in a Williamstown neighborhood.

"The police were everywhere," she said. "They were riding around very slowly, shining flashlights, talking to the children. It was amazing how they made you feel so comfortable and safe.

"My daughter and I had never lived in a town like this. And I've lived in some towns."

On Wednesday, April 24, her town will decide whether it wants to make available 10 acres on town-owned land for potential development of subsidized housing that would allow residents like Thompson to have their gardens. The catch is that the land already is producing food — hay that helps keep one of the region's dwindling number of working farms in business.

" 'It's just a hayfield,' some say," Agriculture Commission Chairwoman Beth Phelps said during the panel discussion. " 'It's just 10 acres.' That hayfield is part of the larger circle of life. ... Ten acres supports 3.5 beef cows for a year. Three-point-five beef cows feed 81 people in a year."

The conflict between preserving open space and addressing the town's well-established need for affordable housing has dominated the political conversation in town since last November. That is when Town Manager Peter Fohlin announced the town's application for the FEMA grant and its intention to use part of the money to help develop the 30-acre, so-called Lowry property off Stratton Road.

Advocates of keeping the Lowry parcel in conservation garnered enough signatures on a petition for a special town meeting to force the question of whether the land can be developed. WilliNet, the community access TV station, organized Wednesday's event to help educate the electorate two weeks before that meeting.
 

Phelps was by no means alone in advocating to continue the protected status of the Lowry property. Among the speakers who rose from the audience to question the wisdom of development was Sarah Gardner, a member of the town's Conservation Commission, which will take up the issue of the Lowry property in a joint meeting with the Select Board on April 18.

Williamstown Yarn Store Bringing the Hobby Closer to Home

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
05:13AM / Monday, June 15, 2026

Gather sources some of its yarn from regional producers. 

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — If you knit, crochet, or want to pick up a new hobby with yarn, a new space is open to get your supplies.

On March 18, owners and friends Ashley Cart and Geraldine Shen opened Gather on Spring Street.

The two teach knitting classes at Williams College and thought it would be great to bring their hobby to life.

"We have always been avid knitters, and we've spent a lot of time together doing that, and find it to be for ourselves like this really wonderfully calming hobby," Shen said.

Shen said they see many people starting to take up the hobby and thought it would be great to open in location convenient for students and to give them a space to curate their work.

"We're finding a lot of interest amongst people to learn how to knit. Young people who want to get off their screens, find something that they can do with their hands, and so we have always talked about, like, wouldn't it be cool to one day do this," Shen said.

Shen said there aren't many options to buy yarn in the area, and often they're a long drive away. While they opened an online shop before finding a storefront, they recognized that for some knitters buying, online was not ideal.

"Yarn is one of those things that you do, at least the first time, want to see it in person, and like touch it, and look at it against your skin, or you know, color combinations, if you knit or crochet, just like to squeeze the yarn, and feel how squishy and soft it is, and so it is one of those things that you can't just easily buy online," she said.

Their new space is at 57 Spring St. on the third floor. An elevator at the Bank Street entrance can be taken straight to their door, it is especially readily accessible to the college students.

"We've sort of been working with Williams students, and we wanted to be accessible to them, because we really feel as though there's a renewed interest in this craft from younger folks, and that it can be a really good thing for them, and so we wanted to make it easy for Williams students to access the store, and they don't all have cars, they don't all leave campus much, so being on Spring Street was important to us," Shen said.

The store offers a variety of yarn and supplies, and a sit and stitch room where anyone can come in and hang out and work on their projects with others.

They buy yarn from local producers and offer other products as well.

"When people come through, like tourists and stuff, often they ask us what can you get here that you can't get anywhere else," said Shen. "So we have some yarns from local farms, we have some handspun by a local artist who's based in Lanesborough, we've got yarn from this woman who dyes it up in Brattleboro [Vt.], and so we're trying to highlight some of the really cool farms that we have around here."

One of the main opportunities they hope to expand on is being able to go into schools and teach children how to knit. They recently were awarded a grant to teach WIlliamstown Elementary School  fourth graders how to knit. Each child was able to make a square and Shen and Cart put all of the squares together and it is now hanging in their space when you walk in.

"We want to go into more schools and teach kids how to knit, because there's some really cool research that talks about, like, the benefits of teaching younger children how to knit. It helps them concentrate, it helps them calm down, and gives them a sense of accomplishment," Shen said.