WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — One day after their regular meeting was postponed by Martin Luther King Jr. Day, members of the Diversity, Inclusion and Racial Equity Committee talked about how that day could have greater recognition in the town.

 

"I come from a different part of the country, and there's more diversity there," Noah Smalls told his colleagues at their Jan. 16 session. "I was taken aback at how little was done to recognize, celebrate, honor Dr. King's birthday as a federal holiday.

 

"I know different people are able to engage with this dialogue from different places. People have different levels of interest in it as well."

 

Smalls asked whether the town acknowledged King's legacy in any official way on the holiday, including, perhaps, a statement on the town's website or "references to books or pictures … or invitations to community groups that might have programming going on."

 

Andrew Art said that when he lived in Virginia, his community held a day of service on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, presumably something like the annual Berkshire County events in North Adams and Pittsfield.

 

The DIRE Committee members discussed whether their panel could foster a similar service-oriented event in Williamstown, specifically one that could connect would-be volunteers to non-profit groups in need of help.

 

"One thought I had was maybe we could create a volunteer fair," Art said. "It wouldn't be a day of volunteering but an opportunity to invite organizations that need volunteers to come and have a little station or hand out their materials. It would be a time for people who may be interested in volunteering to look at what opportunities are out there in the community."

 

Smalls said he experienced a "matching" event similar to what Art described in an academic setting in Pennsylvania.

 

Art said the Williamstown event could be held indoors on the third Monday in January (the date of the federal holiday) in recognition of the cold weather. And holding the event at the beginning of the year would connect volunteers to organizations at a time when "people are thinking about how they're going to spend their time during the year."

 

"I think we have a strong community that does a lot of volunteer work," Art said. "It may be useful for people to understand what are the needs in the community where they're looking for people to get involved."

 

The discussion dovetailed with the DIRE Committee's long-discussed desire to encourage and/or sponsor community-building events, sometimes coinciding with holidays.

 

"I would also like to invite the public audience to propose ways to honor this holiday and other holidays that other people feel are not elevated to where they could be," Salls said.

 

To that end, the committee is working to have a line item in the town's budget, similar to the Agricultural Commission and Historical Commission – each budgeted for $1,000 in the current fiscal year. "DIRE Programs" was listed in the FY24 budget under the discretionary budget of the Select Board, which created the advisory committee in 2020, with a funding level of $1,500.

 

Chair Shana Dixon Tuesday told her fellow committee members that she is coordinating with Select Board Chair Jeffrey Johnson about bringing the issue to the attention of the Finance Committee, which begins its review of the fiscal year 2025 budget on Feb. 21.