WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Village Beautiful held its annual birthday party Thursday morning for the United States of America, which turned 243 this July 4. (Just 11 years younger than Williamstown.)
The Williamstown Youth Center brought the cake. Seventeen amateur chefs brought the pie.
The former, a float that rolled down Spring Street in the annual town parade, was inedible. The pies were entered in an inaugural contest that was added this year to a full day of activities organized by the Williamstown Chamber of Commerce.
The day began with the fourth annual Fun Run for Independence 5K at 8 a.m. and was scheduled to conclude with fireworks at Taconic Golf Course.
In between, there were to be short films at Images Cinema, a dramatic reading of founding documents at Williams College's Stetson Library and, of course, pies.
Emily Bourguignon came out on top in the inaugural contest, which was appropriate for the first-time competitor.
"I have never entered a pie-baking contest before, but this seemed like so much fun," Bourguignon said. "I'm the co-chair for the Williamstown Theatre Festival Guild, and I was helping out with the parade. [WTF director of audience engagement Antonello Di Benedetto] was like, 'There's a pie baking contest,' and I said, 'OK, I can fit in one more thing this morning."
Bourguignon's "Cherry in Strawberry Shrub Sauce with Amaretti Cookie Crust" edged out runner-rup Jason McDowell-Green and Maya Davis' rhubarb cardamom cream and third-place winner Venetia Greenhalgh's strawberry pie.
For Bourguignon, contests may be a new experience, but creating new pies is very familiar.
"This is one that I've been working on a new recipe for, so this is it's debut," she said. "Pretty good debut.
"I'm very bad at following recipes, so it's not so much that I should get a pat on the back for coming up with something new. It's more that I'm just very bad at thinking anybody else knows better than I do. I don't measure things. I just sort of throw it together."
Her instincts paid off according to the panel of judges that had the arduous task of spending their morning sampling pies in the air-conditioned comfort of the Williams Bookstore while most of the town baked in the sun as either spectators or marchers in the 11 a.m. parade.
And as much as Bourguignon may claim to be bad at following others' recipes, her Independence Day triumph inspired her to join their ranks.
"I didn't write it down, but I totally will now," she said with a laugh.
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Williamstown Select Board Awards ARPA Funds to Remedy Hall
By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Select Board on Monday allocated $20,000 in COVID-19-era relief funds to help a non-profit born of the pandemic era that seeks to provide relief to residents in need.
On a unanimous vote, the board voted to grant the American Rescue Plan Act money to support Remedy Hall, a resource center that provides "basic life necessities" and emotional support to "individuals and families experiencing great hardship."
The board of the non-profit approached the Select Board with a request for $12,000 in ARPA Funds to help cover some of the relief agency's startup costs, including the purchase of a vehicle to pick up donations and deliver items to clients, storage rental space and insurance.
The board estimates that the cost of operating Remedy Hall in its second year — including some one-time expenses — at just north of $31,500. But as board members explained on Monday night, some sources of funding are not available to Remedy Hall now but will be in the future.
"With the [Williamstown] Community Chest, you have to be in existence four or five years before you can qualify for funding," Carolyn Greene told the Select Board. "The same goes for state agencies that would typically be the ones to fund social service agencies.
"ARPA made sense because [Remedy Hall] is very much post-COVID in terms of the needs of the town becoming more evident."
In a seven-page letter to the town requesting the funds, the Remedy Hall board wrote that, "need is ubiquitous and we are unveiling that truth daily."
Northern Berkshire Habitat for Humanity will hold two information sessions this spring for residents interested in a planned five-home development off Summer Street.
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Williams College on Thursday cleared the second of three local regulatory hurdles on its way to building an indoor athletic practice facility on the north end of campus.
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Earlier this year, the station was put out to bid under the "design-bid-build" model, the other process allowable under Massachusetts law for a project this size.
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