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By Naylynn Tañón Reyes, Swaha Bhattacharya, and Tint Tha Ra Wun

NORTHAMPTON — Chuck Bayliss, now an Ada Comstock scholar at Smith College, started her own woodworking business in 2006 in Leeds via a trade program at Seattle Central Community Colleges in downtown Seattle. Due to health concerns, however, Bayliss...

HOLYOKE — Holyoke Community College has landed a $1.28 million grant to launch a free new certificate and internship program intended to help address a shortage of workers in the human services industry.The grant, from the Massachusetts Executive...

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

HOLYOKE — For Christina Royal, the power to help students realize their full potential is just like magic. In front of a group of former graduates, state dignitaries and city officials gathered at Holyoke Community College last week to bid Royal...

By STEVE PFARRER

Amy Johnquest has had a number of different gigs during her life, from designing posters for Downtown Sounds in Northampton, to painting signs and creating window displays for other businesses, to creating her own mixed media art.But later this...

Staff Report

HOLYOKE — Holyoke Community College has received a pledge of more than $10 million, the largest single gift commitment in the college’s 77-year history and one of the largest gifts ever to any community college.The pledged gift is included in the...

By Maddie Fabian

NORTHAMPTON — Dane Kuttler, one of about 30 people who volunteer for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program run by Community Action Pioneer Valley, thinks doing taxes is fun. More than that, she loves helping low-income taxpayers in the...

STAFF REPORT

HOLYOKE – Holyoke Community College has announced four finalists to succeed Christina Royal as its next president.The HCC search committee evaluating candidates whittled down a field of 50 candidates to four. All four finalists have many years of...

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — The city has found a leader for its fledgling new department that will soon provide alternative responses to some public safety calls.Kristen Rhodes has been named director of the Division of Community Care, which is part of the...

By MARY BYRNE

GREENFIELD — Greenfield Community College (GCC) is developing a paraeducator training program that administrators hope will address vacancies in the field across the state and locally, while also reconceptualizing the role as a first step in a career....

By EMILY THURLOW

EASTHAMPTON — Dan Rist, the longest-serving member of the City Council first elected when the council form of government was adopted in 1996, will not seek reelection when his term ends at year’s end.An emotional Rist shared his decision with his...

By STEVE PFARRER

NORTHAMPTON — The Workroom Theater at 33 Hawley, the largest section of the Northampton Community Arts Trust building, is facing an extended closure, as renovations and new construction will soon begin to complete the 3,800-square-foot space.But...

By EMILY THURLOW

EASTHAMPTON — Almost every morning, Robin Bialecki is up at 5 a.m. to make her rounds at grocery stores like Big Y and Stop & Shop, salvaging unsellable food items that can be distributed to those in need through the food pantry at the Easthampton...

By STEVE PFARRER

It’s been almost three years since Amherst Community Theater has presented its annual musical at Bowker Auditorium at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, given a little problem called COVID-19 that prevented the group from returning to UMass in...

By EMILY THURLOW

EASTHAMPTON — After a little over a year in operation, a city arts nonprofit organization is expanding and relocating to a bigger space.Resilient Community Arts, which has made it its mission to sustain collective efforts for social progress and...

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL 

NORTHAMPTON — A planned Community Resilience Hub in the works since 2019 may finally have a building to host it.Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra announced Friday that the city has executed an option to purchase the former First Baptist Church building,...

By EMILY THURLOW

EASTHAMPTON — Residents who live in six Easthampton Housing Authority properties will soon decide whether to form a tenants organization to represent them — a move that, if successful, would be the first such organization formed since the housing...

By DUSTY CHRISTENSEN

NORTHAMPTON — The city has hired an “implementation director” to begin the process of creating a department that is meant to provide an alternative, civilian response to situations currently handled by police officers.Mayor David Narkewicz announced...

By DUSTY CHRISTENSEN

NORTHAMPTON — A small crowd gathered on Ladd Avenue Tuesday afternoon to welcome a new occupant to the neighborhood’s empty, former gun-manufacturing facility: a marijuana cultivator.“It has been years in the making,” said Charlotte Hanna, founder of...

By BERA DUNAU

EASTHAMPTON — Two city residents say they have been harassed for their positions on A Knee Is Not Enough (AKINE), a community organization calling for reforms to policing in the city.Jason Montgomery withdrew his name from consideration for...

EDITED BY MAX DUTZIK HENRICKS,PARKER PETERS, NICO RIBADENEYRA and MIRANDA DEBRUYN

Note: This is the first of three narrative reports in a special series produced by Professor Kathy Roberts Forde’s “Longform Narrative” class in the Journalism Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.Until the COVID-19 crisis disrupted...