There were two meals Monday. One at 11:30am and another at 1:30pm
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Berkshire Food Project held an in-person Thanksgiving dinner meal for the first time since 2019.
"It's great to have people back in here dining. This is what the program originally started as in 1987," Berkshire Food Project Executive Director Mark Rondeau said Monday, Nov 21, at the first seating. "It started to fight hunger but also social isolation."
The Berkshire Food Project has not held an in-person Thanksgiving meal since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020. Rondeau said the meal is more than sustenance but a chance to break bread together.
"You know, the great genius of this program is it brings people together of different classes and different backgrounds, and I'm sure we're going to have people just coming down and sitting with other people," he said. "It is community members, and it is people of different income levels."
Rondeau was appointed as Executive Director in 2021 so this is truly his first meal in charge. But the broad president of the Al Nelson Friendship Center Food Pantry is certainly familiar with food insecurity issues as well as the importance of the meal.
"It's a small town so I have people I have known why my whole life who come through the line," he said.
Berkshire Food Project held two sit-down meals Monday, one at 11:30 am and another at 1:30 pm.
A queue had started before well before 11:30 outside of the First Congregational Church as volunteers frantically prepared 200 pounds of turkey.
Rondeau said, clearly, people were happy to eat together once again.
"Just looking on Facebook we have tons of people wanting to volunteer and people so happy to be our guests," he said.
The menu included turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, roasted root vegetables, rolls, cranberry sauce, and pie. Along with volunteers, Mariah and Justin Forstmann, owners and operators of the Chingón Taco Truck cooked the meal.
"They will be helping us today, and they are very cool people. They are going to help us with our Christmas dinner as well," he said.
Rondeau said looking towards the future, he hopes to continue to move toward normalcy as the city continues to emerge from the pandemic.
"We are going to get back to in person, and we are going to mix it up for a while. We don't have a set schedule if we're going to be a hundred percent from this day forward. But this is a big experiment," he said. "We're really going to get back to our mission of having in-person dining."
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North Adams School Panel Recommends $20M Budget That Cuts 26 Jobs
By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The School Committee will be presented next week with a $20 million spending plan for fiscal 2025 that includes closing Greylock School and a reduction of 26 full-time positions.
The Finance and Facilities committee is recommending the budget of $20,357,096, up $302,744 or 1.51 percent over this year. This is funded by $16,418,826 in state Chapter 70 education funds, local funding of $3,938,270 (up $100,000 over this year) and a drawdown of school funds of $575,237.
The budget is up overall because of rising contractural costs, inflation and a hike in the cost of out-of-district tuition.
Superintendent Barbara Malkas told the committee on Monday that assignment letters were being sent out the next day to personnel per agreement with the union of a May 1 deadline.
Twenty of the reductions represent members teacher's bargaining unit including a dean of students, an art teacher, music teacher, physical education teacher, school adjustment counselor and a librarian at Drury High School (who will move to teaching and be replaced by a library paraprofessional); also affected are two clerical paraprofessionals, two custodians, one maintenance, and a school nurse. The principal is being shifted to Drury's Grades 7 and 8 "on assignment" to complete her contract.
"Losing 26 positions from the budget, we still have to have some funds from our school choice revolving account in order to close the budget for FY 25," said Malkas.
A couple of these positions are already vacant and it is not clear how many, if any, retirements would affect the number of job losses. Malkas said there have been "rumors" of retirements but staff have been reluctant to discuss firm plans with administration.
The School Committee will be presented next week with a $20 million spending plan for fiscal 2025 that includes closing Greylock School and a reduction of 26 full-time positions.
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