Below is updated information regarding resources available for children, families, and community. Please share as appropriate! Be in touch if I can be of any support as we find our way through these next weeks. 
Stacy & Gwendolyn

Community Based Resources: 
The Northern Berkshire Community Coalition is open by appointment. Please call (413) 663-7588 to set up an appointment. For a listing of services please visitwww.nbccoaltion.org.  

18 Degrees is also open at this time. They can be reached at (413) 448-8281 or 18degreesma.org.  There offices are located at 350 West Street, Pittsfield. 

Multicultural BRIDGE, Main Street in Lee, is reaching out to connect people with resources. If you need support with food for your family or other essential supplies incl. folks to pickup and deliver school lunches , please contact us by email [email protected]. We are compiling a list of access points and will post them on our page and we also have private donors & volunteers willing to help. 

The North Adams Public Library posted information on how residents can access library services while the library is closed to the public: http://www.naplibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/03/NAPL-closing-services.pdf

BCAC: We will continue to serve clients via phone interviews and through a drop-off box located in our lobby. We are anticipating that LIHEAP services will continue uninterrupted as long as no “shelter in place” order is issued. We are postponing all in-home services such as Quality Control Inspections and Energy Efficiency measures. Contractors may continue to provide services at their discretion. We will continue serving VITA clients but without face to face interviews. Clients will be instructed to drop off paperwork in our dropbox and will be notified when they can come in to sign their returns. Our lending programs for CARS and Grow will be suspended, but we have extended the terms on our Emergency Loans. Clients will be able to borrow $500 with the extended repayment term of one year. Repayment will be deferred and no payments will be required for the first six months.

​Food/Meal pick up sites for students:
Berkshire Hills Regional Hills: 
BHRSD will be preparing and sharing to-go meals (lunches and next day breakfasts) starting Tuesday March 17 from 11:30-12:30. Meals will be pick up/drive thru. Stay in you cars.Meals will be available at the following sites:

• ​Monument Valley Regional Middle School (in main loop)
• GB Fire Station (in back parking area)
• Housie Dome (front entrance)
• Stockbridge Town Hall (back entrance)
• West Stockbridge Town Hall (front entrance)

Please email [email protected] to let us know how many meals you want.

Adams: 
Meals will be available at the Hoosac Valley Elementary School site. All children 18 and under can pick up a grab and go breakfast and lunch package for free between the hours of 9:00-11:00 am, Monday through Friday, in the Hoosac Valley Elementary School cafeteria. Please go to the back door of the cafeteria near the playground to pick it up.

Lee: 
*Lee Middle & High School: During the 2 weeks of no school, Lee Public Schools students can pick up a free grab-and-go breakfast/lunch on Mondays through Fridays. So we can plan ahead, we ask that you call or email the food service department at 413-243-0336 x3333 or [email protected] and leave a message with the student(s) name(s) the day before you plan on picking up meals. The grab-and-go meals can be picked up between 9:30 and 10:30 at the LES Cafeteria entrance (on the right side of the building).
* From 51 Park Restaurant: Due to recent Berkshire County school closures and lack of access to school lunches, we will be offering free cheese pizza to children 14 and under next week from Monday through Friday between 11 - 2 PM. This will be offered for those dining in house with no additional purchase required. (*one per child, per day).

Lenox Public Schools -  See announcement

Mount Greylock Regional School District
Mount Greylock Regional School District will be offering access to grab-and-go lunches Monday through Friday for the next three weeks. Meals will be available for pick-up at the Lanesborough Elementary School and Williamstown Elementary School main entrances between 9:30 and 10:30 each day.  In an attempt to assist the district in planning, you are asked to:
Call or email the food service department the day before using the following:

• Phone: (413) 458-9582 x1195
• Email: [email protected]
• Leave a message that includes the number of lunches you need and which school will be your pick-up location: Lanesborough Elementary School or Williamstown Elementary School
• Please identify the student name(s) for whom you are picking up meals.
• In order to assist us in advance planning, please indicate whether you will be accessing this meal service over the remaining days.

