BRIDGE and Macedonia Baptist Church present "Peace, Justice and Activism: We are the Dream!"1/15/2024 MLK Jr. Day Remarks fROM Gwendolyn Hampton VanSant, BRIDGE CEO and FounderThank you for gathering for this service here today and I am grateful for the sisterhood (& brotherhood) and partnership with Macedonia Baptist Church. As we looked at how we wanted to celebrate Dr. King today, peace justice and this concept of order resonated. When I focus on global peace and my own peace, I think the term “peace” requires discernment and a search for clarity. Peace is beyond a ceasefire and is well beyond evading conflicts or considering peace broken or disrupted when truth is told or when questions are asked. That truth — however ugly, messy, hard or unclear— is where peace begins. Dr. King said it so well in a sermon that I will share from. Listen and note — While he speaks to his connection to God and Jesus as his guide, you listen and think about who is sacred to you, who holds you and guides you. What holds you accountable? Is it your faith, your God, your family, the next generations of children and families to occupy this planet? What is your North Star? A day before he was sentenced to 386 days of prison with a $500 fine for his activism (which ultimately was appealed and overruled by Kings attorney), Dr. King presented this sermon, "When Peace is Obnoxious," at Dexter Baptist Church. His words were published and paraphrased by Alpha Phi Alpha national President and Fraternity brother Stanley. Stanly wrote He, Dr King, had recently engaged in a long talk the other day with a man about this bus situation. He discussed the peace being destroyed in the community, the destroying of good race relations. I agreed that there is more tension now. But peace is not merely an absence of this tension, but the presence of justice. And even if we didn’t have this tension, we still wouldn’t have positive peace. Dr. King continued: “Yes it is true that if the Negro accepts his place, accepts exploitation, and injustice, there will be peace. But it would be an obnoxious peace. It would be a peace that boiled down to stagnant complacency, deadening passivity and: I was with a friend, colleague, ally and partner in our mutual aid Solidarity project this week presenting our collaborative heartwork and she said we (white peoples or privileged peoples) are taught to understand doing good (this good Dr. King speaks about) is hard and painful but she insisted the path of good and doing good is our path to joy and I would argue that is the authentic, positive peace Dr. King stood for and spoke to at Dexter Baptist Church . Her words resonated because over the years I have witnessed her allyship to me, to her values, to the Black community and it requires work, giving up material things, discomfort, relationships falling away, asking hard questions of those closest to her but again finding her joy, newly aligned relationships, seeing the positive impact on strangers in our community and knowing lives are changing for the better, creating a better world with more joy than what money can buy for her children and mine…and for all of the next generations to come. This is a truth that is real in my day to day, work that is alive and vibrant among us that touches many of our lives and if not ours directly—our neighbors’ lives. Many of you here today support this work and some will be giving a helping hand later today in the vision of Dr King day… serving our community. Justice work is not and can never hold complacency and silence, it cannot be about ease and comfort; it cannot be about ego and righteousness. Justice work is about seeing, listening. Doing. Repairing. In my view, Justice work cannot be perfect and organized. I believe white supremacy and its systems are meticulously organized to stand for centuries and critique and challenge any threat to it and characterize the disruption as “disorderly” or “not correct/right”. I believe justice requires some chaos and disruption in a disordered fashion to truly dismantle racism and systems that perpetuate poverty and oppression in order to transform our path to a more just and equitable way. That does not mean a lack of goals, motivation, or coordination but progress does require an unpredictable, disobedient disorder with an arc towards justice. This civil disobedience, as it were, disallows gatekeeping. Gatekeeping is an active form of white supremacy that operates even in our home county today… gate keeping is something me and my organization have to fight everyday for the empowerment of our community. This disorder and disruption invites innovation, transformation, and ultimately saves more lives in the collective movement towards justice and equity. We cannot see our brothers and sisters, our neighbors new or old as taking away from us. See them as value added to our lives with a lesson to bring to us. See them as mirror reflections of who we are and who we are in trusted, true relationships with—and not. Use the new relationships as windows in to old and new dynamics and attachments. Ask, what needs to shift? And what can and will I do about that? Change cannot happen without disruption and agitation. Change has to hold love at its center… the Love for oneself, one’s community and for the planet we live on and that love has to include the humanity and well-being of others. Otherwise, there is an aperture for hate, distrust and none of us can afford that in our community. Justice is what love looks like in public is a favorite saying of mine by Cornel West. They are one in the same. Justice and love. And that work can lead us to joy and peace. Today we honor Dr. King’s work and Dr. Du Bois by raising the banners in Great Barrington of Dr. Du Bois. I encourage you to read Dr. King’s entire speech at Carnegie Hall that uplifts the legacy of Dr. Du Bois. As we landed on this theme of peace, justice and activism thinking of all of the genocides and the decades long cry of the Palestinians uplifted by Black Feminists who I so admire and use as my guides, I wanted to hear from those voices who surrounded and supported Dr. King. I found this amazing piece by Coretta Scott King and like almost all work of the Civil Rights movement’s