Free Fun Fridays Returns June 28 for 11th Year

One hundred cultural venues across Massachusetts will open their doors for free on Fridays this summer, marking the 11th anniversary of Free Fun Fridays, funded by the Highland Street Foundation to offer visitors no-cost access to museums, theaters, historic sites, zoos and treasured collections.

Free Fun Fridays 2019 will take place for 10 consecutive Fridays — beginning June 28 and continuing through Aug. 30 — with 100 venues welcoming visitors in a free-of-charge public celebration of culture and history that is unprecedented outside of the national museums in Washington, D.C.

This year's theme is "Your Ticket to Summer Fun" and participating venues include the Boston Children's Museum, Charles River Watershed, Battleship Cove, Worcester Historical Museum, Old Sturbridge Village, Norman Rockwell Museum and the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History. Three new venues have joined the Free Fun Fridays mix: Capron Park Zoo, in Attleboro, Museum of Printing in Haverhill, and Mass Audubon's Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary in Topsfield.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Newton-based Highland Street Foundation, a family-directed organization dedicated to expanding opportunities for Massachusetts children and families. During the past 11 years, Free Fun Fridays has emerged as a signature initiative of the foundation, which has invested $7.2 million in cultivating a game-changing opportunity for families and the state’s cultural institutions, both small and large.

"As Highland Street Foundation turns 30, we continue our efforts to increase access and opportunities for children and families in Massachusetts," Highland Street Foundation Executive Director Blake Jordan said. "We're very excited that in our 11th year, Free Fun Fridays and our partner institutions will offer enrichment, entertainment and education in every region of the state. There are so many options in 2019, we're looking forward to a great summer."

Since it was launched in 2009, Free Fun Fridays have drawn more than 1.3 million visitors to a range of institutions celebrating arts, culture and history that ranges from classical to contemporary, from the official to the off-beat. Last summer, Free Fun Fridays venues drew 153,000 people.

For visitors, there are an abundance of collected treasures, from the classical to the offbeat. Visitors can take in Toulouse Lautrec at the Museum of Fine Arts, trace the hunt for Moby Dick at the New Bedford Whaling Museum or learn more about early Boston at the Museum of African American History. Then there are unique collections of The Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, and the Spellman Museum of Stamps & Postal History in Weston.

At the Children's Museum, Free Fun Fridays have helped bring more Boston-area children and families through the doors each summer. The Smith College Museum of Art says Free Fun Fridays attendance outpaces traditional Friday attendance. At the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, admissions quadruple in 2018.

Aug. 9: Hancock Shaker Village

Aug. 16: Berkshire Theatre Group

Aug. 23: Berkshire Museum

Aug. 30: Mass MoCA

Social Service Organizations Highlight Challenges, Successes at Poverty Talk

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
08:04AM / Sunday, April 05, 2026

Dr. Jennifer Michaels of the Brien Center demonstrates how to use Narcan. Easy access to the drug has cut overdose deaths in the county by nearly half. 

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Recent actions at the federal level are making it harder for people to climb out of poverty.

Brad Gordon, executive director of Upside413, said he felt like he was doing a disservice by not recognizing national challenges and how they draw a direct line from choices being made by the Trump administration and the challenges the United States is facing. 

"They more generally impact people's ability to work their way out of poverty, and that's really, that's really the overarching dynamic," he said. 

"Poverty is incredibly corrosive, and it impacts all the topics that we'll talk about today." 

His comments came during a conversation on poverty hosted by Berkshire Community Action Council. Eight local service agency leaders detailed how they are supporting people during the current housing and affordability crisis, and the Berkshire state delegation spoke to their own efforts.

The event held on March 27 at the Berkshire Athenaeum included a working lunch and encouraged public feedback. 

"All of this information that we're going to gather today from both you and the panelists is going to drive our next three-year strategic plan," explained Deborah Leonczyk, BCAC's executive director. 

The conversation ranged from health care and housing production to financial literacy and child care.  Participating agencies included Upside 413, The Brien Center, The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, MassHire Berkshire Career Center, Berkshire Regional Transit Authority, Greylock Federal Credit Union, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and Child Care of the Berkshires. 

The federal choices Gordon spoke about included allocating $140 billion for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, investing $38 billion to convert warehouses into detention centers, cutting $1 trillion from Medicaid over 10 years, a proposed 50 percent increase in the defense budget, and cutting federal funding for supportive housing programs. 

Gordon pointed to past comments about how the region can't build its way out of the housing crisis because of money. He withdrew that statement, explaining, "You know what? That's bullshit, actually."

"I'm going to be honest with you, that is absolute bullshit. I have just observed over the last year or so how we're spending our money and the amount of money that we're spending on the federal side, and I'm no longer saying in good conscience that we can't build our way out of this," he said. 

Upside 413 provided a "Housing Demand in Western Massachusetts" report that was done in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's Donahue Institute of Economic and Public Policy Research. It states that around 23,400 units are needed to meet current housing demand in Western Mass; 1,900 in Berkshire County in 2025.