PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Every year, the nonprofits Youth Alive and the Rites of Passage and Empowerment step toward a stronger, more equitable community.

 

This year marked Youth Alive's 30th anniversary and ROPE's 15th anniversary. It was no coincidence that the organizations celebrated it with multiple step performances during their fundraising dinner last Saturday at the Berkshire Innovation Center. 

 

"Every step that they took, we knew that they were stepping further away from oppression. They were stepping further away from social injustice," said keynote speaker the Rev. Nakeida Bethel-Smith, pastor of Hood-Shaw Memorial AME Zion Church of Providence, R.I. 

 

"They were stepping further away from all the things that we were told that we couldn't be in the community that was supposed to hug us." 

 

Bethel-Smith is also an eligibility and outreach specialist for the Massachusetts Office for Victim Assistance. 

 

"It was people like Shirley Edgerton, [referred to as Misses E to her students] it was people like the late [Bishop Jerome Edgerton Sr.,]  that saw their potential to step with their purpose, to step boldly into that thing and say, 'we see you, even if nobody else sees you.'

 

"Every time they stepped, they took their authority back. Every time they stepped, they reclaimed their voice. Every time they stepped, you knew that they were stepping with purpose. You knew that they were stepping with a mission.