work, the words are evergreen. I will end with her words. Coretta Scott King Reflects on Working Toward Peace: "As we begin the twenty-first century, I think it is important that people of every race, religion, and nation join together to develop a shared vision of a world united in justice, peace, and harmony. This work can feel immense but we can do it. We start at home and then follow our networks. We are all connected. This global beloved community. This is a very special year for Macedonia Baptist Church… 80 years. Please join in the preparation and celebration of this historical church. Thank you so much for coming and thank you again Rev Forte and Conway and the Macedonia Choir and congregation for today and all the days before and in our future together. We will take up a collection today and proceeds will be split between BRIDGE Solidarity Projects and the Macedonia Anniversary Fund. It is my pleasure to call up Rev. Carol Allman-Morton of Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire and following that I will call Leigh Davis to begin our community reflection on peace, justice and activism and the legacy of Dr. King. Leigh Davis is daughter of chief architect of Martin Luther King Day as invited by Corretta Scott King, Vice Chair of Great Barrington Selectboard and Liaison of the Du Bois Legacy Committee. - Gwendolyn VanSant, CEO and Founding Director of BRIDGE and Town of Great Barrington Vice Chair of Du Bois Legacy Committee, January 15, 2024 As we close out 2023, we want to reflect with you the ROI (return on investment) your collaboration with BRIDGE renders! Whether we are talking about the traditional ROI investment being trust, time, talent and treasures or the newer ROI (ripples of impact) ie. impact in community, individuals and systems, BRIDGE has a ripple story to tell because of YOU! Across the globeIn January we started off with a global connection that would continue throughout the year as we worked in collaboration with the Trauma Research Foundation with Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk and Licia Sky on their race equity summit in the trauma-informed world. Our work was to create spaces for accountability and care while having these tough conversations disrupting silences around power and privilege in trauma work. In the Spring we traveled again with Collective Leadership Institute to discuss benchmarking Race equity work and we realized our work and models translate and resonate across the globe. Finally our CEO was recognized as International Peace Torch Bearer for her tireless work for our collective humanity. Over the summer, our models of caring for our Black and Brown community members were presented as best practices for federal grant administrators across the country.  As we come to the end of our third year serving as co-chairs of the BRIDGE Board, we are incredibly proud of everything that BRIDGE has accomplished. We rapidly scaled up and tripled in size to meet the urgent needs of Black and Brown communities during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we have been able to sustain this growth to continue to tackle emerging and unmet needs. In 2023, we also saw BRIDGE's work lifted up as a best practice for culturally specific services, trauma-informed services, and cross-sector equity initiatives. After 15 years of fighting just to be adequately resourced, to be lifted up as a role model at a national and even international level is an incredible accomplishment. We also celebrated our 15th Anniversary Gala this year, and heard so many powerful stories and testimonials speaking to BRIDGE's impact and the way it has transformed not just our local community, but many others. We are so proud of BRIDGE's impact and the way that it has inspired equity work across the country, and we cannot wait to see what BRIDGE will accomplish in the years to come! As we pass the torch to our incoming Board Co-Chairs, we would like to thank Gwendolyn, our Board members, and BRIDGE's staff and volunteers for all your dedication and hard work over the past three years. It has been an honor to serve, and we look forward to continuing to work with and support BRIDGE! In Solidarity, Jeff Lowenstein and Rev. Sloan Letman IV BRIDGE Board Co-Chairs, 2021-2023 Legacy & Repair Back home in the Berkshires, we closed the loop on two activities in 2024. One a collaboration to co-name the street in Great Barrington Elizabeth Freeman Way and the other is to finalize the launch of Equity Initiative with our partners at Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation. We worked for several years on research in leaders of color in Columbia, Berkshire, Northeast Dutchess and Litchfield counties, organizing, listening, designing and strategizing to create a fund at the Foundation that has a dedicated staff member, a community of color steering and advisory committee and over $500,000 to start an endowment, grant making and a leadership academy. Run by community members of color serving organizations that serve communities of color and are led by folks of color! This and the pay equity initiative are outcomes of our ILC inaugural cohort work, a few white accomplices along with the expansion of our internal BRIDGE programs!  Elizabeth Adams (Vice Chair, Board Liaison for Development Committee): Incredible and I’m really honored to be here. I am on the board and have been involved with BRIDGE for seven years and I want to tell you about the impact circle that I am a part of. We are a group of people, there are six of us who have given at what you call the capacity level which means multi-year commitments to support capacity building and as you just heard, and as you have seen, BRIDGE is doing just incredible work in every space, every where there is a need, BRIDGE is there and we are under resourced. My parents did not grow up with a lot of money. They are born in a depression. My mom and dad worked very hard and as you know, we benefited from a huge amount of white privilege that was like a gust of wind in the sails, we are getting more than we deserve. So for me, Gwendolyn asked why do I give to BRIDGE? There is a lot of pain at looking at that history and a lot of harm that has already been