Northern Berkshire United Way: 1960s Sees Growth, Goodbyes
Northern Berkshire United Way is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year. Each month, we will take a look back at the agency's milestones over the decades. This first part looks at its successes and challenges during the war years.
Campaign Chair Harry Melchior puts up the goal sign for 1963 at the old YMCA on Summer Street. Below, volunteers by the tote board.
It was a festive affair at the Masonic Lodge, with current officers dramatizing the first meeting of the chest as Frank Bond and Edward Wilkinson, and a second showing what the women thought about the one-fund drive. Yet another skit re-enacted the presentation of a "Citation of the Decade" in 1956 from the Massachusetts Community Organizations Society.
If that weren't enough, a barbershop quartet of Leland Buzzell, George Lerrigo, Donald Crippen and Leonard Dodge serenaded the dinner served by the Naomi Chapter of Order of Eastern Star, there were "slide flashbacks" and the introduction of Gladys Brigham, the new executive director of the Pittsfield United Community Fund.
"This is not a tribute to the individuals who have lead the Community Chest and United Fund Campaigns over the past quarter century, but it is rather a tribute to the hundreds upon hundreds of civic-minded people to whom the credit for success really belong," President Herbert S. Gordon wrote in an anniversary booklet dedicated to the people of Clarksburg, Florida, North Adams and Stamford.
"The army of volunteer workers and the generous contributors have been the backbone of our drives and this will continue to be true in the years ahead."
The fund had grown immensely over the past 25 years, raising some $1.75 million during that period. But the 1960s would see the fund grow even more in both fundraising and the agencies it supported.
At the very beginning of the decade, the fund moved into new quarters on the sixth floor of the New Kimbell Building, sharing with the Community Council, Child and Family Center, Visiting Nurses, North Berkshire branch of the MSPCC and Family and Children Service of Berkshire County.
Halfway through the decade, its officers advised the residents in Adams on starting their own fund but talks between the two communities continued for several years, resulting in a merger in 1967. The annual meeting a year later recognized the new Northern Berkshire United Community Services, with an open invitation to Williamstown. (Williamstown has maintained its Community Chest for 99 years and will celebrate its centennial next year.)
The Community Council also merged to become a United Community Service organization
That first meeting was held at the brand-new McCann Vocational Technical School with James Westall, superintendent director, speaking.
"I believe a great forward step has been taken in the regionalization of the United Community Services," he said. "Cooperation and coordination like this makes good sense and can provide more comprehensive service at less cost."
Speaking on education is good business, he said, "education is a great engine of social progress and there are manifold ways in which good schools strengthen our society."
The school's food service under instructor Peter Cantone served a roast beef dinner.
By 1960, the fund was supporting some 17 agencies: YMCA, Child and Family Center, Salvation Army, Visiting Nurses, Northern Berkshire Child Guidance Center, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, North Berkshire branch of MSPCC, North Adams Hospital, Berkshire Psychiatric Clinic, Coolidge Hill School for Crippled Children, Family and Children's Service of Berkshire County, Red Cross, United Cerebral Palsy Association, Arthritis and Rheumatism Foundation, USO, and National Foundation for Neuro-Muscular Diseases. Its funding allocations ranged from $18,240 for the Red Cross to $500 to Coolidge Hill School.
It set an ambitious goal of $107,635.88 that year, reaching $102,427. The goal was short but it was still the highest amount collected in its history.
Campaign Chair John Winant was not discouraged by the shortfall, he said, because "when you consider the economic conditions in North Adams have not substantially improved of the last year, I think it quite an achievement for a community the size of ours to go over the $100,000 mark."
The fund continued to inch its way up over the decade, reaching $103,700 in 1961, and $107,000 in 1962, topping its goal for the first time since 1958.
In 1969, it raised $161,764, that while a shy short of its $164,000 goal was nearly four times that of its inaugural year.
