image description — Members of the Pittsfield Cultural Council pose at Wednesday's recognition event at Zucchini's.

Pittsfield Cultural Council Celebrates 2025 Grant Awardees

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
12:25PM / Monday, September 15, 2025Print Story | Email Story

Council Chair Marilyn Gerhard says the 79 grant applications for fiscal 2025 were the most she has seen during her time on the council.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Pittsfield Cultural Council celebrated its 2025 grant awardees at Zucchini's last week.

Council Chair Marilyn Gerhard welcomed everyone to the Wednesday event and congratulated those who received funding.

"We provide grants to help underwrite projects, programs and events in the arts, humanities and interpretive sciences," she said.

Gerhard said there were 79 applicants last year that council members had to sift through, one of the highest numbers she has seen in her time on the council.

"So seven years, that was the most that I could see. And so we really had to pare down the requests in order to be able to fund the people that we did."

The grants ranged from $200 to $3,000 to 36 different organizations.

"We funded [36] projects, and I congratulate you all. Thank you so much for what you've done for the city of Pittsfield and for culture, as we know, culture is the lifeblood of our society, and we have to do everything we can to keep the flame alive," Gerhard said.

Some of the projects include Berkshire Community Center, Roots Rising, Berkshire Music School, Kids 4 Harmony, and more.

Kids 4 Harmony received $2,500 for programming. The free classical music program is for youth from under-resourced communities in the county.

"We have excellent teaching artists that are in this school with the students every day, almost every day. It helps us really produce the program. We're able to do three community concerts, which are free and open to the public, give our students and their families exposure to the music, and also be able to invite the community members to experience the program as well," said Sarah Frederick, vice president of advancement for 18 Degrees.

Arts and Recovery for Youth, a suicide prevention program for youth using the arts, received $2,000 to help expand its programs and partner with other organizations.

"We were working towards expanding our programming and working with more local organizers, adding elements to our current programming, including an alumni group," said Jack Kelly, program manager for AIRY.

"We were able to establish local partnerships with [the Community Behavioral Health Centers] of the Brien Center in Pittsfield and Optimal Healing in North Adams, to have real partnerships where they were able to be trained and launch arts-based suicide prevention programming using the AIRY model through their organizations."

Nonprofit Latinas413 received $1,000 to start a sewing program. Latinas413 advocates for Latina representation in Berkshire County.

"We bought the equipment, which was big, to start the sewing session. We didn't have any sewing machines before that, so we got equipment. We got materials. Now we have extra fabric that the instructor shared with us," said Lilliana Atanacio, interim treasurer.

For the FY2026 grant funding, the council has $50,266 to allocate. The application period for 2026 started on Sept. 2 and ends Oct. 16. Apply for a grant here.

Tags: cultural council, cultural grants, fiscal 2025,

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Fenton: Governor's Council Must Deliver for the Berkshires

Community submissionGuest Column
10:22AM / Friday, August 28, 2026

I am a Springfield lawyer running for Governor's Council and I am asking for Berkshire County residents to support me over an incumbent from North Adams.

Here's why: Last year I learned about staffing issues in our regional courts that I could not ignore. In 2025, it was reported that four of Western Massachusetts' 11 Superior Court judgeships were vacant, all at the same time. A few weeks later, that grew to five vacancies. This meant there were only six Superior Court judges serving all of Western Mass at a time when Berkshire, Hampshire, Franklin, and Hampden counties had more than 100 pending homicide cases.

Those numbers were alarming to me, so I started to engage with leaders in the community who work most closely with the court system and I came to learn that these vacancies were only the tip of the iceberg here in Berkshire County.

I learned that no Superior Court or District Court judge had been appointed from the Berkshires since the current incumbent took office. As a result, there is not a single Superior Court judge who lives in the Berkshires today, and several of the District Court judges drive in from other counties to support Berkshire courts in Pittsfield, Great Barrington, and North Adams. Court staff also informed me about severe staffing shortages at the Berkshire Clerk of Courts office resulting in other counties needing to loan staff to the Berkshires just so hardworking employees can take a brief and planned summer vacation. This is not normal. These issues are a reflection of genuine problems with the Berkshire County court system and show a lack of proactive attention from our Governor's Councilor.

Instead of focusing on regional equity, I watched as the current incumbent celebrated that she has voted against the governor's nominees more than any other councilor, without much explanation as to why. Most recently, she voted against two extremely qualified former prosecutors for the Parole Board. This was despite an in-person plea from the governor and a letter of support from all the three of the district attorney's from Western Mass. Those votes do not show independence or standing up for principles, they demonstrate naivete, and an unwillingness to work with the key stakeholders.

I had seen and heard enough. I decided to jump in the race and challenge the incumbent to address these problems head-on.

I am a partner of a regional law firm. I understand our courts and the importance of having qualified, fair and hardworking judges. And I know how important it is to have judges from the Berkshires serving the Berkshires. To achieve that, you need strong relationships with the legal community and local stakeholders. You need to know how to use the power of the Governor's Council to fight forcefully for our region. And you need to be laser focused on identifying vacancies before they occur so that they can be filled quickly with local candidates.

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