Longtime Leader of Berkshire United Way Joins Volunteers in Medicine Board

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GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Kristine Hazzard has joined the Volunteers in Medicine Berkshires as a member of the board of trustees.

Hazzard has 30 years of experience leading and managing health and human service organizations. Currently a principal consultant at Katalyst, she specializes in strategic planning, organizational development, executive coaching, community change processes and meeting facilitation. Prior to launching her own firm, Hazzard served as president and chief executive officer of Berkshire United Way from 2008 to 2019.

"Kristine's proven commitment to improving the lives of the most vulnerable members of our community, combined with her expertise in program development, fundraising, public relations, board development and coaching will be invaluable to VIM," said Arthur Peisner, VIM's chairman of the board. "VIM is needed now more than ever, and Kristine will be instrumental in helping ensure we grow strategically and sustainably."

Before Berkshire United Way, Hazzard spent 10 years as president and chief executive officer of The Center for Women and Families of Eastern Fairfield County, a nonprofit agency serving victims of domestic violence and sexual assault as well as women returning to the community after incarceration. Prior to that, she was supervisor of school-based health centers for the city of Bridgeport, Conn.'s Department of Health. She began her career as site manager of Planned Parenthood of Connecticut's Stamford Clinic. 

Hazzard and her husband Larry, president of Berkshire Life Insurance Company and a former member of VIM's Board of Trustees, live in Hinsdale. Kristine received her bachelor's degree in social work from Albright College and a master's degree in social welfare administration from SUNY Albany.

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South County Farm Grows Community

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
TYRINGHAM, Mass. — Woven Roots Farm offered the ideal venue for the message Massachusetts' commissioner of agriculture wanted to deliver: the barn.
 
That is where Commissioner Ashley Randle addressed a group of about two dozen attendees at Berkshire Grown's Berkshire Farm Tour.
 
"With everything that is happening around us, it can feel very disheartening and very heavy," Randle said Wednesday after the group shared a meal in Woven Roots' community gathering room. "And two things that I've talked about have been leading in community and with compassion.
 
"And, certainly, Woven Roots has embodied that every day."
 
Jen and Pete Salinetti founded Woven Roots at the turn of the 20th century on a quarter acre of land they owned in Lee.
 
Today, they have almost 850 garden beds on 2 and a half acres in Tyringham, where they moved full-time in 2014.
 
The community-supported agriculture farm produces 70 crops and produces enough food for 1,600 people per week, Jen Salinetti said while leading a tour of the property the couple leases on McCarty Road.
 
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