Northern Berkshire Coalition Recognizes Faithful
 A couple 'coalition legends' at Tuesday's annual meeting at the Williams Inn. |
A packed room at the Williams Inn applauded a local Catholic charity as the annual Northern Berkshire Hero, lauded the work of an interfaith group and gave a standing ovation to the coalition board's outgoing president, Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser.
The coalition is marking its 25th year of strengthening neighborhoods and families through a network of private, public, nonprofit and faith-based organizations. Coalition Executive Director Alan Bashevkin thanked the coalition's many partners and noted some of the "coalition legends" who had been with the organization since its early years.
Bashevkin had the staff, partners and the many volunteers serving on boards take a bow for the work they've done and encouraged others to volunteer.
"All of us who are sitting here in this room now, our local nonprofits need you to sit on those boards to help us make the decisions we need to make," he said, offering it as an opportunity to fill the gaps being left by several who are moving on.
Among them is Goldwasser, who is leaving after 11 years at Congregation Beth Israel of North Adams to serve a congregation in Florida ("The other Florida," Goldwasser joked to laughter.)
He spoke of how impressed he was with his board peers, who were working "to improve the quality of life for the people of Northern Berkshire during this period of economic uncertainty."
 Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser is leaving the coalition and the community. |
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He pointed to one initiative, the Northern Berkshire Interfaith Action Initiative, which hatched out of a discussion at a coalition meeting and opened a Friendship Center on Eagle Street in North Adams "to provide food and sincere kindness and welcome to families in need."
It's led by laypeople "representing the spectrum of religious belief in our community," said Goldwasser. "It is clear to me that energy and passion for doing justice is alive and well in the faith community of the Northern Berkshire."
Another lay group that, with help from its pastor the Rev. Daniel Boyle, has been helping make Northern Berkshire a better place is Pope John Paul the Great Charity Center in Adams.
Corinne Case, a coalition outreach worker from Adams, and North Adams Mayor Richard Alcombright presented its volunteers with Northern Berkshire Hero Award.
Case said the charity center has been serving the needs of 800 families in Adams, Cheshire and Savoy since July 2009. It sprang from a couple yard sales organized by Tammy Scalise to raise funds and now operates out of the former St. Thomas' Church, part of Pope John Paul the Great Parish. Over the past year, it's handed out school bags and supplies, provided Christmas gift baskets to 75 families, held clothing and food drives and offered some advice to the Interfaith Initiative.
"At a time when many faiths are seeing a decline in their members' activities, this extraordinary group has put faith into action," said Case.
A score of churches, Catholic and otherwise, have closed in the region over past years, a decline that Goldwasser noted with some alarm.
"Our faith community is in the slow and steady process of losing its clergy over this year and the next," he said, adding that four full-time clergy positions were being reduced or eliminated this year alone.
"I'm deeply troubled that the loss of these positions will mean the loss of voices in our community to connect the work of helping families sustain neighborhoods and building our future wih the high aspirations that faith compels us toward," he said. "Support our churches and synagogue. If you wait until a birth, a wedding, or a funeral to walk through the doors ... you may find it is no longer there when you need it."
The meeting also included an economic development discussion involving the Partnership for North Adams. That story will appear Wednesday but you can hear Dan Bosley's presentation on the partnership's goals here.
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