Berkshire Food Project Serves Early Thanksgiving Dinner

Volunteers serve up turkey and all the fixings at the annual Berkshire Food Project Thanksgiving dinner.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Berkshire Food Project served Thanksgiving dinner to well more than 100 community members who may not have a place to go on the holidays.

Volunteers served turkey, stuffing, and other accoutrements necessary for a proper Thanksgiving feast Monday night at First Congregational Church.

Berkshire Food Project Executive Director Valerie Schwarz said there is a need for this dinner in the community.

"I think there are a lot of folk who are single, lonely, or older and these people, the majority of them, eat here all of the time," Schwarz said. "This is maybe their only Thanksgiving meal and then we are open tomorrow so they get to have leftovers."

Schwarz said preparation starts weeks before the actual dinner. Sixteen turkeys were donated and cooked, four and half bushels of Florida Mountain turnips were mashed along with a couple hundred pounds of potatoes. She said the various pies were donated by the Williamstown Congregational Church, which held its Great Pie Palooza on Sunday.

Schwarz said there are always volunteers for the dinner. People from the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition and its UNITY program, MountainOne Bank, Berkshire Food Project board members, Williams College students, as well as other community members were involved this year.

"It is a group effort, and it is definitely is a community event," she said. "We have a great community, and we never have an issue with volunteers. We always have we are blessed in that area."

Volunteer Pam Coons said she thinks the event is important and that it has helped her get to know the community.

"I just recently moved to the neighborhood, and I wanted to get connected to the community," Coons said. "My mom is one of the directors so she said if I had any free time, I should come down. So I figured I would help out. It is very import especially around the holidays."

Travis Ciempa is part of UNITY (United, Neighboring, Interdependent, Trusted Youth) and volunteered with his brother and friend.

"They asked us at our last meeting if we wanted to come help, and I said 'sure it sounds like fun,'" Ciempa said. "I think it is really important. I did a soup kitchen when I went on a mission, and I just loved it so much so I thought I would come here tonight."

North Adams Hopes to Transform Y Into Community Recreation Center

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
05:19AM / Thursday, May 02, 2024

Mayor Jennifer Macksey updates members of the former YMCA on the status of the roof project and plans for reopening. 

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The city has plans to keep the former YMCA as a community center.

 

"The city of North Adams is very committed to having a recreation center not only for our youth but our young at heart," Mayor Jennifer Macksey said to the applause of some 50 or more YMCA members on Wednesday. "So we are really working hard and making sure we can have all those touch points."

 

The fate of the facility attached to Brayton School has been in limbo since the closure of the pool last year because of structural issues and the departure of the Berkshire Family YMCA in March.

 

The mayor said the city will run some programming over the summer until an operator can be found to take over the facility. It will also need a new name. 

 

"The YMCA, as you know, has departed from our facilities and will not return to our facility in the form that we had," she said to the crowd in Council Chambers. "And that's been mostly a decision on their part. The city of North Adams wanted to really keep our relationship with the Y, certainly, but they wanted to be a Y without borders, and we're going a different direction."

 

The pool was closed in March 2023 after the roof failed a structural inspection. Kyle Lamb, owner of Geary Builders, the contractor on the roof project, said the condition of the laminated beams was far worse than expected. 

 

"When we first went into the Y to do an inspection, we certainly found a lot more than we anticipated. The beams were actually rotted themselves on the bottom where they have to sit on the walls structurally," he said. "The beams actually, from the weight of snow and other things, actually crushed themselves eight to 11 inches. They were actually falling apart. ...