done and also there is a lot of joy in moving the energy. To me, money is a kind of energy and I am very interested in moving it where it needs to be - to do good. I have gotten so much from working with Gwendolyn and BRIDGE. I am a recovery perfectionist- working with BRIDGE I learned to learn from my mistakes and to work with the community with accountability. That perfectionism is a part of white supremacy and institutionalized dominance that creates harm in the world and also creates a lot of mental illness in white identified people. I am just here to say that I received so much more than I gave. I really ask you, we really need people to give at a level that you can and we are looking for people to join the IMPACT circle if you can. We need you and it will be a gift and an opportunity for you I assure you. I would love to talk to anyone about it. [email protected] Thank you Gwendolyn. Steadying our shipAs we stated back in 2020 when the pandemic hit there was not a sense of getting back to normal that was going to serve our mission– too many were already left behind– we would have to fight to keep the change we manifested in those harsh early pandemic times and create new pathways. And so BRIDGE did just that. We are emerging from three years of incredible internal growth and change having tripled our budget in 2019-2020 and maintained it and developed new funding streams, internal systems and national partnerships to sustain the work all the while centering the voices and leaders of color in our community, continuing mutual aid and growing our solidarity economy! Catalyst. Love. Impact.This last year we captured testimonials for you to witness in our BRIDGE documentary and we want you to play with our newly updated timeline to learn about BRIDGE’s journey. Find spaces you may have forgotten about ~and let us know if we forgot a milestone! We could not have done this work all of these years without an intentional community of care and trust. Thank you for making the 15th anniversary gala celebration a success, we will see you again in 5 years! We hope you continue to enjoy the testimonials and photos and videos from that day! Several of our BIPOC vendors and presenters have been invited back to perform or share their gifts with the Pillow (and other partners) in the next season. We love following the ripples of impact!  Hey everyone, I’m Michael Bobbitt, Mass Cultural Council Executive Director. If you don’t know about the Mass Cultural Council, we are a state agency that supports arts, music, and culture in the whole state. Multicultural BRIDGE, Jacob’s Pillow, I do wanna say thank you all, for paying your taxes- we appreciate that. Today has been a day filled with arts and music, so I am full. There is nothing like arts, music and food that brings us all together. That’s such a great word for what the BRIDGE is doing- bringing us all together to do this work and to do this work is hard. When I first got to the Mass Cultural Council, Gwendolyn was there doing some consulting work with the agency. She held my hand, she held the other councilman's hands and said that BRIDGE is going to make sure that the money we are giving out is given out in the most equitable way possible because of Gwendolyn. So on that note...I know that this is a fundraiser, so I hope you are all digging way deep to support Gwendolyn and BRIDGE. Gwendolyn takes cash, she takes checks, she takes credit cards, deeds of homes and land, liquidated IRAs, whatever you’d like to give her, give it to her so she can continue to do this work. We want BRIDGE for 15 or 30 more years. Thank you very much. imagining our futureWe have taken creative bold steps with ARP, Block Grant, COVID Funding and opened up a wellness center for a safe space of healing for community members of color. The Solidarity Meeting House. We have a library where folks can read the history often hidden, now banned in some places or sensationalized. We will have our kitchen because food is healing, food is medicine and food is culture. We will revive our cultural dinners, share our cultural stories and break bread together. We will also educate and learn to preserve our food we are growing in our Solidarity Farm and Gardens. Even under renovation, these spaces have been filled with joy, healing and envisioning our future for months now. Please invest here. We also have our Hamsa Home for culturally specific transitional supported housing for victims of violence and crime for respite or transitional housing. Filled with warmth and love.  Welcome Wes Gadson and Michael Obasohan, BRIDGE Co-chairs elect 2024- a welcome interview 1. What inspires you about being part of BRIDGE? MO: What inspires me about being part of BRIDGE is the intentional "boots on the ground" work from the executive Director and the staff. Being part of BRIDGE and seeing the commitment to give voice to women and communities of color excites and rejuvenates me to believe we can together create a community these two groups can thrive in. What also inspires me is that BRIDGE not only holds community partners accountable, but its staff and the board as well. To me, this sets BRIDGE at the top of my list of equity and social justice advocates. WG: Seeing action that leads to change. Knowing I am part of an organization which moves past racism and supports the people of the community. BRIDGE is not an organization that feeds people fish but teaches them to fish. 2. What do you see as BRIDGE's success story this Year? MO: The partnership with the City of Pittsfield in welcoming the new Haitian families into our Pittsfield community is a success story. The City was grateful to have BRIDGE as an organization come and help with cultural relevant/humility resources. Staff at BRIDGE helped create language access and helped support a needs assessment with the families. Early mornings and late nights were our best friends but staff at BRIDGE handled themselves with grace and humility. Many organizations came to support and aid the families. It speaks volumes to the community we are trying to build. WG: This year our volunteers were able to help us feed people healthy vegetables thanks to programs like the solidarity garden and inspire them to engage in healthy eating and try things outside of their comfort zone. By giving them the resources, like recipes and sample meals, they are able to live stronger and longer lives. 