MARION: For us, it's really about supporting children, youth and families to achieve success. And when I talk about success, it's about what goals are important to them. So for our early childhood education, for example, it would be about making sure that children are kindergarten ready. And then for our school age program, it's really about supporting the work that's happening during the school day, making sure that children are staying on top of their schoolwork and then also adding enrichment activities to what's happening. So they do a lot of really fun stuff here as well. We do a lot of life skills development. We have a youth empowerment services program, which is able to do counseling and case management support for children who are involved in the organization. And then we have our core program, which is Girls Inc. of the Berkshires, which supports girls from kindergarten all the way up through age 1, with a wide array of nationally developed curriculums. And then we have a large aquatics program where everybody swims.
WAMC: Now, how did you first get involved?
I was a student at Berkshire Community College. I was 20 years old, and they were looking for someone to cover a position in the adult social daycare program, which we used to have here, for two weeks while the staff person went on vacation. And at that point, I had just completed an internship at a local nursing home, and I thought, well, I could do that. And I came to do that, and just about everything that could go wrong during that time did. And I managed to get through the two weeks and before the two weeks was up, they said, hey, what is it you actually do? And I said, well, I go to college, and I work part time. And they said, how would you like to work full time here and integrate children into, special needs children, into a summer camp program? And I said I thought it would be a great idea, and I'd love to do that. And I did that. And then it was, well, how about if you want to run the school age program? And I said, well, I need to keep going to college. You know, I made a commitment to complete my education. And my then supervisors said, absolutely, we'll figure out a way to do that. And we did. So I worked full time I finished my human services degree at BCC, went to Springfield College, got my undergrad and then also completed my master's degree in human services administration, also at Springfield College.
Let me ask you this- over the years, what have you learned about your community by doing the work that you do?
For me having been here as long as I have, looking at the changes in our community with a lot of the bigger businesses leaving, looking at the impact on the economy in our community, and I think how that's impacted children and families. We've seen more substance abuse, more unemployment, more domestic violence. We've seen children with a lot of social and emotional needs here in the programs. And I think, for an organization, we've really tried to evolve and to keep up with the changes in our community, making sure that our staff are trained in working with special needs children, that our staff are trained in social-emotional development for young children, really making sure that the quality of our programming is keeping up with what's happening in our community and our state and our country.
What was the transition like from the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic to offering services in the midst of it?
We were shut down in March of 2020 and very quickly pivoted to be able to open as an emergency childcare site, and we were able to have half of our staff. So we had 49 staff at the time, and 21 of them were able to come in. We operated emergency childcare straight through from the end of March until the end of June. We closed on June 26th for one day. All of our staff at that point came back into the facility, but one or two who were unable to return or decided not to for personal reasons. And we were able to open on I think it was June 29th under the new normal with some pretty significant operating restrictions. And I think our staff did an amazing job making sure that the facility was ready for it, making sure that all of our parents were ready for it and making sure that all of our children felt safe and comfortable here during the day, while social distancing, while wearing their masks, while washing their hands. It was a big transition because we're used to being such an open environment for families and engaging so much with our families. And what it really did was sort of put our parents on the edge of the facility rather than right in the thick of the facility where they usually could be. We were taking children from their parents at the door, instead of them coming into rooms to, again, try to reduce disease transmission or the potential for that. And we operated for quite a while before, we actually had a positive COVID case in the center, which was pretty amazing to me.
Based on your many years in this field, when you look forward- And not just counting the impact of the pandemic, but in general- what do you see as the big narratives for young people and families in this community moving forward?
I think for Pittsfield moving forward, that we really want to make sure that young families have access to childcare. It's very hard once you get on a waiting list to actually get a space, especially if you're looking for subsidized childcare. And I think that that's something our state really needs to look at, is being able to offer as much access. We want parents to be working, we want parents to be going to school, continuing their education and improving their lives for themselves, which then improves the lives of their children. And I think we want everybody to have success. But in order to do that, we really have to have access to childcare. And I think that's one of the hardest things, is waiting lists are so long for any kind of state support.
In your acceptance of this statewide commendation, you've centered the entire team at the Gladys Allen Brigham Community Center. What does it mean for the whole group at the center to receive this kind of recognition?
We're extremely proud of the work that we did, our ability to step up- And not just us here at the Brigham Center, but our counterparts at the Berkshire Family YMCA, 18 Degrees, a lot of the family childcares. The Dalton CRA, they offered emergency care. The Boys and Girls Club, while they weren't able to do the emergency care, was able to make sure that kids got lunches every single day and had them for the weekends. So I think for this community, I was just extremely proud of how well we all just sort of dropped any silo we were in and pulled together to make sure that children and youth and families, that everybody was trying to get what they needed to be able to feel safe during the pandemic, to be able to, you know, if they had to go back to work, get back to work. If they needed a place for their child to do remote learning that we had remote learning sites for children. I think that our city and employers that everybody did an amazing job of coming together to support those who needed the support most, if that makes sense.
Do you think that that'll last even after the worst of the pandemic, I hope, is behind us?
I hope the last of the worst of it is behind us. But I think, you know, we still here in the Brigham Center are moving forward slowly. Our children still have their masks on in common areas. Unvaccinated staff are wearing their masks at all times. We're still using different entrances and exits, because there still is disease transmission. We're hearing about the variants, and we just want to make sure that we're still providing that extra measure of safety when coming in and out of the facility and in and out of our programming, just in case it does flare again, or we do have another spike, that we're able to quickly switch back and put all of our restrictions back in place very smoothly, so that there's not a lot of trauma around that, again, like when we had to totally closed last March.
Now as far as working together with other nonprofits and other agencies, do you feel like that sense of camaraderie and closeness- Is that going to maintain itself, even after the state of emergency period has passed us?
I think for a lot of organizations that it has. I think the Berkshire United Way and Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, they pulled together this emergency response fund for COVID-19 where many of us were able to get grant support to be able to operate during the emergency when everything was shut down and all of the restrictions were in place. And since that we still are reaching out to each other and having conversations about what's happening going into fall and what programming is going on here, what programming is going on there. And I think a lot of that camaraderie will absolutely continue. There's been a lot of work in South County with agencies working together, in North County with agencies working together. And I think that's a positive that has come out of COVID.
