By Mathieu Boudreau
I still remember In March 2020 when overnight the farm I managed went from having roughly 60 families to having over 120 families. The panic of Covid-19 had set in and families in the Berkshires looked to Community Supported Agriculture (CSA’s) for a source of community, nourishing food, and a feeling of security in a time of uncertainty. Now those same farmers that provided so much for the communities they support are seeing their federal funding stolen from them.
Many farmers work with grants from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to implement strategies to save energy and water, buy new equipment, implement solar panels, and develop regenerative strategies for the land they care for. Many of these grants require extensive documentation and aren’t reimbursed until after a project is complete. These funds allow farms to be better stewards of their land, while allowing them to grow their business and hire staff. Without access to these funds farmers can’t hire more staff, pay for the contractors for the work they may have started, or hire consultants to help develop strategies to improve their practices.
Over the past few weeks, I have received numerous “News Letters” from farms all over telling their horror stories of finding out that their Federal Funding has been frozen. From Dutchess County and The Berkshires alone I have tracked close to $3.6 million that is not being distributed either because it is “frozen” or because the Farm Bill has not passed. What makes this harder on these particular farmers is that the previous administration asked Queer, Black, Women, Indigenous, POC owned farms to raise their hands for funds; to acknowledge their existence in a field that is heavily dominated by white men and is hard to break into without generational wealth. Now in the middle of the spring season when farmers are supposed to be planning the layout of the fields, training new employees, planting the first seeds in the ground they find themselves figuring out if they can afford to hire new employees or even be able to finish the projects they started.
If you can, buy a CSA share. If you can, buy from your local farm store. If you can, buy from your local farmers market. If you can, ask your farmer if they are okay.
Cottage Experience
By Lou Schroeter
I was studying at Cornell University Hotel and Restaurant Administration when my parents moved from Long Island to Lenox and bought Sunnyridge II in Lenox and the Morgan House in Lee. With little interest in becoming a restauranteur, I moved into the carriage house at Sunnyridge and started a metal fabrication business named Atlantis.
The mid Seventies brought continued interest in the cottages but they were way out of reach. Pretentious and unrealistic as owning a cottage was, the desire continued to grow. There may be a path to cottage life, but it was yet to be found. The fulfillment of the dream began from the defining work, “The Berkshire Cottages, A Vanishing Era” by Carole Owens. I consumed every word of the stories and quotes that bring the Cottage Era to life. As the Era was vanishing from society, it was coming into view for me.
The late Eighties business success still had a cottage out of reach but building my own became a reality. The shingle style mansions like Elm Court, Naumkeg, and houses of coastal Maine cemented the decision to build a correct shingle style cottage of my own. The interior would include a drawing room, library, conservatory, and staff kitchen. The house would become the stage on which to act in the Gilded Age lifestyle.
We named the house Deerlawn and it gradually became filled with antique furniture and fixtures. Additions were made and rooms would be remodeled to a higher level of style and quality. If you remain modest in self-assessment the house will be superior and never fail to impress. My wife and I would tour cottages and great houses all over the Northeast and we began to feel more of a connection with their beauty and owners. Visit www.deerlawn.org for more.
One legacy of the Cottagers is their philanthropy. It is an ethic that can be pursued at any level. Business taught me the value of dedication and investment in one’s self. The time came to make investments in other causes. The highest level of satisfaction for myself would come from giving to education and historic preservation. Supporting scholarships at my prep school Alma Mater allows students with less means to lay the groundwork for future success.
Ventfort Hall in Lenox was fascinating from the first encounter to today. The first look was on a tour for code requirements with the Lenox authorities and the Bible Speaks who had just purchased the property. I was at Ventfort Hall to assess the need for a fire escape but to my dismay there was already a fire escape on the building and my services were not needed. As a common vendor, I was dismissed without getting further into the tour.
In 2023 I made a bold move and approached Ventfort Hall to inquire if donating some of our Cottage furnishings would be of interest. Of course, I came with my Cottager want to be story and found the Executive Director, Wendy Healey and others engaging and inviting. Realizing that substantial funds are most needed I made a donation pledge and looked for opportunities where I could help. The invitation to join the Board and then Chair the Restoration Committee were positions never before perceived. Thriving on projects, there has become a great bond between us.
Ventfort Hall is a short walk from Town and offers tours, private and public events, talks, concerts, high teas, and more. I delight in talking to visitors and getting their impressions. They like taking pictures inside which is prohibited at most venues. The goal at Ventfort is the complete restoration from basement to third floor which will allow visitors to see not only how the owners lived but how their staff lived and performed their functions.
Restoration has been accelerated with projects that show the best of Ventfort Hall. The driveway, parking areas, and walkways will be finished this Spring. The beautiful Salon will soon be restored and air conditioning added for summer comfort. Some projects can be accomplished with grants, donations, and volunteer labor while the East End masonry restoration will require millions.
