March 31 COVID-19 Briefs: Food Pantry Distribution Moves to St. Elizabeth's

Friendship Center Distribution Moves

Starting Wednesday, April 1, the Food Pantry of the Al Nelson Friendship Center will temporarily operate from the St. Elizabeth Parish Center. The move from the location at 45 Eagle St. to the Parish Center, located at the corner of St. Anthony Drive and Holden Street, is being made to provide more room for social distancing and to adjust to increased need for emergency food during the COVID-19 emergency.

The food pantry operating hours will remain 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. on Wednesdays. The phone number will remain 413-664-0123.

Because of public health concerns, the center will continue to provide pre-assembled boxes of food based on family size. On Wednesday, April 1, staff will be distributing food from the double red doors on the Holden Street side of the facility, across from the BigY building. Signs will be put up indicating where to go. People should park along Holden Street and line up as necessary at an appropriate distance from each other. All other entrances will remain locked.

The center requests that people don't come to the pantry if they are ill and if possible send just one person per household to pick up food, ideally a person who can carry a loaded box to a car.

Volunteers from The First Baptist Church of North Adams and Terra Nova Church, also in North Adams, helped move the essentials to run a food pantry, including shelves, tables, three freezers and about 1,000 pounds of food from the Friendship Center to the Parish Center in less than two hours on Thursday, March 26.

Food Pantry organizers are look to build a database of potential and actual new volunteers. Some regular volunteers have stepped back temporarily because they fall into groups most threatened by COVID-19. Potential new volunteers should be in good health without underlying conditions and should be able to lift and move a 35-pound box. If interested, send an email or send a message through the website or the Facebook page.

Emergency Child Care

18 Degrees, Family Services for Western Massachusetts, will be operating as an Emergency Childcare Center starting Tuesday, March 31. Emergency Childcare services have been established to provide care for children whose families are providing essential services – health care workers, first responders, and grocery store staff are in that category.  Care will be available on a first come, first serve, basis starting from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 pm. on Tuesday, March 31, and then open Monday through Fridays through May 1. 

18 Degrees is not allowed to provide childcare for the organization's regular families unless they fit the eligibility requirements the state has established for Emergency Childcare. This care is ONLY to provide emergency, back-up, drop-in care for vulnerable families and workers who have no other option. 

18 Degrees staff continues to provide all other services to families remotely. "Staff is finding new and creative ways of connecting, supporting, and continuing to deliver the quality of services that we take pride in and for which we are known," said Colleen Holmes, president and CEO. 

More information about Emergency Childcare can be found by calling 413-448-8281, Ext. 211.  

SVMC Relief Fund

The Southwestern Vermont Health Care Foundation, part of Southwestern Vermont Health Care, has established a special fund to meet needs that have emerged as a result of the health system’s response to COVID-19.

"This is a time of unprecedented need," said Leslie Keefe, SVHC’s vice president of Corporate Development. "We are calling on our community to support the efforts of our hospital to save lives."

The COVID-19 Relief Fund will be used to create additional negative pressure rooms; purchase life-saving supplies, such as ventilators, respirators, additional Personal Protective Equipment; implement a surge plan to expand patient care areas, including an off-site Respiratory Evaluation Center; and support of employees in distress.

Southwestern Vermont Health Care’s Auxiliary will match all donations to the COVID-19 Relief Fund up to $100,000. "The Auxiliary has been working to meet crucial needs in our community for more than 100 years," said Auxiliary President Lila Cestone. "We are proud to help inspire others to contribute and to join us in the effort against COVID-19."

Donations may be made online. SVHC Foundation is a 501(c)3 organization, and all donations are tax deductible to the full extent of the law.

Spectrum Adds Springfield Station

WWLP, Channel 22 News, out of Springfield is now available to Spectrum cable users in Berkshire County. The station began airing Monday on Spectrum on Channels 14 and 204 for basic/starter and HD television Lee, North Adams and Pittsfield area lineups and on Channels 14 and 791 in West Stockbridge. View the current lineup of channels here.

U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey announced in February he had brokered a deal to restore WWLP, Channel 22, to cable viewers in the Berkshires after a three-year absence.

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.