North Adams
North Adams Public Schools is participating in Grab and Go style meals will be provided to all children without charge. Meals will be provided, at a first come, first serve basis, at the sites and times as follows. Children must be present to receive one breakfast and one lunch per day:

• Brayton Elementary School  3/16/20-4/3/20 Breakfast and Lunch  11-12
• Colegrove Park Elementary School   3/16/20-4/3/20 Breakfast and Lunch 11-12
• Mohawk Forest Apartments  3/17/20-4/3/20 Breakfast and Lunch  11- 12  
• Greylock Valley Apartments  3/17/20-4/3/20 Breakfast and Lunch 11-12 

 
Pittsfield
Pittsfield Public Schools will be providing once-a-day grab-and-go breakfast and lunch packages to Pittsfield children. These nutritious grab-and-go food packages will be available between 11:30 am and 12:30 pm at the following sites in the City of Pittsfield:

• Morningside Community School (100 Burbank Street, Pittsfield)
• Conte Community School (200 West Union Street, Pittsfield)
• Dower Square Housing Village (253 Wahconah Street, Pittsfield) 
• The Berkshire Family YMCA (292 North Street, Pittsfield)
• Gladys Brigham Center (165 East Street, Pittsfield, MA)
• Boys & Girls Club of the Berkshires (16 Melville Street)
• The Brattlebrook Apartments (April Lane, Pittsfield) 
• Christian Center: We are open 12 noon to 1 pm every day, Monday through Friday, to hand out bag lunches and food pantry bags

 
Community Food Pantry/Meal Sites
The Berkshire Food Project will be open on Monday, Wednesday and Friday this week (3/16-3/20) for meal pick up only. Meals can be picked up at the breezeway doors between 11:30 AM and 1 PM. Two meals will be provided each day, to cover the days we are closed. All volunteer shifts are cancelled this week.

Friendship Food Pantry will be open on 3/18 from 10-2 & 3:30-5:30. (1) Pre-packaged box of food per household can be picked up at the front door, 45 Eagle Street. Watch for updates at www.friendshipfoodpantry.org  

Community Bible Church of Williamstown-Open this Wednesday, March 18th, 12:00-2:00. If there are emergency food needs call the church office at 458-5556 or Phyllis Babcock at 413-663-6094.

This is a great time to support Feed It Forward at A-Ok and the Free Taco Board at Tres Ninos!

The FoodBank of Western MA Mobile Food Pantries are STILL RUNNING. Same days, time and locations in North Berkshire at this point: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gZbAq2mpteAO_RDK8kYPE0BFK5-pwgpO/view?usp=sharing

Free Saturday Lunches at First Baptist Church, North Adams will resume as take out only on Saturday, March 28th, 11:00am-12:30pm.

Meals on Wheels is still running.

Salvation Army Food Pantry, Tuesdays, 12:30-3pm. Please meet at front door to receive food.
​
Harper Center will continue to provide life support transportation options with the van-medical trips and food shopping fall into this category.

New! See more ideas from JV here.

Note from Gwendolyn @BRIDGE: 
Positive ways to connect with children: 

1. Practice Bucket Filling activities at home! It works for all ages! https://bucketfillers101.com/free-resources/
2. Make up fun 20 seconds poems and songs or practice your favorite ones together for handwashing 
3. Keep some structure to the day. Scheduled reading, movie, games, hikes/walks, exercise, craft projects throughout week & day as a family
4. Pick a house project. Yard or in house. Do 1 hr at a time. 
5. Take breaks. Ask your children about the cocoons or hook-ups with meditation.
6. Take naps.
7. Bake!
8. Practice playing with Curiosity-- everyone (adults included) learn something new (not about the Coronavirus) to share each day at a mealtime
9. Keep conversations realistic & short about COVID-19.
10. Remember to pause, have fun, and be present
11. What to look forward to: BRIDGE will have some Happiness Toolbox activities available on and offline in the upcoming weeks. Keep an eye out. Stay tuned for JV’s One Tail at a Time Series online in next couple of weeks!
12. Look at BRIDGE Youth Corps facebook page for important notices and good reading lists. Scroll down!
13. Write letters to elderly in local nursing homes. We will pick them up.
14. Write letters to family members
15. Facetime with distant relatives

Fun Things for Families To Do at Home:
Pretzel Activity
Listening Activity
Materials
Pretzel sticks (skinny, small ones)
Paper towels

2 people sit back to back/Each person take 15 to 20 pretzels
Place a paper towel flat in front of you

One person is the communicator and one person is the receiver
The communicator starts first and tells the receiver how to lay down their pretzels.

Example:  “I placed my first pretzel stick vertical in the middle of my paper towel.” 
The receiver can not ask clarifying questions.

Once the communicator is completed, look and see how well they match.

Now switch roles
This time the receiver can ask questions?

Questions:
What was it like to follow directions and not be able to ask questions?
Did you find yourself getting frustrated?
Was it easier to ask clarifying questions?
Why was it easier?
Which is better one-way, or two-way communications?  Why?

What am I thinking?
Pay attention activity

Have  one person thinking of something they have in mind in the room.  Can be color or object. The first person takes a guess of what the person is thinking of in the room.  The person says whether they are hot or cold. The second person tries to guess and again hot or cold. This keeps going around and around until one person guesses the object in the room correctly.  This is a lot of fun and can last for a few minutes. Everyone has to pay attention. 

