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Dan and Sharon Bergeron opened a new store at 65 North Main St.

Gray Raven Farm Moves to Center of Lanesborough

By Andy McKeeveriBerkshires Staff
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The couple was going to move the store to New Ashford but customers asked them to stay in town. The are now leasing a storefront near the center of town.
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — Gray Raven Farm has moved its store to the center of town. 
 
Dan and Sharon Bergeron have moved their store to 65 North Main St., filling a vacant storefront across the street from the police station. The two had been leasing the former Bradley Farm.
 
"We were going to go up to New Ashford but we had a lot of town people asking us if we'd look at other locations in town. They loved coming to us," Dan said. 
 
The Bergerons said the new space helps reduce the overhead to run the small company. They are now leasing a small storefront for retail and have a workshop to make their products.
 
"We made our own goat milk soaps, goat milk and honey lotions, some with CBD oil in them. We made our own CBD, we grow our own plants organically. We make our own honey," Dan said.
 
The company is also carrying a tick prevention product made in Lenox and a line of CBD products from California. The couple is also looking to add a line of jewelry and hemp clothing and developing more products.
 
"It takes a while to create a product. We would like to make liquid soap with CBD," Sharon said.
 
The pair started in North Adams, where they were homesteading. They were looking to live a clean lifestyle and live mostly off the land. They got dairy goats in order to make cheese and they ended up with more milk than they knew what to do with. 
 
Sharon modified a family recipe to make the soap and Dan took it to work and shared it. Soon he was being asked for more and of different scents.
 
"We just didn't know what to do with the stuff. We didn't know what to do with the honey. We didn't know what to do with the milk," Sharon said.
 

The new location opened on Monday.
They began taking it to the North Adams farmers market and selling it. They added more markets and events and eventually decided they should open a store. They were told that the former Bradley Farm was available and began leasing and living there in 2017. It didn't quite work out.
 
"It was a big overhead and not the direction that we really thought we would go in. We kind of got out of it and we're here now," Dan said.
 
But in their time at the farm, two miles or so north from their new space, they had grown a loyal customer base. They saw a sign on 65 North Main advertising space for lease and called the number. Within a month they packed up just about everything and re-opened on Monday.
 
"It was just a nice, clean space," Dan said.
 
The couple is now up to three markets a week and a number of renaissance, county, and agricultural fairs. They've recently gotten a license to sell in New York State and travel to fairs within a 75-mile radius. 
 
The new store is open from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. during the week and from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. on the weekends.

Tags: business changes,   store opening,   

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Berkshire Wind Power Cooperative Corporation Scholarships

LUDLOW, Mass. — For the third year, Berkshire Wind Power Cooperative Corporation (BWPCC) will award scholarships to students from Lanesborough and Hancock. 
 
The scholarship is open to seniors at Mount Greylock Regional High School and Charles H. McCann Technical School. BWPCC will select two students from the class of 2024 to receive $1,000 scholarships.
 
The scholarships will be awarded to qualifying seniors who are planning to attend either a two- or four-year college or trade school program. Seniors must be from either Hancock or Lanesborough to be considered for the scholarship. Special consideration will be given to students with financial need, but all students are encouraged to apply.
 
The BWPCC owns and operates the Berkshire Wind Power Project, a 12 turbine, 19.6-megawatt wind farm located on Brodie Mountain in Hancock and Lanesborough. The non-profit BWPCC consists of 16 municipal utilities located in Ashburnham, Boylston, Chicopee, Groton, Holden, Hull, Ipswich, Marblehead, Paxton, Peabody, Russell, Shrewsbury, Sterling, Templeton, Wakefield, and West Boylston, and their joint action agency, the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC). 
 
To be considered, students must submit all required documents including a letter of recommendation from their school counselor and a letter detailing their educational and professional goals. Application and submission details will be shared with students via their school counselors. The deadline to apply is Friday, April 19.
 
 MMWEC is a not-for-profit, public corporation and political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts created by an Act of the General Court in 1975 and authorized to issue tax-exempt debt to finance a wide range of energy facilities.  MMWEC provides a variety of power supply, financial, risk management and other services to the state's consumer-owned, municipal utilities. 
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