3. What invitation will you make for folks reading this as a part of our annual report? MO: I would invite folks to get involved in the work of equity and social justice. If one voice is silenced then we as a community are silenced. Let the work of BRIDGE show how we can support and care for one another no matter our identities. The work starts with our own individual self. Let's get to work! WG: No matter the number of volunteers and resources, there is always a cost to helping others. No matter the size of the support, your contribution will allow us to continue to provide for the less fortunate. Support makes it possible for Bridge to continue teaching people to fish rather than giving them fish. We wish you all a happy new year and ask that you consider making a sustaining pledge to BRIDGE so we can respond to incidents in our community well resourced and prepared. Like the pandemic, BRIDGE sprung into action with the resettled Haitian refugees late October and we could not do that without our community supporting us all along! Essential dialogues about Gaza and Israel, school and law enforcement incidents, volunteer and donor training in race equity and justice and more await us as we begin 2024. With your support BRIDGE can continue to serve as a catalyst and an (inter)national model with love and justice at its core. Together we can be the change making all the necessary ripples! i.e. all the good trouble as one of our most beloved elders, John Lewis, used to say! Good trouble. Thank you for your annual pledge. And for keeping up with us here at BRIDGE. Thank you for being a part of our beloved community. Peace, Gwendolyn and the BRIDGE Team “To build community requires vigilant awareness of the work we must continually do to undermine all the socialization that leads us to behave in ways that perpetuate domination.”  P.s. Last (but not least!) thought – our youth program was robust this summer filled with joy and new activities. If you follow us on Instagram, you were able to play along. One of the newer partnerships this year was with Mass Hire which allowed us to triple our youth corps engagement. Some of the youth leaders opted to revive the Berkshire Mosaic/On the Bridge project with Kate Abbott at By the Way Berkshires. Please find two stories here: Zazu and Melissa…. More to come!
Today is the 3rd day of Kwanzaa. Ujima. That symbolizes Collective Work and Responsibility…join us.
Giving Tuesday_IG/FB Post by Executive Assistant
Remarks from BRIDGE Co-Founder and CEO Gwendolyn VanSant at the 2023 Quinquennial Celebration Gala Hello and Good afternoon! I hope you have enjoyed this afternoon of celebration. Each and every moment was constructed with care and a zeal for you all to experience and know BRIDGE. We are a community- rooted organization. Thank you to all of the sponsors, donors, volunteers, partners, committee members and all of our amazing vendors. And thank you to all of our BRIDGE guests and presenters! And Jacob's Pillow and your team, thank you! What a lovely place to be hosted for such a special milestone. With our partnership, having our gala here felt like having it at home--here on the site of the Underground Railroad. Thank you to our early bird sponsors at the platinum impact level both Greylock Federal Credit Union and Berkshire Bank Foundation. Many have supported us in such meaningful ways and I am naming these two not in the traditional sense but rather because for 15 years, they have funded us each year. I made my first line item budget sitting with Peter Lafayette of Berkshire Bank and another staffer there at the time--Lori inherited us a bit later after his retirement (although we had already worked with Lori at Legacy Banks on Cultural Competence previously) and later she served as our BRIDGE board chair for some time. Greylock gave us our first grant of $250 (unsolicited) and Marthe and I remember that acknowledgement--we were so excited and hopeful that without even having to ask, our value and work was being acknowledged. That was so profound in those founding days and continues to be--to be seen, valued and supported without any extra hoops or barriers. Over several years, Greylock trusted BRIDGE to take a deep dive in to their role as a community development financial institution and the results have been astounding. We have been in partnership with these institutions bringing our best skills to them and throughout everything these financial institutions have stood by BRIDGE and our work. Thank you! My heart is full with the testimonials and tributes of today. I know the time and energy individuals took to craft a story of impact and love, prepare a dance, prepare their food, etc. Thank you! At this stage in the afternoon, I hope something has touched each of you so deeply that you can walk away saying “Yes, I know BRIDGE” and this is my community, a community I want to be a part of and help grow. There were so many gems planted and many more for you to find on our timeline looking back over 15 years including our Catalyst.Love.Impact video capturing the essence of BRIDGE by Board Member, Wes Gadson and family business OnPoint Grafix Design. All of this and more will be available on our website and I hope that this afternoon you have left some more gems for us on video and/or post-its to continue to add to the BRIDGE story. I asked to be joined by four special voices to share what is BRIDGE to them. Luci Leonard, Elizabeth Adams, Silvia Soria and Karen Murray. Each of them will share briefly and invite you to continue the conversations with each of them later on. Shela will then close us out this afternoon as we head to espresso and dessert. Please understand these desserts are made with love and so much intention: we have altar cakes to our core programs and a tres leches cake for our quince anyos. Thank you to all food vendors for the love and caring expressed through our fellowship and celebration with food. My task now is to envision our future together with you here this afternoon. It all starts with the voices and experiences and