North Adams Girl Scouts Give Meaning to Thanksgiving

Girl Scouts Alyssa Smith, Jocelyn and Kailee Goodell, Kaylee Chrisman, Kimberlee DiBiase, Rebecca Vallieres, Sabriel Spencer, Tatum Ciempa (not in photo) and Tiana Carver are putting together Thanksgiving baskets for needy families.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Girl Scout Troop 11805 wanted to give back something to the community.

The 7-year-olds brainstormed until they came up with an answer suitable to the season: Thanksgiving dinner.

The local troop is holding a drawing for baskets of food for needy residents. The Thanksgiving feast will include the makings for stuffing, potatoes, gravy, vegetables, cranberry sauce and a choice of turkey or ham.

The number of baskets in the drawing will depend on the amount of donations the troop receives.

"The more we can get the better," said Scout Leader Ashley Goodell.

Goodell said the idea came during a talk about how the troop could do a community service project.

"The majority vote was lets help families don't have food," said Goodell. She and co-Leader Alicia Moore did guide the girls a little in thinking about how a project could be done, she said, but "they really came up with the idea on their own."

The girls had some of their first baskets put together last week to show what they had done. They're accepting donations from  local supermarkets, businesses and individuals, and were able to get donations through a read-a-thon they've been doing.

They are hoping to read 90 minutes during the month of October. Their favorite books so far are "My Little Pony," the classic "Clifford the Big Red Dog" and "No Jumping on the Bed."

If they make it to $100 (all of which goes to the Thanksgiving dinners), they're celebrate with — not turkey! — but a pizza party. They will also each get a badge for their community service efforts.

2024 Year in Review: North Adams' Year of New Life to Old Institutions

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
05:42AM / Thursday, January 02, 2025

President and CEO Darlene Rodowicz poses in one of the new patient rooms on 2 North at North Adams Regional Hospital.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — On March 28, 2014, the last of the 500 employees at North Adams Regional Hospital walked out the doors with little hope it would reopen. 

 

But in 2024, exactly 10 years to the day, North Adams Regional was revived through the efforts of local officials, BHS President and CEO Darlene Rodowicz, and U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, who was able to get the U.S. Health and Human Services to tweak regulations that had prevented NARH from gaining "rural critical access" status.

 

It was something of a miracle for North Adams and the North Berkshire region.

 

Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, under the BHS umbrella, purchased the campus and affiliated systems when Northern Berkshire Healthcare declared bankruptcy and abruptly closed in 2014. NBH had been beset by falling admissions, reductions in Medicare and Medicaid payments, and investments that had gone sour leaving it more than $30 million in debt. 

 

BMC had renovated the building and added in other services, including an emergency satellite facility, over the decade. But it took one small revision to allow the hospital — and its name — to be restored: the federal government's new definition of a connecting highway made Route 7 a "secondary road" and dropped the distance maximum between hospitals for "mountainous" roads to 15 miles. 

 

"Today the historic opportunity to enhance the health and wellness of Northern Berkshire community is here. And we've been waiting for this moment for 10 years," Rodowicz said. "It is the key to keeping in line with our strategic plan which is to increase access and support coordinated countywide system of care." 

 

The public got to tour the fully refurbished 2 North, which had been sectioned off for nearly a decade in hopes of restoring patient beds; the official critical hospital designation came in August.