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Dear BRIDGE Community, We personally want to thank YOU for being in community with us! You all make BRIDGE what it is with love and gusto!
Last week, we had a fun dance night and good food connection and intergenerational cross-cultural fun (did I say FUN?) was had by all attending at our pop-up SJIA! I hope you will join us for future celebrations, wings and dancing as we enjoy the rest of our summer.  We have been busy at BRIDGE this summer in so many ways. We take pride in supporting our clients and some of us are busy making plans with our youth leaders for the 10th-anniversary Happiness Toolbox summer season. We also have made plans to do a two-day pilot for Cheshire and surrounding towns at Luna Búho Farm July 30th and July 31st with a family presentation 4 PM on July 31st. We will be drumming with Otha Day, dancing, practicing literacy through Spanish and Computer coding, reading with local Authors Ty Jackson and JV Hampton VanSant, and learning our local Berkshire history through the legends of Dr. Du Bois, Laura Ingersoll, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth and Mumbett with Ms. Stephanie Wright. We will be enjoying the athlete, artist, naturalist, and dancer in all of us. Several youth leaders are sharing their talents, passions and favorite BRIDGE lessons with the program. Our themes are empathy, perseverance, and grit! We will explore the history of the land we use today... And need I say more!  "All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up" — James Baldwin For you to get a sense of what we have been up to so far this season, please see the editorial strand, regarding a recent racially biased incident at Jacob’s Pillow and our two collaborative responses from accountability of TRJ and also the CEO letter with John Bissell (Greylock Federal Credit Union) and Peter Taylor (Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation). As we live and practice true to our mission, we are advocates for the many marginalized voices and also we serve as a resource to institutions and organizations committed to change. We work towards cultural and systemic policy change. Last week, we also shared a successful Bias Awareness Training hosted by NPC Berkshires and we are going in for part two on Thursday. We were happy to welcome several participants from Lee bank, Berkshire Community College, Public Health Institute, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, BRIDGE, Berkshire Natural Resources Council, and more to the session. Thanks to NPC director and founder, Liana Toscanini, for the invitation and soliciting and publishing the piece on Colorblindness in the latest Connections magazine.  We celebrated with our sister organization WAM on their tenth anniversary as they announced their beneficiaries, Women of Color Giving Circle and Harmony Homestead, who were collectively nominated and chosen among WAM and BRIDGE staff! Happy birthday, WAM! Can’t wait for Pipeline—see the calendar to get your tickets!
Lastly, we had such fun at the Gather-In at Durant Park and also look forward to our Day Of Action with Yo Yo Ma and several community organizations in Pittsfield. Learn more here. Newsflash: summer hEartbeat Match We have a new Summer Challenge grant this summer in honor of the 10th anniversary of two of our core programs, Women to Women and Happiness Toolbox. Woo hoo! Grace Church and the Ellis family (Tim, Lily and Levi of TRJ) have joined forces to offer $7,000 towards these two programs annual and celebration costs. It is time as you read for you to double your contribution by giving now because they have jointly issued the Heartbeat Match Challenge. Good news—we are more than halfway there at $3856! Make your donation here! Reflection Opportunity We love to return to Adrienne Maree Brown to reflect on inspiring folks in our networks to catalyze change by living an authentic life—the practice of reflection is a helpful step. Pause reflect and then get back to doing!
Do you already know that your existence--who and how you are--is in and of itself a contribution to the people and place around you? Not after or because you do some particular thing, but simply the miracle of your life. And that the people around you, and the place(s), have contributions as well? Do you understand that your quality of life and your survival are tied to how authentic and generous the connections are between you and the people and place you live with and in? Are you actively practicing generosity and vulnerability in order to make the connections between you and others clear, open, available, durable? Generosity here means giving of what you have without strings or expectations attached. Vulnerability means showing your needs. - adrienne maree brown Stay in touch with us! Thank you for all you do! Warmly, Gwendolyn VanSant Comments are closed.
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