Shaw Israel Izikson | Berkshire Edge

Great Barrington -- Multicultural BRIDGE (Berkshire Resources for Integration of Diverse Groups and Education) celebrated its recent move to new headquarters on Thursday, May 22, with a ribbon-cutting event.

For much of its 18 years of operation, the organization, founded by Gwendolyn VanSant, operated from offices in Lee. For the past two years, the organization rented out a building at 965 Main Street.

In February, BRIDGE announced that it would move its programs to the building it calls the Solidarity House.

According to the organization’s website, Multicultural BRIDGE “connects vulnerable community members with key resources and networks, while also providing education to local institutions and the community at large.” The nonprofit organization offers multiple programs and community services.
​
“I’m very excited that we have this building, and it feels like this event is important for BRIDGE,” organization founder and CEO VanSant told The Berkshire Edge. “I’m happy for people seeing how the project has developed. We’ve had about three and a half months to be in this space and build out the different programs. For Multicultural BRIDGE, this building gives us a sense of stability and sustainability. It helps us provide services for our community and fulfill our mission.”

Heather Bellow | The Berkshire Eagle

GREAT BARRINGTON — A sanctuary and support headquarters for people of color and the vulnerable has taken root here off South Main Street.
​
Multicultural BRIDGE, a nonprofit whose first office was an attic, now has a 10,000-square-foot permanent home, called Solidarity Meeting House. It's outfitted with a commercial kitchen, a retreat and residence space, meeting areas and more office space.

At a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, 75 attendees celebrated not just the new two-story space, but also lauded BRIDGE co-founder and CEO Gwendolyn VanSant. She was praised for her vision and ability to grow a nonprofit that works to heal the impact of racial inequities, trauma and poverty in the community and beyond.

With a stable place to call home at the edge of farm fields and a view of East Mountain, BRIDGE’s intention is that a healthy and strong community will be forged here.

“May this place be filled with peace, productivity, creativity and compassion,” said the Rev. Mattie Conway, pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church, in prayer.  “Let it stand as a beacon of hope.”

Originally published in the Berkshire Eagle | By Matt Martinez, The Berkshire Eagle Jan 10, 2025

BECKET — Pamela Tatge, creative and executive director of Jacob’s Pillow, has received a national award for making the arts more accessible to Berkshire County residents.
Tatge was awarded the 2025 Fan Taylor Distinguished Service Award by the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, recognizing her contributions to equity and accessibility at the famed dance center and her achievements in curation and programming throughout her career. That includes her time at Wesleyan University prior to joining Jacob's Pillow in 2016.

Originally published on the Berkshire EDGE | Written by Shaw Israel Izikson February 3, 2025

Great Barrington -- After nearly 18 years of operation, local organization Multicultural BRIDGE (Berkshire Resources for Integration of Diverse Groups and Education) has purchased a building for its programs at 965 Main Street.
According to the organization’s website, Multicultural BRIDGE “connects vulnerable community members with key resources and networks, while also providing education to local institutions and the community at large.” The nonprofit organization offers multiple programs and community services.
Organization founder and CEO Gwendolyn VanSant told The Berkshire Edge that the organization has operated from its administrative offices in Lee for many years. It has also rented the 965 Main Street location for its programs for the past two years. “For a long time, we did not ever have a central spot for all of our programs,” said VanSant. “We traveled throughout Berkshire County with our programs for many years. It was fun because we developed relationships and partnerships with churches, arts institutions, and other nonprofits.” However, VanSant added the organization wanted a central location to operate its programs.

Originially posted on the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation

​Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation is proud to announce the launch of the Equity Fund grant program, focused directly on addressing systemic inequities and supporting underserved communities across Berkshire, Columbia, northeast Dutchess, and northwest Litchfield counties. The fund’s grant application is now open, and BTCF invites local organizations, individuals, and coalitions to apply for funding to advance projects that promote equity and inclusion.

The Equity Fund grant program is a significant step forward in deepening the Foundation’s commitment to fostering a more just and inclusive society, and is part of a three-tier Equity Initiative: The Equity Fund for Grantmaking, The Leadership Advisory Committee, comprised of local leaders of color that make grantmaking decisions in collaboration with community, and the Donor Learning and Giving Circle, comprised of donors committed to shared learning, deeper understanding and collective action to advance racial equity and inclusion through philanthropic practice.  
The Leadership Advisory Committee members are: Gwendolyn VanSant (Board Liaison), Elena Mosley (Columbia County), Monti Lawson (Northeast Dutchess), Florence Afanukoe (Berkshire County), Mia Shepard (Berkshire County), and Alÿcia Bacon (Community Engagement Officer for Equity and Inclusion, BTCF).  
The initiative’s journey began in 2019 under the leadership of Gwendolyn VanSant (BRIDGE CEO & Founder and BTCF board member) who conducted focus groups with the BIPOC community to assess current needs. Local leaders of color were also invited to collaboratively design the Equity Initiative with BTCF and serve on the Leadership Advisory Committee. The grant will provide critical financial support to nonprofits and community-based organizations working on innovative solutions to address racial justice, economic disparities, educational inequities, and healthcare access.

The grassroots organization has acquired a home base for continuing its legacy programs in the spirit of Elizabeth "Mumbett" Freeman, Frederick Douglass, and W.E. B. Du Bois.

