About three dozen children and teens ranging in age from 5 to 19 participate in the Saturday morning league.
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Gary Superneau Youth Bowling League is still going strong and has a new partnership that opens it up to more families.
League organizer Brent Lefebvre said because of the new financial partnership with MountainOne, the longtime youth bowling league will be able to teach more children how to bowl.
"The youth bowling league has been around for a very long time. I bowled in it when I was a youth and it was around before I came along," Lefebvre said. "This partnership will help us grow the sport of bowling by providing opportunities for children to bowl who normally would not be able to due to financial strain."
The league has been around for some time now and was renamed this year in memory of local bowling legend and champion of youth bowling Gary Superneau, who passed in 2016. Superneau and his father had managed and owned the bowling alley for many years.
The group meets up Saturday mornings at Greylock Bowl & Golf where U.S. Bowling Congress registered and certified coaches are available to guide the youngsters.
"The mission of our league is to provide a safe and fun environment for the youth of our community to learn the sport of bowling," he said. "Children in the league will learn sportsmanship, teamwork, perseverance, and many other important skills useful in everyday life."
Lefebvre said there are 35 kids currently in the league and ages range from 5 to 19. The league is split into a peewee division and a junior/senior division.
"This is where they learn the fundamentals of bowling, proper form and technique, and the general rules of bowling," he said. "As the kids move up in age and skill, they move to the junior/senior division."
Lefebvre said once in the upper division, they learn more advanced skills.
"This is where, with the help of our coaches, they will hone their skills and learn the more advanced techniques of bowling," he said. "Things like how to use a reactive ball, how to read the lanes and where to throw the ball depending on what the oil pattern is doing."
Lefebvre said there is a cost to the bowling program and now that the MountainOne financial services firm is offering financial aid to families, the cost of the program can be offset, and more children can learn how to bowl properly.
Bowling is different than other sports and the young bowlers are learning something they will be able to enjoy for the rest of their lives, he said.
"It's a lifelong sport. Similar to golf in the fact that it's something you can do at age 5 as well as age 70," he said. "It's not a high-impact sport so the wear and tear on your body is much less than that of football or basketball. Bowling requires hand-eye coordination, timing, balance and a large amount of focus."
Signups for the league were earlier this summer but anyone interested in participating can contact the league through its Facebook page here.
Disclosure: Greylock Bowl & Golf is owned by iBerkshires.com Publisher Osmin Alvarez.
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North Adams Hopes to Transform Y Into Community Recreation Center
By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
Mayor Jennifer Macksey updates members of the former YMCA on the status of the roof project and plans for reopening.
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The city has plans to keep the former YMCA as a community center.
"The city of North Adams is very committed to having a recreation center not only for our youth but our young at heart," Mayor Jennifer Macksey said to the applause of some 50 or more YMCA members on Wednesday. "So we are really working hard and making sure we can have all those touch points."
The mayor said the city will run some programming over the summer until an operator can be found to take over the facility. It will also need a new name.
"The YMCA, as you know, has departed from our facilities and will not return to our facility in the form that we had," she said to the crowd in Council Chambers. "And that's been mostly a decision on their part. The city of North Adams wanted to really keep our relationship with the Y, certainly, but they wanted to be a Y without borders, and we're going a different direction."
The pool was closed in March 2023 after the roof failed a structural inspection. Kyle Lamb, owner of Geary Builders, the contractor on the roof project, said the condition of the laminated beams was far worse than expected.
"When we first went into the Y to do an inspection, we certainly found a lot more than we anticipated. The beams were actually rotted themselves on the bottom where they have to sit on the walls structurally," he said. "The beams actually, from the weight of snow and other things, actually crushed themselves eight to 11 inches. They were actually falling apart. ...
The fate of the facility attached to Brayton School has been in limbo since the closure of the pool last year because of structural issues and the departure of the Berkshire Family YMCA in March.
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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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President Jamie Birge told the board of trustees on Thursday that the college has been in discussions for the last couple years with a donor who wishes at this point to remain anonymous.
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