ADAMS, Mass. — Hoosac Valley Elementary School children got a big gift on Thursday that will help make their robotics dreams come true.
April Mazzeo's first-grade class traveled to the Big Y Supermarket in North Adams on Thursday morning to receive a "big check" of $5,000 to fund a robotics lab at the Commercial Street school.
Mazzeo and Adams-Cheshire Regional School District's technology integration specialist Geoffrey Kondel worked with the children on a video application to Big Y's Holiday Wish program last December for schools in its area.
"Our Holiday Wish was for a science lab at our school," explained Principal Michelle Colvin. "So we did not win the grand prize, but because all of these children did such a fantastic job in their video, in Big Y's words, our children 'touched their hearts' and they're giving us $5,000 toward the creation of our science lab."
Morgan Spencer, manager of marketing services at Big Y World Class Markets, said the Holiday Wish was part of the company's Education Express Program. Since 1993, the company has awarded more than $14 million to schools in its customer areas through the educational program that runs every few years.
Schools were encouraged late last fall to apply for a grant for specific items by submitting a letter or video detailing what their holiday wish for their school was.
"We were able to fill nearly every wish," Spencer said. Including the two grand-prize winners, nearly 40 schools were presented with grants ranging from $2,500 to $5,000. Only two schools in Berkshire County were recipients — Hoosac Valley Elementary and its neighbor across the street, Berkshire Arts & Technology Public Charter School.
Hoosac Valley's wish was for a science lab, particularly for robotics and the Lego educational series, although Mazzeo said it will be used for other science, technology, engineering, art and math activities.
"I think we're going to start programming robots," said first-grader Chloe Dimitropolis. Her classmate Elias is ready, too. "I want to make robots and make it walk and talk," he declared.
Colvin said the logistics of where the lab would be located in the school still had to be worked out.
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Adams Welcomes New Officer; Appoints Housing Authority Board Member
By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
Officer Cole Desroches recently graduated from the Police Academy.
ADAMS, Mass. — The Selectmen welcomed the newest member of the Adams Police Department, Officer Cole Desroches, on Wednesday evening.
Desroches graduated from the Police Academy on March 22 in the top tier in his class. He's currently in the field training program and assigned to Sgt. Curtis Crane. He attended Hoosac Valley High School and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.
"He's going to serve and protect the town of Adams very well," said Crane, who with Sgts. Matthew Wright and Gregory Onorato stepped in to introduce the new officer while Chief R. Scott Kelley was on vacation.
"We don't often get an opportunity to kind of talk about, frankly, some of the positive things that are happening in town and one of the many things that I feel are positive with are the Adams Police Department," said Town Administrator Jay Green. "We are right now at full staff. We have a full complement of officers. We have a chief who just resigned a three-year contract. ... We have four very capable sergeants (including Donna Malloy)."
The force consists of the chief, the four sergeants, a full-time detective and 11 patrol officers. It also has a new position in Cpl. Joshua Baker who is responsible for training and keeping staff equipped.
"We're on the cutting edge of ensuring that we have proper training in a very changing environment with law enforcement," continued Green. "And we have a nice complement of officers and we have a well-respected detective who handles some very complicated cases."
He called out the half-dozen officers who attended the meeting for the work they're doing as well as the K9 unit.
Desroches graduated from the Police Academy on March 22 in the top tier in his class. He's currently in the field training program and assigned to Sgt. Curtis Crane.
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Michael Wynn, who was selected in January to run the center, submitted a level operating budget of $57,500 but said he could pull funding from different lines to ensure there was money for advertising this fall.
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The Selectmen on Wednesday night voted to award the bid to Mackin Construction Co. Inc. of Greenfield, which plans to invest $11 million to build out 20 or more one- and two-bedroom apartments in the three-story classroom wing that parallels Columbia Street.
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The Selectmen two weeks ago had requested the utility appear before the board after receiving numerous complaints over flickering lights, including in Town Hall.
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Taylor Garabedian scored a team-high 22 points and grabbed five rebounds, and Abby Scialabba scored 16 points for the ‘Canes, who got 16 points, nine rebounds and four assists from Ashlyn Lesure. click for more