people present today. A core principle at BRIDGE is to trust people to know what they need and listen and work alongside. BRIDGE is a manifestation of that. Marthe and I were two survivors of gender-based violence, having experienced the Berkshires as a single Mom as a shared experience and seeing new folks in our community dealing with similar issues the two of us had faced. We were not to be defined by what happened to us or what someone did to us but rather on how can we heal and make this place safer for families, women and children that have similar experiences. We realized we had solutions and skill sets to make a difference and so BRIDGE was born. Our goal was to make it so the isolation and struggle could be less with a helping hand at BRIDGE. We set out to be an advocacy organization supporting individuals and organizations to connect to the resources that they need. We realized real cultural deficits in meeting community needs and an unfavorable response to an “out of the box solution” by organizational leaders, Marthe and me, that did not look like the rest of the leaders here. It was rough y’all! And still can be… rough. Even still our programs began to evolve in to this 360 degree solution you have heard about today--a solution that folks trusted when they needed to call on us as an emergency responder to harmful and hateful incidents. And for over a dozen years, we worked at sustaining this solution we envisioned. Today we have robust programming, carrying forth some of the original programs now with a physical site (instead of Berkshire hopping that we did) while also innovating and creating new programs with a new generation of BRIDGE staff and team members. All of our staff are BIPOC and either share the experience of being survivors of some form of victimization and/or have participated in our programs and have come back to run them. Nothing gives me more satisfaction and joy as this organizational leader than to see this evolution at BRIDGE. Envisioning Our Future Many of you know we just opened up our culturally specific transitional housing meaning we are the only active family shelter in our southern Berkshire area and only culturally specific shelter in our region. Already we have a waiting list, and we need more resources to stabilize our families for longer periods of time. This is our future. This along with our Solidarity Kitchen and Farm where families farm for themselves, their communities, BRIDGE mutual aid or to sell on their own. BRIDGE is working hard to develop land access for our communities of color including survivors of violence with race-informed land use agreements. BRIDGE also has opened a meeting house where community education and wellness programs will be happening weekly for CoC and victims of violence while also hosting Happiness Toolbox and Women to Women. Inside you will find a Solidarity Library infused with over 500 donated books from the DuBois center library of Black History in a time when our country is banning these types of books. we also have a budding LGBTQIIA+ library donated by Yellow House Books. Watching our youth leaders catalog these books in our new space this summer was priceless. The curiosity and interest were profound. We have been designated since Gov. Patrick's time in office as "Minority and Women Run" since 2010 and now we are designated as a culturally specific program by the government meaning run by and serving communities of color. What BRIDGE has done is not only pave a path for more equitable services for our CoC incl. survivors but was invited to speak in Chicago this past summer just after our first year of funding directly to our organization. Instead of being secondary and tertiary on a grant--making it impossible to stabilize and sustain our programs and staff--we were poised to access funding directly and to advocate for the policy changes for victims of violence ranging from gender-based violence to race discrimination. We were able to influence policy and application through our own advocacy for our constituents with the Victims of Crime Act Culturally specific funding. We spoke to grant administrators and their federal funders across the country about our BRIDGE model. Policies had been changed on the State level which takes a lot of work alongside our State administrators. Our task was to share with the entire federal network the how, the why and the barriers and opportunities. One example of a policy with unintentional barriers was if a victim is experiencing violence, we could not give emergency assistance for car repair. We all know transportation is an issue in our region and having a vehicle as a way out of a dangerous situation is imperative. After a few rounds, they listened. As Dr. Brickler, a professor in Florida and descendant of Harriet Tubman when asked to speak about that legacy, as he shared, we are extending the work of people like Dr. Du Bois and Harriet Tubman because we know they had to have held a vision for a liberated future as do all of us at BRIDGE. Our hope is like the Nina Simone song shared by Gina Coleman in her testimony, this is what it looks like to be free. It is not without struggle, but we are unabashedly centering the needs and leadership of our communities of color and those directly impacted by multiple oppressions. And with that we are impacting in small and large ways communities across the country we haven't met yet. BRIDGE is well-poised to model alongside our dedicated partners what justice and equity looks like and how reparations can take place in big and small ways. I am so proud of our clients and the positive social impact they have been able to activate, especially for an example a financial institution reversing their historical hand in redlining in our historical Black neighborhoods in Pittsfield. Our ILC (“inclusive leadership cohort for social change”) and the outcomes of their collective work, especially the pay equity initiative which received national attention in the philanthropy and arts fields. It takes courage and it is not without struggle, tension and loss but the gain is so much more. And as we partner and train institutions and still advocate for our communities, BRIDGE and our entire team will