Red Light/Green Light
Outdoors game
One person is selected to be the caller of Green Light/Red Light
This person turns their back to the other players
This person calls green light and when they turn around after saying red light
Anyone caught moving when the caller says Red Light-That person has to go back to the beginning.  This keeps going until one of the players touches the caller. They now exchange places. The winner is now the caller of Red Light/Green Light.

Musical Chairs
Listening Activity
Place chairs in the middle of the room-1 less than the players playing
Start the music and keep it playing for awhile-Once the music stops players try to grab a seat.  The one left standing takes a seat away and they also are out of the game. It starts all over again, play the music for a while, the music stops and everyone should try to grab a seat.  This keeps going until the last person is able to grab a seat. This is the winner!

Make Playdough
Salt Play Dough:

• 1-cup salt
• 4 cups flour
• 1 ½ cups water
• 4tbs. oil

Mix flour and salt. Add water and oil slowly to the dry ingredients, stirring with a spoon until well blended. Knead dough until soft and pliable. *Use food coloring if you want different colors

Visual Diary Project; Spring 2020
Throughout human history, people have used journaling and sketching to document their lives. Scientists keep “field journals” to document their observations and findings in a specific location, over a period of time. Artists keep sketchbooks to develop their ideas and practice drawing what they see. Writers keep journals to contain their thoughts and write down ideas for stories, poems, or movies. Throughout history, sometimes the most accurate way to get a picture of what living in a certain time was like is to read someone’s journal or letters.

We are living through a very unique time in our history. It might feel scary, frustrating, boring, fun, sad, weird-- all at once. Time might feel like it is moving differently now. Many people are being required to slow down, rest, and work together to make sure everyone stays safe and has what they need. Some people are working harder and longer to make sure that people have what they need. We can extend lots of gratitude to people who work in grocery stores, pharmacies, community organizations, and hospitals. We can feel grateful to live in community and to be able to ask for what support we need. This is an important time to document and use journaling as a way to capture our feelings and experiences.
~
TO BEGIN: Create your journal!  Gather printer paper, lined paper, or any blank paper you can get your hands on. If you have thicker paper like cardstock, or construction paper, that can be used as the cover. You can make your journal with a stapler or hole punch.
This is your journal! You can do it however you want. I like to have a couple things I do the same every day as well as adding in a new prompt. You can skip a prompt, repeat a prompt, or write or draw anything you want. The prompts are meant to inspire/give you ideas, there is no wrong way to do them. This is for you! The point is to try to add something every day. Here is what I like to record every day:
    Time/Date:
    Weather:
    How I’m Feeling:
A Drawing of One Object I See: 

~

A NOTE ON MATERIALS:  This project can be done with as little as a No. 2 pencil and a small stack of computer paper, or all the art supplies in your house. If you have post-its, colorful paper, graph paper, or 11” x 17” you can create fold-outs, staple together many different papers, or glue anything into your journal. Don’t worry about making it look perfect, the idea is practicing drawing, documenting, and recording. If you don’t like something, instead of scribbling over it, try adding a flap or gluing a page on top of it. All these prompts can be done with just a pencil or pen, or paint, collage, crayon, marker, whatever materials you have nearby. 