Written by Robbi Hartt for the Berkshire Edge | July 8, 2024 | Original link

“Since 2007, our BRIDGE mission has been promoting mutual understanding and respect among diverse groups serving as a resource to both local institutions and the community at large. We serve as catalysts for change and integration through collaboration, education, training, dialogue, fellowship and advocacy.”
— Multicultural BRIDGE website
It’s hard to capture all that Multicultural BRIDGE (Berkshire Resources for Integration of Diverse Groups through Education) is and does. As the needs arise, the programs follow. This responsiveness is how founder and CEO Gwendolyn VanSant has operated since starting the nonprofit organization back in 2007, bringing her skills and passion as a community organizer and renowned thought leader on racial justice, reparations, gender equity, and anti-poverty work to the Berkshire community.
BRIDGE programs center around core values of empowerment, collaboration, learning, celebration, integration, safety, and justice. The most critical ingredients of all, however, are love and commitment—and you feel that the moment you walk through their doors. Known for her ability to integrate research-based positive psychology practices, VanSant brings moral courage and an affirming spirit to her work with diversity leadership, equity and inclusion, and strategic planning.
Just as Volunteers in Medicine (VIM Berkshires) takes a holistic approach to address clients’ health, BRIDGE is committed (per its website) to a “360-degree approach to community, civic participation, and public health.” Its stated mission is “to impact hearts, minds and behaviors that result in positive cultural shifts and systemic changes in policy, law and practice towards a more just, safe and equitable society.”

Kate Abbott | BTW Berkshires: Read the full article

In bright sun on a mountaintop, four dancers swirl bright skirts and open their arms to the open ridges and a blue fall sky. They are performing folkloric dances from Mexico, Costa Rica and Ecuador, they explain, dances from the countries where they have family and roots, though they live here.

Four young women from Latinos Unidas de los Berkshires perform on the outdoor Leir stage at Jacob’s Pillow — and after them women their mothers’ generation from Patricia Cambi Dance, all in celebration of the woman who has helped them to find home, friendship and affirmation, and helped their children to grow.
​
Today BRIDGE is celebrating 15 years in action. Founder and C.E.O. Gwendolyn Van Sant has grown a creative place and a center of community that has reshaped Great Barrington and the Berkshires, people around her will testify today, and has offered resources and strength and roots far beyond the county.

​​Silvia Soria, coordinator of BRIDGE’s Women to Women program, says to her, look around today — ‘This is the community you have made.’

On Sunday afternoon, many of the people Van Sant has touched across the years have gathered for BRIDGE’s gala, Catalyst. Love. Impact. The intent, listening crowd who have come together become a living embodiment of how far and wide BRIDGE’s reach has grown around the world.

Star Nii, an internationally acclaimed percussionist from Ghana, opens the day with the warm clap of his hands on his drum heads, and the wind stirs a high tone from his chimes.

Another drum sounds like a heartbeat, and Sunder Ashni, vision builder and steward at Mumbet Freedom Farm, sings a blessing, gathering in the crowd to call out the word for love in many languages.
​
Warmly and openly she invokes Mohican community and elders on their homelands, and she calls for a sense of connection, one heart, one mind, in the words of the Haudenosaunee, people of the long house, one of the oldest participatory democracies on earth.

​She invites her listeners to rest a hand on their heart and think of the people and places close to them … and then turn to someone near them and share what they’re thinking.

“Think about who you belong to, whose you are, who you are responsible to,” she says.
And then a traveler to Ghana picks up the mic. Jeffrey Allen Peck, the great grandson of W.E.B. DuBois, has performed as his great grandfather in the country where DuBois lived at the end of his life and is buried.

Peck is traveling the world right now, he says, performing as his great grandfather in the new play Justice on Trial by Dr. Chad Everette Lawson Cooper and actor Alicia Robinson Cooper, and he speaks warmly of a growing relationship with BRIDGE across more than eight years, and a continuing legacy of activism.

“It’s hard to talk about someone like my great grandfather and all he’s done,” Peck says, “and when I think of all the people he has brought together — I think of his work with Crisis Magazine.”

Crisis is the official publication of the NAACP, which DuBois co-founded. He created the magazine in 1910 and acted as editor through 1934. Peck sees his work as instrumental — DuBois created a forum where Black folk across the country could read about people in their community and become inspired.

“Gwendolyn is doing the same,” he said, “all over the country.”

 Read the full article.

Great Barrington -- The work of Multicultural BRIDGE Founding Director and CEO Gwendolyn VanSant, along with community leader Wray Gunn, was celebrated at an awards ceremony at the Mahaiwe Cemetery on Saturday, July 15 in front of the Du Bois family grave site. The ceremony, known as the Torch-Bearer Awards, was part of this year’s Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run.

The organization behind the event is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based out of New York City and has organized the peace torch relay event since 1987. According to its website, since its inception, the organization has had over seven million participants in 155 countries, with over 395,000 miles run with the torch.

David Fix | Berkshire Edge

BerkShares is well-known as a tool for elevating local businesses in the Berkshires and fostering a vibrant regional economy. Now, as an innovative partnership with Multicultural BRIDGE demonstrates, the local currency is also augmenting the impact of social and economic justice work in the region.

Multicultural BRIDGE was founded 15 years ago in Great Barrington by Gwendolyn VanSant, Marthe Bourdon, and Bob Norris. While working as a certified medical and mental health Spanish interpreter, Gwendolyn became deeply immersed in the Latinx community in the Berkshires and noticed a lot of needs that mirrored her own as a Black single mother. “I realized that some of the same barriers, although they were dressed up differently, existed for both me and the immigrant population that I was advocating for,” Gwendolyn shared. At the same time, she observed similar gaps surrounding people living in generational poverty in the Berkshires regardless of racial or ethnic background.