also uphold what healthy, thriving communities of color can look like on their culturally specific terms rejecting the terms of white supremacy culture. Discomfort and unease with disrupting the status quo is not wrong or avoidable, it is necessary and will be uncomfortable and painful at times. We, as communities of color, will need to continue to work on our own internalized oppressions and again champion the wisdom and grace and humanity in our communities. And non -CoC will learn to expunge extractive behaviors that reinforce the disparities we are trying to disrupt. Our partnership with the arts persists. We are grateful for the performances today. Hartman’s “Litany for Grieving Sisters” evokes an array of emotions and just this last week these words resonated with me over and over again…. “For grieving sisters, what other choice is there? For them, love is not yet exhausted... It is a story that blossoms in the black morning,” writes Dr. Hartman in “Litany for Grieving Sisters.” I highly recommend reading this riveting piece in its entirety that inspired the performances today on stage. The wisdom and brilliance of Dr. Saidiya Hartman. We have exciting news that we have been planning in partnership with a family foundation to continue our support of the cultural arts institutions with their justice and equity commitments through contextualizing the past, engaging the present and preparing for the future through our Inclusive leadership cohort, equity conversations, etc. Another remarkable story is that by invitation of one of our ILC “inclusive leadership cohort” members, I was asked to speak on a panel where she had a seat at the table of the Foundation. When they had an opportunity to hear me directly, they said they wanted to talk. A year later, they called to visit, having diversified their team to a trio that added on a Latino gay male and African American women to the white woman lead. She attributed those pivots to the impact of my panel presentation. So instead of my trying to get to their table and get that one shot to make the elevator speech shiny enough to spark interest, they came to our office, met our team, asked meaningful questions about our work and what our barriers and needs were and offered us a funded partnership where BRIDGE would provide support while they provide capacity-building to continue our ILC work & more. Music and dance are and always has been a part of our collective healing. I hope you enjoyed that this evening and felt the profound inspiration I experienced with these two artists in Loophole Retreat in Venice last October. Thank you to Imani and Okwui for joining our BRIDGE community, and Saidiya for your ever-present sisterhood, advice, squad care and support on my journey as the non-profit leader of this organization. Having these women here is my greatest expression of love that I have for my home community here. What I experienced was healing and transformative in Venice exactly one year ago and it is exactly what I wanted to share with my community. We have one more special performance with our community partners, Operation Unite NY, as we end our program. Please plan to stay an enjoy coffee, libations and dessert. So take your time leaving, move your body to the rhythms, sing and enjoy these sacred grounds. Our new pathway is a collective one. I still hold that our currency cannot just be dollars, but it has to be a currency of humanity. Money is a tool but it is not the measure of happiness or success. It can be leveraged with care for healing and transformation. Capitalism will teach us work, work, work, more money, more status, more possessions, more more more and repeat. Again let's shift the narrative to love, listen, learn, more rest, more reflection, more discernment, then work, work alongside and repeat. The money will come and will serve a greater, sustainable good. When you look at the papers we prepared for you in the bag, imagine a teenager with a gift at Christmas time, imagine a family being greeted with a home with familiar spices, baskets, blankets, books,..... Imagine the warm embrace we have imbued in our Hamsa Home. Imagine some of the delicious food you ate today offered through our Solidarity Kitchen. In our Solidarity Community Gardens & Farms, imagine lush acres of tomatillos, okra, epazote and collards….feeding our families, reversing race-based health disparities that saves lives. Imagine Black rest, imagine every child and parent knowing where they will sleep tonight and eat tomorrow. Imagine doctors reflecting our communities of color giving culturally specific medical support in our wellness rooms repairing the history of medical violence. Imagine knowing if you are sick, you can get care. Imagine knowing if you have experienced violence or harm, you can have someone to provide support and counsel. Imagine scholars and activists reflecting our communities of color teaching and mentoring in our Solidarity Meeting House. Imagine BRIDGE at the White House. I paused on this one but why not? Since laws govern our lives, we need to demand a better way for our communities. BRIDGE is building this future. Please join us on our journey! Thank you for celebrating with us this afternoon--honoring our culturally specific gala, our origin story, our collective story and creating our story of the future! Celebrating our 15 years of collective trust and hope. Let's keep on building together. “Justice is what love looks like in public.” says Cornel West. Thank you, Shela for an awesome afternoon as my co-MC! My birthday buddy! Thank you gala committee–we did it! Now for our final performance as we travel out! Thank you to our BRIDGE team and to everyone who helped this evening be a success! Thank you Oskar of Only In My Dreams! Thank you to Jacobs Pillow for the afternoon and thank you all for being here for this joyous celebration!  My husband Tim and I first moved to the Berkshires in the summer of 2016, and were so fortunate to get connected with BRIDGE through the Towards Racial Justice community meetings and Real Talk on Race classes. We remain supporters because BRIDGE’s impact on our lives—and the lives of so many people we know and who live in our community—is truly immeasurable.