Fundraising is complex and never ending. A major antiques auction is being planned for 2026 giving the public an opportunity to donate their fine pieces of value. The major source for funds will be people in the Berkshires and beyond who can make substantial investments in the Ventfort Hall Legacy and hence, their own.
Deerlawn
Coming to Stockbridge – Part One
By Joseph Shapiro
My family and I moved to our home in Stockbridge on Halloween night of 2020. It was the height (nadir?) of the pandemic with the first wave of the Omicron variant running rampant across the globe. Behind our new home was St. Joseph’s Cemetery and, across the street, the Burial Ground of the Stockbridge Indians. In a time of death and sorrow unimaginable in our era, our home was, and of course still is, quite literally surrounded by corpses.
I had gone to summer camp in Becket as a child, the same summer camp my grandfather attended in the 1930s, and I had spent some time every summer in the Berkshires as far back as I could remember. I still have photographs from the late 70s of me as a tow-headed little boy of about four or five on the lawn at Tanglewood, my grandfather in the background, deeply tanned by the mid-summer sun.
As a student and then as an attorney in New York City, I began to visit this area as an adult, experiencing the magical Berkshire autumns for the first time as well as its winter, a time when few tourists would brave the sleet and snow that made Route 7 somewhat of a gamble. I always had the vague notion that, should I ever have a child, I would want to raise him or her in a place like this.
For me, the Berkshires in general and Stockbridge in particular, always seemed a place removed from the noise, both figurative and literal, of the contemporary world. It was a place of art and culture; a place that selectively preserved the past while embracing the modern in a discerningly New England fashion. It seemed a place of hearty souls who lived thoughtful, intentional lives. It was a place of artists and intellectuals and hard workers. It also embodied a certain mystery that I longed to discover and dissect for myself. It’s difficult to convey to those who have not experienced it what it was like to bring a young child into the world during the global pandemic. Our son was born in January of 2020 and within a few months everyone was in masks, washing their mail and, when they did venture out for necessities, viewing everyone over the top of said masks as deeply suspect, a potential vector of disease that should not be trusted. For my wife and me, it was an odd combination of elation over our new child mixed with sadness along with a pervasive mind-numbing boredom and a dash of terror. We watched alone in fascination as our son took his first steps and began to talk. My parents would not meet our son until well after his second birthday.
The Problems with Berkshire Hills Regional School District
By Jan Wojcik
Let us start with the natural history of the Berkshire School districts. The first regional school district was formed in 1953. The Southern Berkshires School District was formed with the towns of Alford, Egremont, Monterey, Sheffield and New Marlborough. Seventy-two years later, they are still together.
Great Barrington did not join SBRSD, but as Searles High School aged something had to be done to initiate the construction of a new high school. Stockbridge was also considering constructing a new high school to replace Williams High School as Town Offices was proposed to move there. This led to the development of the Berkshire Hills Regional School District (BHRSD) in 1965. Great Barrington, Stockbridge, and West Stockbridge joined together. The arrangement allowed the towns to have a new high school with the subsequent construction of new middle and elementary buildings in close proximity. Jumping forward sixty years, BHRSD would like to build a new high school after several prior attempts to renovate or expand the school failed.
There are many issues to consider in contemplating such a project. The issues can be broken down into two separate categories, namely performance and cost. Performance The performance data provided by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) lends interleaf to interesting comparisons.
The dropout rate for BHRSD is the third worst in Berkshires/Pioneer Valley and higher than the state average. The attrition rate of BHRSD is the worst of all Western Massachusetts school districts that are not inner-city based.
The percentage of students completing advanced courses is the lowest of all Berkshire/Pioneer Valley schools that are not inner city schools.
The percentage of students going to college is third worst when looking at the same non-city school districts.
The percentage of experienced teachers in the BHRSD is second worse in the Berkshire school districts.
Cost
When looking at the cost side of the equation the DESE data is remarkable.
The percentage of actual net school spending vs Chapter 70 foundation is the third highest in the Berkshires. We are spending much more than others.
The average teacher salary is the second highest in the Western Massachusetts area including Amherst, Northampton, Longmeadow and the Berkshires.
The salary of the Superintendent of BHRSD is higher than any other Western Massachusetts school district other than Longmeadow which has 2,800 students while BHRSD has only 1,131 students.
The total expenditure per pupil is higher than any school district in the Berkshires or the Pioneer Valley.
In summary, BHRSD school district has very high costs/spending per pupil as well as high teacher salaries and the highest paid superintendent without clear cut educational data to warrant such an expense.
The current schools budget truly needs to be assessed and administrative costs decreased, and academic positions maintained.
