NBUW Urges Organizations to Submit Food and Shelter Program Applications

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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Emergency Food and Shelter Program National Board has awarded Berkshire County $46,359 in Phase 41 (FY23) Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) assistance funding.
 
Northern Berkshire United Way, local administrator of the program, is urging qualifying organizations located throughout Berkshire County to submit an application for supplemental emergency food and shelter. Learn more and access the application at https://www.nbunitedway.org/emergencyfoodandshelterprogram.
 
Local organizations chosen to receive funds must be private voluntary nonprofits (with a voluntary board) or units of government; have an accounting system; practice non- discrimination; and have demonstrated the capability to deliver emergency food and/or shelter programs. Applicants must submit their application by email only with their financial audit by midnight April 15 to Patti Messina at pmessina@nbunitedway.org. Paper applications will not be accepted.
 
The funds are awarded through the Department of Homeland Security and the award is made by the Emergency Food and Shelter Program National Board, that consists of representatives from the Salvation Army, American Red Cross, The Jewish Federations of North America, Catholic Charities USA, National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA and United Way Worldwide. Funds pass directly from the Department of Homeland Security to the EFSP program and then to local agencies. A subcommittee of a local board made up of representatives of organizations that are not requesting or receiving funds determine the actual organizations that receive funding.

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MCLA in Talks With Anonymous Donor for Art Museum, Art Lab

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff

Andre Lynch, the new vice provost for institutional equity and belonging, introduces himself to the trustees, some of whom were participating remotely.
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts may be in line for up to a $10 million donation that will include a campus art museum. 
 
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.
 
"It's a donor that has a history of working with public liberal arts institutions to advance the arts that those institutions," he said.  "This donor would like to talk with us or has been talking with us about creating art museum and an art lab on campus."
 
The Fine and Performing Arts Department will have input, the president continued. "We want to make sure that it's a facility that supports that teaching and learning dynamic as well as responding to what's the interest of donor."
 
The college integrated into the local arts community back in 2005 with the opening of Gallery 51 on Main Street that later expanded with an art lab next door. The gallery under the Berkshire Cultural Resource Center had been the catalyst for the former Downstreet Art initiative; its participation has fallen off dramatically with changes in leadership and the pandemic. 
 
This new initiative, should it come to pass, would create a facility on MCLA Foundation property adjacent to the campus. The donor and the foundation have already split the cost of a study. 
 
"We conducted that study to look at what approximately a 6,500-square-foot facility would look like," said Birge. "How we would staff the gallery and lab, how can we use this lab space for fine and performing arts."
 
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