This Giving Tuesday, we are putting up a $5000 match to support BRIDGE’s mutual aid network, which provides food, resources, connection and care to hundreds of people throughout the county. We hope you’ll donate today! BRIDGE has always been a trusted resource and partner to people in our community who often go unheard, undervalued and ignored. As volunteers and activists in many BRIDGE spaces, the last few years have made this even clearer to me and Tim. When COVID hit, BRIDGE developed a new program in response to its community voices, and got it up and running in just days—providing groceries, hot meals, fresh farm meat, veggies, seedlings, masks, cleaning and hygiene related supplies, gas, pharmacy items, gift cards and more to vulnerable families throughout the Berkshires. Supplies are sourced from local farms and farm stores that are owned and run by people of color, queer folks and women. This program is still running uninterrupted in our third year of the pandemic. And this summer, BRIDGE also launched the Solidarity Garden and Farm with donated land access to provide farming space for historically marginalized or vulnerable groups with limited or no access to land, with TA and guaranteed buyers for building community and starting a business to sell crops, locally grown and sourced natural products, and/or feed their communities. Today, BRIDGE is reaching 120-130 BIPOC families twice a month through the winter with fresh groceries, minimally Universal Basic Income of $25 a month, and weekly prepared meals for those families intersecting with elders and families with disabilities. Tim and I have come to learn and respect that BRIDGE centers the voices, wisdom and experiences of those underrepresented and meets them in culturally appropriate ways. As community members and volunteers, we aim to support and amplify this holistic approach with our time, professional expertise and financial resources. BRIDGE is supporting people in our community in direct, common-sense, culturally relevant ways—meeting basic needs to build a vibrant future for everyone, rooted in dignity, care, trust and mutuality. Please join our family in supporting BRIDGE’s vital, revolutionary, and life-changing work with a donation today! -Lily Swartz Ellis Volunteer BRIDGE Development Co-Coordinator Some folks have decided to donate their Stimulus Checks to BRIDGE, which is greatly appreciated. Read their testimonies below and if you are able to, make a donation here.  Jeff Lowenstein: When I got my first stimulus check, I decided to donate most of it to local nonprofits, including BRIDGE. As an anti-poverty worker, I've seen firsthand how badly many folks in our community are struggling and how much help is needed, and I wanted to use that money to give some extra help to someone who needed it more than I did. COVID has highlighted how deeply interwoven we are with everyone else in our communities - if we want to succeed we have to look out for one another, not just ourselves. That goes for how we use our resources just as much as how well we follow precautions to prevent the virus. COVID has also highlighted the systemic racism in our society, and who gets left behind and suffers the most when times get tough. BRIDGE is deeply connected with the communities of color and immigrants who are among our most vulnerable folks, and I was happy to support BRIDGE's efforts to reach, engage, and support these communities. BRIDGE's work has made an enormous difference in helping keep these families safe and stable through the pandemic. When I receive my next stimulus check, I plan to donate again to support this critical work, and I hope you will as well! If we can stand together as a county and those of us who have a little to spare can help those who need it the most, we'll come out of COVID as a stronger, more connected, and more just community!  Lily (& Tim) Ellis:
My family decided to donate our stimulus check because there's no better way for us to 'spend' that money and support our community. COVID is stretching an already fractured social service network even thinner. Plus, not everyone is eligible to receive a stimulus check due to immigration status or other factors--and often the people who are left out are the same folks who are excluded from other social services, and are at greater risk. But BRIDGE remains true to its mission, no matter what--during the pandemic, BRIDGE pivoted to providing food, resources and care for hundreds of people throughout the county. As someone who works in public health, I'm confident that by listening and responding to the needs of vulnerable families with care and humility, BRIDGE has helped to keep people healthier--keep our entire Berkshire community healthier--and save lives.  Lara Setti (left) with Jen Salinetti Dear friends,