30 Daily Visual Diary Prompts: 

• DAY 1: Tell us who you are! Write your name, age, where you live, maybe some of your favorite things. Create a shape of the page, like a square, circle, or triangle. Draw a picture of yourself inside the shape. See if you can fill the entire shape and portrait of you with color so there is no paper showing through. 
• DAY 2: Who is your home world? Just like you illustrated a portrait of yourself, now add portraits of the people who are at home with you. Include any information about them that you want, show us the cast of characters. Feel free to include pets and imaginary friends. 
• DAY 3: Three frame comic of your day. Draw three squares on the page and illustrate a part of your day today in each of them. You can include speech bubbles or narration or just have the pictures tell the story.
• DAY 4: Talking Trees. Find three different plants, trees, or leaves outside and illustrate them, including what they would say if they could talk. 
• DAY 5: Build a fort. Build a fort using cushions, blankets, chairs, and other things you find around the house. Then draw a picture of your fort from the inside and the outside. 
• DAY 6: Draw what you see from a window in your bedroom. If you are having trouble figuring out how to begin, you can start by drawing the window frame. Don’t focus too hard on getting it right, just try to draw the lines that you see. Then look outside the window. Squint your eyes to try to see the shapes and colors-- not as houses or trees-- but broken down into smaller shapes like rectangles with squares and triangles.
• DAY 7: Draw yourself as a baby and as an old person. 
• DAY 8: Your favorite things. Divide the page in half. On one side, make a list of your favorite things. Think about toys, foods, clothes, activities, people. On the other side, draw small pictures of each thing, in a circle, row, or cloud. 
• DAY 9:  Draw what the inside of your brain looks like. What’s in there?
• DAY 10: Oral history illustration. Ask a grown-up at your house or call up a grandparent, relative, or family friend and ask: what was your favorite thing to do as a child? What was your favorite thing to eat? Write the answers down in your journal and create a drawing inspired by what you learn. 
• DAY 11: Invent an Object. Create a machine or object that doesn’t already exist. What does your invention do? Draw a diagram and label the parts. It doesn’t have to make sense!
• DAY 12: Draw how you feel today. There is no wrong way to do this. You can try doing it once or doing it multiple times throughout the day to see how/if your mood changes.
• DAY 13: Draw a drawer. Find a random drawer in your house and draw everything inside. You can empty the drawer and arrange the objects to draw (if you put everything back!) or just draw the drawer with all the objects inside it. 
• DAY 14: Pet portrait. Find a photograph of a pet, a real live pet, or imagine a pet. Try to draw lots of the details on your pet-- show us what the fur/scales, face, and surroundings. 
• DAY 14: Pick an object in your house and draw it five times, each time, in a different way. If you have different drawing materials (colored pencils, pens, markers) you can use those to make each of your five drawings different. Or you can change the size, angle, or practice using only lines or shading to create the object.
• DAY 15: Draw a dream. If you can remember a dream you had last night, try to draw what happened. Or you can draw a dream that you remember having at another point. If you never remember your dreams, close your eyes and try to think of the silliest story you can and then draw that. 
• DAY 16: Make a list of things that make you feel better when you are feeling down. Illustrate the list!
• DAY 17: Draw your house or apartment building. You can try drawing it from both inside and outside, or bring a chair and hard surface outside and just focus on drawing it from the outside. Make sure to get the details on the door, windows, and roof. 
• DAY 18: I wish. Make a list of things you wish. You can just repeat “I wish…” with a different ending as many times as you want. Be specific with your wishes! Pick one to make a drawing of. 
• DAY 19: Time pie. Make a pie chart of how you spent your day/week, showing the percentages of time that you spent doing certain things. You may need to do some math before making this drawing, or you can just take a guess. 
• DAY 20: Signs of Spring. Go outside and hunt for signs of Spring. This could be the birds, grass starting to grow, or buds starting to form. Make a small drawing for each sign that you find.
• DAY 21: Comic Summary. Create a single or multi-page comic about your time at home so far. You can begin by deciding how many boxes you want and then drawing the outlines for each box or “panel.” You can think of the comic as a series of snap-shots in time, like if someone took a picture while a scene was unfolding.
• DAY 22: Billboard. If you could make a billboard for your town or county that everyone would see, what would it say? Draw the billboard and include a word or written message.
• DAY 23: Draw your favorite sound. Maybe your favorite is the ocean, which might sound like a bunch of dots close together and then spread out and then close together. Or maybe your favorite sound is an electric guitar and it sounds a series of purple zig-zags. 
• DAY 24: Make a recipe. Then create an illustrated picture of each of the ingredients. It could be a recipe for anything. For example, I might make a recipe for non-boredom. I would say add 1 cup of art supplies, 1 cup of naps, ½ cup of television, 3 tablespoons of calls with friends, ½ cup of reading. If you need inspiration for cooking words or proportions, you can look in a cookbook or at a recipe online.
• DAY 25: Lies. Create a poem or list of lies. They can be anything. “I am a dragon, I can breathe fire, I never sleep, my teeth are made of candy corn, I see through the night.” Then create an illustration that shows one or several of your lies in action. 
• DAY 26: Neighbor’s House. Draw your neighbor’s house exactly as you see it from your house. If you don’t live near other people, pick a tree to draw (your neighbors the bugs and birds live there!).
• DAY 27: People as Food. If one of the people in your house was a food, what would they be? Create a portrait of someone in your life as a food. Hybrids or invented foods welcome. 
• DAY 28: Design a futuristic city. If you could create the map of a magical city, what would your city have inside of it? How would people get around? 
• DAY 29: Draw your favorite song. Put your favorite song on repeat or sing it to yourself and make an abstract drawing of the sounds you hear. Abstract means that your marks, lines, shapes, and dots don’t have to look like anything “real,” you can focus on using and color and texture to try to make sound drawings.
• DAY 30: Jokes. Call a friend and ask them to tell you a joke. Write their joke down and create a drawing that shows an element of the joke. ​