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Mike Bradley speaks with a child on behalf of Santa.
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Bill and Cori Knowles were dressed for the occasion.
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Amanda O'Connor and Dennis Burke man the lines.
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Shaun McHugh deep in conversation with a child.
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Rita Gomes and Cal Joppreu volunteered for phone duty.
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Becky Manship and Joe Cimini look through the applications.

Santa Claus Calls Pittsfield Children

By Andy McKeeveriBerkshires Staff
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Christina Barrett and Michael Wynn gave up a few hours of their Wednesday night to help Santa Claus get in touch with local children.
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Jolly old Saint Nick made phone calls to 80 local children Wednesday night in preparation for his overnight journey next week.
 
Santa and Mrs. Claus will make more than 156 phone calls this year — enlisting volunteers from the city to help out. Eleven volunteers joined him Wednesday night and another 10 from the Knights of Columbus will join him on Thursday.
 
"It is city worker volunteers and community volunteers," said Becky Manship, recreation activities coordinator. "It is one of the fun programs."
 
Wednesday's group of volunteers were a mix of people who've participated before along with some new elves.
 
The city has recruited the Wednesday night group for the last four years after the Elks Club had to stop the program. The Elks still helped out on Wednesday nights and the Knights of Columbus will be there on Thursday night.
 
Each year, parents have an opportunity to sign their kids up to receive the call and share some information about the child's wants or ask Santa to give them a message. Last year, 184 children were called.
 
"We send it home through Pittsfield Public Schools. And the forms are available online or in the clerk's office," Manship said.

Tags: holiday story,   volunteers,   

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Harris Draws Crowds to Downtown Pittsfield

By Brittany Polito & Sabrina DammsiBerkshires Staff

The closest iBerkshires got was a thumbs up from James Taylor. Most local media was kept outside and iBerkshires has no access to pool photos. 
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Vice President Kamala Harris fired up a capacity crowd at the Colonial Theatre on Saturday afternoon. 
 
The presumed presidential nominee for the Democratic Party was met in Westfield by Gov. Maura Healey before traveling to Pittsfield to give a 15-minute stump speech — more than an hour later than planned. 
 
"It was incredibly inspiring and comforting," said Lee Prinz of Pittsfield. "I felt heard, I felt like, oh, there are people, they are doing something, and we have like-minded individuals and people are taking action. 
 
"It was inspiring because it's also a lot of the responsibility is on us to make this change."
 
Prinz said the veep stuck to the stump speech she's been honing over the last week since President Joe Biden's withdrawal from the campaign. 
 
He said she touched on the administration's successes like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, and topics such as bodily autonomy and "hope versus hate." 
 
Harris also talked about Project 2025, a controversial Heritage Foundation document laying out a very conservative path should Donald Trump win the election. Prinz said he was glad to see discussion of the plans break into the mainstream because of how "scary" it is. 
 
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