Here are some brief thoughts on recent happenings in Franklin County and the North Quabbin region.
The fire was in Agawam but many of the firefighters came from Franklin County and Athol. The Bondi’s Island landfill fire raged for five days, from Oct. 15-19, with anywhere from 80 to 100 firefighters on the scene at any given time. Greenfield Fire Chief Robert Strahan described it as “a pretty significant fire.” Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) deployed Forestry Task Force 9-A, which mobilized brush trucks from Orange, Turners Falls, Erving and Northfield and manpower from those departments as well as from Greenfield and Colrain. Additionally, the Salvation Army Athol Corps had an Emergency Disaster Services team present to help feed firefighters.
This was hard, dangerous work atop a huge landfill. Firefighters used payloaders and excavators to dig through 14 large burning piles of compost, brush, leaves and mulch. “It burned so hot and so fast that even a pile of logs started burning,” Turners Falls Fire Chief John Zellmann said. Orange Fire Chief James Young sent a brush truck and four firefighters to the scene, battling the blaze from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. “They performed as requested, as they always would,” Young said.
We’d call that an understatement. How about, “They performed heroically, as they always would.”
Incidentally, October is Fire Safety Month. Thank a firefighter.
It was little more than a week ago that readers learned about major health issues for local radio personality and DJ Robert “Bobby C” Campbell, “a man who is constantly giving,” as reporter Anita Fritz described him. Campbell was in a rehab facility for severe pain in his neck and back. He now faces the challenge of spinal surgery, and with the pain comes a lot of risk and uncertainty.
Yet, wouldn’t you know, Campbell is once again leading a major Thanksgiving fundraiser that he started five years ago when friends reached out to ask if he knew how to help community members in need find a Thanksgiving meal. His response was to start his own program. “When I started this program four years ago,” Campbell said last year, “we fed 250 people and I was excited. To see how much this program has expanded brings tears of joy to my eyes.”
Last year, roughly 50 people and five organizations contributed about $7,400, feeding an estimated 1,300 people. This year, Campbell said he has noticed food insecurity and unemployment in Franklin County unparalleled with anything he’s seen in recent years. Consequently, he’s expecting to feed up to 1,600 people this November, 300 more than last year. To sponsor a family costs $50, which provides a 20-pound turkey, gravy, stuffing mix, rolls, cranberry sauce, potatoes, butternut squash, carrots and apple pie. In place of prepared meals normally served to hundreds, hot meals will be distributed in a drive-thru at Living Waters Assembly of God on Thanksgiving Day at noon and at the Salvation Army on the Sunday before Thanksgiving.
Last week, the story was about raising money to help ‘Bobby C.’ But to Bobby C, despite his pain, the story is always about helping others. “Even with all of this, I feel so lucky,” Campbell said. “I live in the best place in the world. Franklin County rules.”
Readers can help make Bobby C’s fifth annual Thanksgiving meal fundraiser a success by sending a check to Bobby Campbell, P.O. Box 21, Bernardston MA 01337. Please make check payable to Bobby Campbell and, in the memo line, be sure to put “Needy Family T-day fundraiser.”
We’re fortunate to have Franklin Regional Council of Governments’ Director of Community Services Phoebe Walker appointed to Gov. Charlie Baker’s COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Group alongside 16 others from across the state to advance efforts to prepare for the distribution of a vaccine when it becomes available. This is arguably the most significant public health issue of the century and Walker has the “chops” — i.e., the expertise — to see that the commonwealth’s most rural county gets the vaccine, and fast. Walker said, “We’ll be looking at how to prioritize who gets vaccinated first.”
Walker brings to the group her decades of experience working with local government and local public health systems, as well as the perspective of Western Massachusetts and what she has learned from sitting on the board of the Community Health Center of Franklin County and the Community Benefits Advisory Council for Baystate Franklin Medical Center.
Many of the group’s members who have training in vaccines, medicine and infectious disease will help the remaining members understand about the efficacy of different vaccines, the number of vaccines people have to take and how to store them. “This is an amazing group,” Walker said. “I’m happy to be a part of it.”
So are we.