image description — Santa himself had the honor of pulling the raffle winners.

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North Adams Holds First Veterans' Christmas Breakfast

Jack GuerinoiBerkshires Staff
06:07AM / Saturday, December 21, 2024Print Story | Email Story

Samson and Bonnivier organized the breakfast.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Nearly 80 veterans gathered at American Legion Post 125 over scrambled eggs and pancakes to swap stories and enjoy each other's company before Christmas.

Veterans' Agent Assistant Tina Samson, who organized the event, said she and local chef Chris Bonnivier wanted to do something special for the veterans this holiday season.

"Every year at City Hall the veterans come in, and we give them their check and a gift bag," she said. "This year we thought we should do more. Chris said, 'Why don't we do a breakfast?' This is a great thing, and I think it should happen again."

Veterans tried their luck with various raffles featuring items donated by local businesses. Santa made an appearance to pull the winners' names, but only after mingling with some of the attendees.

Bonnivier, who was busy in the Legion's kitchen, said that as a business owner, it is important to give back.

"We try to be helpful in the community. We want to be part of the solution," Bonnivier said. "As a business, we take from the community. So it is important for us to give back. It's not just about taking...I want to give back, especially around the holidays."

Bonnivier brought in the Berkshire County Sheriff's Office to help in the kitchen, noting that all those present were working on their day off. He said that giving back is "contagious" and was thankful for their support.

Later in the morning, local singer-songwriter CJ Field performed after the Legion commander awarded Samson a certificate of appreciation.

Each veteran left with a gift bag.

Tags: american legion, breakfast,

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North Adams School Project Awards $51M Bid

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff
05:10AM / Friday, February 13, 2026

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The School Building Committee has awarded the Greylock School project to Fontaine Bros. Inc. of Springfield.

Mayor Jennifer Macksey said she could "breathe a little better" with a bid contract that comes in nearly $2 million under budget.

The committee approved a bid of $50,498,544 on Thursday night that includes two alternates — the rebuild of the Appalachian Trail kiosk and the relocation and reconstruction of the baseball field.

"I will say, all in all, for us to have overall the number of bidders that we had interested in our project, and especially to receive the GC bids that we did, the team Colliers and TSKP certainly did a good job attracting people to us," she said. "But this project ... really shows the testament of the good work that Colliers and TSKP and all of you have been doing throughout this process."

Fontaine had the low bid between Brait Builders of Marshfield and J&J Contractors Inc. of North Billerica.

The project had been bid out at $52,250,000 with three alternates: moving the ballfield, the kiosk and vertical geothermal wells.

Committee members asked Timothy Alix of Collier's International, the owner's project manager, about his impressions of the bidders. He was most familiar with Fontaine, having worked with the company on a half-dozen school projects and noted it was the contractor on the Mountain View Elementary School in Easthampton that the Massachusetts School Building Authority has held up as an example school. He also had some of his colleagues call on projects that he had not personally worked on.

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