Berkshire Bounty Receives Donation from Warrior Trading

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GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Berkshire Bounty, a 501(c)3 food rescue organization, received a donation of $30,000 from Warrior Trading, an online educational platform that offers a wide range of courses, training programs, and software for individuals interested in day trading.
 
The company was founded in 2012 by Ross Cameron. Warrior Trading is providing the donation to help Berkshire Bounty reach fundraising goals for its end-of-year fundraising campaign.
 
"Berkshire Bounty is concerned about rising food insecurity rates and the impacts of impending cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The most vulnerable Berkshire County residents will bear the brunt of these cuts: nearly half (44 percent) of SNAP households include older adults, 50 percent include a person with a disability, and 40 percent include children,” said Morgan Ovitsky, Berkshire Bounty's Executive Director. "Our goal is to raise $175,000 from individual donors and local businesses by the end of 2025. This is an increase from previous years because of the need in our community and an increased dependence on private funding sources.”
 
As the size of the food-insecure population in Berkshire County continues to grow, Berkshire Bounty has dedicated itself to meeting a need by growing both functionally and geographically. In 2025, Berkshire Bounty:
  • provided nutritious food for 21,000 individuals weekly by partnering with 32 emergency food sites, including food pantries, schools, and senior centers.
  • continued a program that purchases locally grown foods for the food-insecure population
  • continued and grew a food box program that delivers food to the homes of people who are food insecure in Berkshire County.
"We are so pleased to be able to give back to our community! Warrior Trading is proud to support Berkshire Bounty as they help our neighbors in a time of need,” said Ross Cameron, founder of Warrior Trading.
 
"We are so grateful to our supporters.  Unrestricted donations from our end-of-year campaign will be used for our day-to-day work and for food purchases, allowing us to increase the amount of food distributed to vulnerable people in our county,” stated Mark Lefenfeld and Jay Weintraub, co-founders and Board members of Berkshire Bounty. 
 
Berkshire Bounty is a food rescue organization providing food to those in need by collecting and delivering nutritious food to food pantries, senior centers, school districts and other food access sites. 

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Friperie Berkshires Moves to New Great Barrington Location

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Friperie Berkshires has moved to new quarters on Bridge Street and will reopen this Friday, Feb. 13.

Owner Elizabeth Conkey has relocated her store from Lee above the Berkshire Co-op at 34 Bridge St., in Suite 101. 

The space is twice the size of her former spot in Lee, which is better for her, she said, because she needed it to add more services for her customers.

"I've been looking for a permanent space to land, and this space is perfect, because it's twice the size of where I was and I needed more room because I'm going to start doing men's and children's clothing as well," she said.

Besides adding more clothing, she will also be implementing a wardrobe service for her customers. 

"In addition to just constantly stocking the store and finding treasures, I started offering a capsule wardrobe service," Conkey said. "So it has three tiers, and basically, people can hire me depending on what tier of offering they're interested in, and I will go and thrift specifically for them based on a mood board that they send me from Pinterest, or just a file folder of photos that they like."

Conkey kept the Lee storefront through the summer and had been renting a space in Great Barrington from a friend. She finally found her new space around New Year's, and will be launching a website.

She is excited to open just a short distance from where she was. 

"I've really grown pretty exponentially in the past six months. I'm launching a website. I'm so thrilled with the growth. So it just seems like appropriate to finally move into the forever space, and have room to spread out and offer more categories of clothing," she said.

She also wanted to express her gratitude for her customers and friends' support to keep her dream alive.

"I am just so grateful to the people who have continued to shop in my store from the day it opened. Through the holidays, I had an incredible holiday season, and I just felt so grateful to everybody for telling their friends at my store, sharing about what they bought on Instagram, encouraging co-workers to come in," Conkey said. "It's been such a gift to feel welcomed by the community, and I feel like now my customers are becoming my friends, and I'm just excited to start this new chapter and never have to move all of this inventory ever again."

She will be open Friday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. She encourages people to check her Instagram for updates on clothes and her store.

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