Brief thoughts on some of the events making news around Franklin County and the North Quabbin area:
Greenfield Community College will receive $1,640,349 over the next five years through a federal grant designed to help students stay in school, especially those students who are first in their family to attend college and haven’t decided on a major.
The money will enhance GCC’s existing student support services, including orientation, career advising, peer tutoring, personal counseling, financial aid assistance and financial literacy.
The hope is, the tax money will provide the help needed by those taking their first tentative steps into high education to ensure they stay on the path to getting a degree — a degree that could make all the difference in their lives and that of their children.
It sounds like a lot of money, but if it works, the value added to the individual students will be real and worthwhile.
By now, the groundskeepers at the Franklin County fairgrounds in Greenfield are sweeping away the dross of the 168th Franklin County Fair.
The four-day fair is one of the single largest events in the county, where you are sure to meet scores of friends you haven’t seen often enough since last year’s fair and where young and old alike always seem to find some new or favorite entertainment.
We probably don’t appreciate enough the huge amount of behind-the-scenes work required year-round to pull off such a major attraction, which runs with nary a hitch year after year, if you discount uncooperative weather. We probably don’t thank those dozens of members of the Franklin County Agricultural Association enough.
Yet, the association was sure to thank Greenfield’s firefighters for their help ensuring local food vendors and charities returned to sell their wares this year, after concerns last year that new rigorous building codes would keep them away. The firefighters were honored as marshals as the fair’s opening parade.
Imagine a sunny, third-floor office space with bar seating and comfortable chairs and tables overlooking downtown Greenfield, where entrepreneurs, freelancers, lawyers and students can work side-by-side in a common area.
That’s what owners of The Arts Block, are in the process of developing in the four-story building on the corner of Main Street and Court Square. The “Greenspace CoLab” promises to be the town’s first co-working space, offering professionals from across the region a place to collaborate with others while fostering a creative economy.
Greenspace will provide basics like internet, utilities and coffee, as well as conference rooms, optional private offices and more.
The idea of flexible and affordable office arrangements in the heart of downtown has great merit and we hope will attract more entrepreneurs, students, legal professionals and start-up micro businesses to Greenfield. It seems a smart complement to the great music, theater and food the Arts Block owners have already brought to the building.
Shelburne’s Agricultural Commission will host a Harvest Dinner on Saturday with almost everything on the menu either grown in Shelburne or made locally.
It’s enough to make locavores hungry and proud.
Shinglebrook Farm will provide Berkshire pork, a heritage breed, for the dinner’s pork roast. The beef roast will be made from Wheel-View and Foxbard farms’ grass-fed cattle and the meat for lamb stew will come from Barberic and Dragon Brook farms. Apex Orchard, Kelley Farm, Springdelle Farm and Prudence Wholey will provide the vegetables. Dessert will include apple crisp a la mode and maple ice cream from Hager’s Farm. Shelburne Coffee Roasters will provide the coffee.
All the ingredients needed to perpetuate our agriculture heritage.
And if all that local West County food weren’t enough to pique our interest in the county’s roots, Northfield is highlighting its rich agricultural history with something new — a tour of the town’s oldest barns. The oldest barn dates back to the late 1700s.
“We just have so many historic barns in Northfield, we wanted to preserve our heritage and just let people know where they are, what they look like and what they were used for,” said Alan Stone, a member of the Agricultural Commission.
A 20-page booklet describes the history and structure of 17 barns, including their current owner, original owner, address, year built and GPS coordinates.
Noting that Northfield has gone from 25 dairy farms in 1975 to one today, the commission hopes brochure-guided tours will give folks a chance to “look back” at a piece of yesteryear that survives. We’re glad they’ve given us this chance for a deeper appreciation of our home in this rural corner of the state.