Celebrate community and the environment at the green gala
Great Barrington – On October 25th Berkshire South Regional Community Center in Great Barrington will hold a ‘Green Gala’ reflecting a year’s worth of energy and conservation initiatives at the Center. This time each year, the Center holds a special event for attendees to celebrate heroes in the Berkshire community.Past honorees have included outstanding youth, unsung heroes and women leaders in the Southern Berkshires. In keeping with the ‘green theme’ this year, Lila and Peter Berle will be recognized and honored as a couple whose commitment to the physical preservation of our community ensures stronger, sustainable futures for generations to come and whose work for the environment echoes the Community Center’s mission.
Lila Berle is a local sheep farmer with operations in Stockbridge and Great Barrington. Her parents, Colonel H.G. Wilde and Mrs. Marjorie Field Wilde, owned High Lawn Farm in Lee, MA where Lila grew up. She has been involved in Stockbridge as a member of the Berkshire Hills Regional School Committee and as a former president of the board of the Norman Rockwell Museum. Lila was also a champion of saving The Mount, Edith Wharton’s Lenox home, working with the Edith Wharton Restoration for many years, in addition to serving as a very active member of the Simon’s Rock College of Bard Board of Trustees. She has been an active member of St. Paul’s Church in Stockbridge for over 40 years.
Lila met and fell in love with Peter Berle at the tender age of 16, graduated from Smith College, and married Peter at age 23, thus forming a true partnership. They raised their four children at the 490 acre Sky Farm in Stockbridge, land that Lila believed should be protected from development in perpetuity, where she continues to farm the land and raise sheep, supplying lamb for many local restaurants and wool for locally made products.
Peter Berle went on to become an environmental lawyer, a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law School and holder of several honorary degrees for his conservation efforts in both the public and non-profit sectors. He served as President and CEO of the National Audubon Society from 1985-1995, and was president of the Stockbridge Land Trust at the time of his death in 2007.
Lila’s efforts to protect the farmland helped set the stage for numerous land protection efforts which continue today, creating the beautiful Berkshire landscape we all love.
Tickets for the Green Gala, Berkshire South Regional Community Center’s premier fundraising event of the year, can be reserved by calling 413-528-0397.