Looking back over the past few years, I, Dr. Lara Setti, have been honored to serve as the chair of the BRIDGE board, working alongside our visionary CEO and Founder, Gwendolyn VanSant, and other dedicated board members to help cultivate a governing body with a clear sense of purpose, mission alignment, and steadfast commitment to the organization. One glorious summer evening in 2018, we celebrated the 10th Anniversary of BRIDGE at our “Resilient Connections” Gala surrounded by our community of new and long-time supporters, friends, clients, educators, and activists. We continue to be supported by an incredible array of new, ongoing, and reinvigorated donors who have enabled us at BRIDGE to expand our work across professional domains throughout Berkshire County and beyond. As a board, we had the great fortune in 2017 of working with Janet Block to develop a strategy for the next 3 years aimed to ensure adequate resources to allow Gwendolyn and her team to lead BRIDGE to the next level of expansion and growth while continuing to do BRIDGE’s justice-oriented work of collaboration, training, and activism. As a result of this effort, we were proud to introduce a new BRIDGE membership model to sustain and bolster BRIDGE’s mission and increase cross-sector connections, working with corporations, small business, and community leaders to make justice and safety for all a reality. This has created ways for businesses, organizations, groups, and individuals to support BRIDGE annually, through different circles of impact and receive a suite of services tailored for their needs (i.e. training, consultation, workshops, lunch n’ learns, cross-promotions, and discounts) to create and strengthen thriving, equitable workplaces and communities. Earlier this year, the board also spent a day with Ruby Maddox of Direct Your Purpose whose insightful facilitation helped us clarify BRIDGE’s organizational capacity needs, individual and collective board accountability needs, and mission as we move forward. Through all of these efforts, our goal has continually been to strengthen the board's foundation and in so doing, take BRIDGE's work to the next level while maintaining the integrity of its mission. As BRIDGE’s outgoing board chair, I look back at the past few years of BRIDGE’s work with awe and inspiration. Gwendolyn has led BRIDGE’s team with tireless dedication--educating and inspiring so many and bringing individuals, communities, and institutions together to work toward a shared vision of a community based on justice, equity, and active participation. As a physician and community member of Berkshire County, I have personally found the work of BRIDGE to be critical, informing my everyday actions and weaving its way into the fabric of my life. I have learned to examine my own privilege, opportunities to create change, and obligation to take action. In January, as I step down and pass the baton to A. J. and Ari, I have absolute confidence in the resources of this board and its new leadership to carry out their work in support of BRIDGE as it continues to grow and deepen this work. It has been an honor to serve in this role and my plan is to work with BRIDGE in other capacities in the future. Sincerely, Dr. Lara Setti #GivingTuesday Interview with Vanessa Le Grande, Administrator and Assistant to CEO VanSant12/3/2019
 Vanessa Le Grande and Gwendolyn. Emily: Vanessa, I know that you have been working with BRIDGE for the last few months of 2019. In what capacity did your relationship and work with BRIDGE begin (e.g., as a volunteer, staff member, etc.) Vanessa: My relationship with BRIDGE started through a friendship with the CEO of BRIDGE, Gwendolyn VanSant. I was curious about the work that she was doing through BRIDGE and the way that she carried herself while doing this work in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Emily: So, Vanessa, that is really compelling…When did you ultimately decide to begin your more formal working /relationship with BRIDGE? Vanessa: Once I came to understand more of the reason that Gwendolyn’s passion was so strong about something that I felt was a hopeless case - that is teaching people to respect, if not love one another - I was led in my heart to also try to help make a difference in this world, if possible. The thought of doing this with another Woman of Color made it seem so much more reasonable to attempt. I also very quickly came to realize that this wasn’t just business for Gwendolyn. Working to lift other people and helping them work through biases were huge parts of her passion, and I wanted to at the very least learn more about this work. Emily: I can hear your passion for the work through your relationship with BRIDGE! Would you please give me one example of work that BRIDGE is doing and that keeps you involved with the organization? Vanessa: Indeed, and it involves some of our very young people in the Berkshires…This past summer, there was a little white boy in a North County elementary that called another young child the “N” word. BRIDGE was contacted to ask Gwendolyn if she would come in to help minimize the chances of this occurring again by way of a Cultural Education session. Gwendolyn went to the school with an area author of children's books, who is a partner of BRIDGE. The way the little white boy’s eyes lit up when he saw this author – a man of color, who writes children's books – was amazing! The little boy seemingly knew the author and was elated to see him. This reaction by the little boy made me think that all too often our children are led astray by ignorance and a lack of education on appreciating and respecting differences. Communication is the key! I have several grandchildren, and if I truly want them to get the fullness of knowledge and education in cultural competence, for themselves and to help others live in this ever growing diverse world, then I must at least try to continue to learn as I help others to learn the Platinum Rule. “Treat others as they want to be treated, not how you think they want to be treated” as CEO Gwendolyn VanSant constantly reminds us. Emily: Vanessa, thanks so much for sharing your work with BRIDGE!  |
ImpactMulticultural BRIDGE helps to improve the lives of community members throughout the Berkshires, and provides consultation and training to groups and businesses across the state and throughout the country.
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February 2025
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