Berkshire DA Timothy Shugrue announced the award in his downtown Pittsfield offices Thursday afternoon. While half of the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant is dedicated to law enforcement efforts, the other half is directed at community groups working with young people.
“Last week, when this office met with Governor Maura Healey, she specifically commended Berkshire County for investing in these types of programs," the DA said. "This was what she said, this is what she wants. This is how the money should be used. It is to invest in our youth and to invest in our community.”
Representatives from organizations receiving allotments explained how the funding would be used throughout the Berkshires.
“I am one of five McKinney-Vento regional liaisons that helped cover the state of Massachusetts, removing barriers to accessing and staying in school for highly mobile students," said Stacy Parsons. "So primarily my work is with students who are experiencing homelessness or involved in foster care, migratory students, or military-connected families.”
Parsons is the North Berkshire School Housing Partnership coordinator for the North Adams Public Schools.
“We're planning to use this funding to strengthen protective factors," she continued. "We're really looking at any of the work we're doing this year from a lens of prevention and care. We want to be doing as much as we can to strengthen those protective factors and to prevent something from happening, but also as a community of providers between our schools, our community providers, police, fire, EMS, that when an if an incident happens, and we're able to wrap around that youth and that family to promote resilience and recovery.”
Parsons says the model will be based on family nights held in the city’s elementary schools.
“It's going to build on some of the work we've done this week in our amazing Youth Leadership Camp, using our North Adams Police Department, our fire department, EMS, and our teachers to provide an engagement activity for youth, while also, since parents are going to be there, taking a little bit of time to offer them a workshop to strengthen them and support them and their role is parents," she said. "So, our plan is to offer a family-style meal, bringing the community together, and really focus on all of those relationship building factors, just so that we all know each other better, and maybe get a chance to see each other in a different light.”
Guidance counselor Kristen Shepardson was there to represent Pittsfield’s Reid Middle School, where the grant money will support a peer mentorship program.
“We're really excited to bring this leadership program back to Reid at such a critical time," she said. "We are excited. We are going to be training 18 to 20 8th graders. And we've chosen our eighth graders based on leadership potential, students that other kids look up to already. And we're hoping that they can shift and guide student conflict, students that maybe need someone to talk to and they can look up to one of their peers. So, we're hoping that can, hopefully, that can shape and guide the culture of our building in a positive way.”
Jess Vecchia is the co-founder and director of Roots Rising, a nonprofit focused on empowering youth and building community through food and farming.
“We do that through a number of ways," she said. "We run the Pittsfield Farmers Market, we have an upcoming youth farm on the horizon. The focus of this funding will be our youth crews. And so, in our youth crews, we hire Pittsfield teens to work on farms, in food pantries, and at our own farmers market. It's the first teen run market in the region, we're very proud of that. We like to say that Roots Rising and our youth crews are more than just a job. It's an opportunity to engage teens and meaningful work, which we define as work that needs to be done and that serves a larger social good. And we believe meaningful work leaves our teens feeling purposeful, capable, and connected. So, when we invest in our youth, they are able to invest back in themselves.”
The group is receiving the lion’s share of the grant allotment, around $20,000.
The young people are paid for their labor.
“We also offer financial literacy, culinary lessons and other educational opportunities," said Vecchia. "We provide a transformational experience for our young people. And we're also a critical labor force for our local farms.”
$7,000 will go to youth transportation for diversion and probation programs.
“There's been a large barrier in access for kids maybe living in North County having to wait for another three-month diversion program because they can't access a Central or South program,” explained Berkshire DA’s Office Director of Community Engagement and Communications Julia Sabourin.
Other uses of the grant money include $1,500 to have the Berkshire DA’s office certified as a Berkshire Pride Safe Space, and $4,000 for Pittsfield youth to take part in a program run by arts intervention group Chaos Theory.
Of the grant money going to law enforcement, $25,000 will pay for Berkshire County Law Enforcement Task Force overtime alone, while other allotments will back undercover work in the community and show-of-force patrols in crime hotspots.
