Letter: Bilal for Williamstown Select Board

To the Editor:

I am writing to urge Williamstown voters to elect Bilal Ansari to the Williamstown Select Board on Tuesday, May 10. Dr. Ansari has dedicated himself to a life of service, to helping people resolve difficult situations. He listens intently and responds carefully with compassion. He appeals to our best nature. These are essential skills needed at this moment in our town.

Dr. Ansari does not believe that he alone has the solutions to all of the challenges facing our town. Instead, he wants to hear from those comfortable speaking up and also those who, until now, have not felt comfortable nor heard at all. He believes it will take a village to share concerns and work together to make Williamstown a better place for everyone to live and work and grow. But making that happen takes a special type of skilled leadership.

Bilal Ansari is the candidate blessed with that skilled leadership and a stake in our town's quality of life. He has deep roots in this town: his ancestors lived and worked here. He is committed to an approach based in kindness and inclusion. He is the candidate who can and will help us reach a new, inclusive and more equitable chapter in our town's history.

I ask for your vote on May 10 for Bilal Ansari for the Williamstown Select Board. Thank you.

Hugh L Guilderson, Ph.D.
Williamstown, Mass.

Area Cyclists Gear Up for Dana-Farber Fund-Raiser

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
07:39AM / Saturday, July 18, 2026

Matthew Behnke, left, and ForzaG teammate and Living Proof rider Abraham Landau with a photo of a Pan-Mass Challenge 'Pedal Partner,' a pediatric patient paired with a rider.

The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute calls its biggest fund-raiser of the year the Pan-Mass Challenge.

 

But participants know that the challenge of riding their bicycles 177 miles from Worcester to Provincetown pales in comparison to the day-to-day challenge faced by cancer survivors.

 

"Riding side-by-side, you share stories," Great Barrington's Peter Whitehead said recently. "Everyone has a story, whether it's personal themselves or a family member. There's a lot of back-and forth.

 

"And there's the Living Proof group that gathers together on Saturday afternoon at the end of the ride. All the people who have had cancer or still have cancer. People often at the end of that meeting get up to tell a story, and it's just amazing some of the things people have gone through in their fight against cancer.

 

"It's inspirational."

 

For 46 years, riders have been drawing on those inspirations to power through a two-day ride across the commonwealth and raise funds for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Since 1980, the event has raised $1.125 billion for the treatment and research center, and it accounts for 67 percent of the Jimmy Fund's annual revenue.

 

This year's ride, scheduled for Aug. 1 and 2, includes at least 17 Berkshire County residents among the 6,000 cyclists planning to complete the ride to the tip of Cape Cod.