But the United Fund concerns the prior decade about national campaigns undercutting its ability to raise money hadn't gone away.
"Outside forces that are not under our jurisdiction — local, state and federal governments — and our agencies themselves — are causing us concern they may undermine the very foundation of the United Fund," said then President John Bond at the 1969 annual meeting at Midway Restaurant, expressing that the fund's goals had not increased proportionally compared to from 1948 to 1958.
The fund tried a number of different advertising concepts over the decade to impress upon the communities the importance of supporting its local agencies. One used an image of 13 women lined up at a front door ready to ask for donations to remind residents that it's "not just another campaign! It's 13 campaigns rolled into one."
In October 1966, it held a "booth-a-rama" in the new Artery Arcade, tabling all then 13 agencies for the first time. It also held poster and essay contests in the schools for a couple years. Winners included Louise Patenaude, Mary Silveira, Paul Sweeney, Bruce Tatro, Sharon Tower, Tamara Peters, Brian Zell, and Barbara Duby.
One year, the fund used its officers and business leaders to extol the virtues of giving. John Bond said he gave because "while still not fully area-wide, this organization's many years of experience have shown that people can accomplish far more with less effort by working together, rather than independently, toward the same goals."
Robert Reardon, assistant treasurer of Berkshire & Trust Co., said the fund "provides all of us with the opportunity to perform a very vital service to both the community and the nation."
Then there were the United Fund poster children. Wendy Lynn Foster, 4, of Florida, the 1967 United Fund Girl, was the special guest at the annual kickoff along with her parents. She received blood through Red Cross to undergo heart surgery. Diane Hunt, 5, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Hunt of Williamstown, was chosen as the 1969 United Fund Poster girl. Her picture was on the cover of the annual report.
The Transcript, of course, continue to write about how donating "can help a pair of crippled legs to walk or a crippled hand to write." Or how the Red Cross stepped in to pay for prescriptions for a sick child whose soldier father had been sent to Iceland.
The decade was not without its controversy. The Community Council had set up the Child and Parent Center back in the 1930s but saw its funding cut in favor of the countywide Family and Children Service of Berkshire County.
President Herbert Gordon, responding to accusations in the Transcript, said fund officials were "painfully aware" that operating funds requests were increasing at a greater rate than their ability to collect more money. Making the center effective with full-time staff would require 15 percent of the fund's annual goal.
"We think the community needs and wants for the one-half the cost of a local agency, the allotment should be made to the county agency," he wrote.
Several agencies would drop off and new ones come on during the decade. In addition to the CPC, Northern Berkshire Child Guidance Center, National Foundation for Neuro-Muscular Diseases and the North Adams Hospital, at its request, would drop off and Coolidge Hill would close; the Adams-Cheshire Salvation Army, Williamstown Visiting Nurse Associates, Williamstown Boys Club and Northern Berkshire ARC would join. MSPCC would become Children's Protective Service of Berkshire County and Berkshire Psychiatric Clinic, Berkshire Mental Health Center.
The fund also bid farewell to Estelle Howard, who had led the organization since its very beginnings, and Randy Trabold, the legendary Transcript photographer who taken many of the fund's pictures since 1935.
The annual meeting held at the Masonic Temple in 1964 presented Trabold and Ralph Ballou, vice president of First Agricultural National Bank, with silver tie pins and certificates. Howard, again referred to as executive director, was feted at the Williams Inn on her retirement in 1967 with a color television. She'd been given a sterling silver Revere bowl on her 25th anniversary.
She'd seen the fund grow from less than $40,000 to more than $113,000 while also helping establish the child guidance department at the mental health clinic, founding the Golden Age Club, as a board member and teacher at Methodist Church, president of the North Adams Business and Professional Women's Club in the '40s, a longtime Red Cross home service worker and treasurer of the North Adams League of Women Voters.
Howard told the Transcript, "I haven't had 'No' in my vocabulary until this year."
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