Multicultural BRIDGE Founder Recognized By Berkshire Professional Women’s Group

Josh Landes } WAMC

A Berkshire County professional women’s group is honoring a woman of color with an annual award for the first time in its 54-year history.

Claire Richards is the president of the Berkshire Business and Professional Women organization, founded in 1965.

“We’re a group of women that come together to help and support each other for networking, for career advancement,” she told WAMC.

This year, the woman being recognized as the group’s Woman of Achievement is Gwendolyn VanSant, co-founder and CEO of the cultural literacy and competence training group Multicultural BRIDGE. She’s also Vice Chair of the Town of Great Barrington W. E. B. Du Bois Legacy Committee, and a member of the board of the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts and UU Mass Action Network.

Andrea Hurley, chair of the BBPW’s communications committee, offered this selection from VanSant’s nomination letter:

“For over a decade, Gwendolyn has done critical work in our community serving some of the most vulnerable neighbors. She is a fierce advocate, whose compassion and commitment to justice and to honoring the humanity of every individual is inspiring.”

VanSant helped found the Lee-based Multicultural BRIDGE in 2007.

“We are a minority and women run organization, and we really have touched almost every corner of our community – corporate, schools, law enforcement, and we work with youth, we work with elders, and we really just work on promoting mutual respect and understanding and providing tools for our community to communicate better, and to get along better, create policies and practices that are more inclusive, and just to create a stronger sense of collective humanity,” she told WAMC.

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