Starting early this morning, the United Way of Pioneer Valley and Peter Pan Bus Lines will deliver more than 2,000 backpacks filled with donated school supplies to six separate school districts. These backpacks are given to students who are homeless.
Edward Zemba, president of Unify Against Bullying, has announced that Christine Maiwald of Agawam has been named executive director of the nonprofit agency. Maiwald, who assumes the position immediately, had been a member of the Unify Board of Directors for the past two years.
“Chris brought a tremendous amount of passion, energy and heart to Unify the first day she became involved,” said Zemba. “To have her fill the position of executive director represents a transformative step forward for our young and ambitious organization. With Chris at the forefront of Unify, our potential to make a difference in the lives ...
Nineteen companies from across the state have been selected as finalists for the 2017 Team Massachusetts Economic Impact Awards, awarded annually by MassEcon for their outstanding contributions to the Massachusetts economy.
This year, there are three finalists based in Western Mass.:
The Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce recently announced its annual awards. The three award winners will be recognized at the Greater Westfield Chamber’s Annual Meeting & Awards Banquet on Nov. 15. There will be a cocktail hour from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., followed by a program from 6:30 to 8:30. The event is hosted by East Mountain Country Club, located at 1458 East Mountain Road, Westfield. The Event Sponsor is Baystate Noble Hospital.
Leadership Holyoke is a comprehensive community-leadership and board-development program of the Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce. The series utilizes a combination of classes and practical experiences to help local business people develop their leadership skills, increase their knowledge of the community, and acquire the skills needed to serve as board members and community leaders. The 2017-18 Leadership series begins on Sept. 22, consists of a weekly series of eight seven-hour sessions, and concludes on May 2 with a graduation ceremony at Holyoke Community College (HCC) with a specialty luncheon prepared by the college’s culinary program students. All sessions will ...
Even the greatest content needs a powerful delivery method to reach its target audience. “Storytelling Strategies to Engage and Influence,” an interactive workshop to be held Thursday, Aug. 24, will introduce participants to the value and power of storytelling as an influence tool. Lisa Lipkin will lead the workshop, scheduled for 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Bay Path University’s Philip H. Ryan Center, 1 Denslow Road, East Longmeadow.
On Thursday, Oct. 5, Square One will draw inspiration from the early days of the Square One Tea Party. “Our annual tea party began 11 years ago in a classroom with tiny tables and a big dream,” said Joan Kagan, Square One president and CEO. “This year’s theme brings us back to the event’s roots. We’ll be celebrating all the success that this event has helped us achieve over the years.” The 12th annual Square One Tea is expected to draw 400 supporters who will celebrate the work the provider of early-learning and family services is providing ...
American International College (AIC) will host an information session for doctoral low residency programs on Saturday, Aug. 26 beginning at 11 a.m. in the Dining Commons on the AIC campus located at 1000 State St. in Springfield. Participants will have an opportunity to sit in on AIC’s low residency weekend to see what it is like to be a doctoral candidate in this program. Lunch will be provided. The information session is for working professionals and is designed to give prospective students access to all the information they need while providing an opportunity to meet faculty, staff, and ...
The Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival is expected to bring more than 10,000 people together in Court Square on Saturday, Aug. 12 to celebrate a shared love for music, food, and community. Now in its fourth year, the festival will offer a festive atmosphere featuring locally and internationally acclaimed musical artists, including Lizz Wright, Miles Mosley, Rebirth Brass Band, Sarah Elizabeth Charles, Christian Scott, Zaccai Curtis & Insight, Natalie Fernandez, Jeremy Turgeon Quintet, Community Grooves, and many more.
In keeping with its mission to empower women to be more confident in their personal and professional lives, Dress for Success of Western Massachusetts is hosting a tag sale at the Eastfield Mall to raise funds and awareness, while also working to meet the needs of women throughout the community. The sale has moved from its original location at the Holyoke Mall.
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article tackling the city’s efforts to “shake off decades of postindustrial malaise and capitalize on fresh economic energy downtown,” while calling its location a liability, as it’s too far from Boston or New York to double as a bedroom community.
It’s tough to make a living as an artist, and no one knows that better than Linda and Geoffrey Post, who made a go of it for 20 years, much of it on the art-show circuit, before deciding, in 1994, to switch gears. That’s when they founded the Paradise City Arts Festival. Geoffrey Post, a fiber artist, and Linda Post, a painter, say they took an enormous leap of faith when they started the festival at the Three County Fairgrounds in Northampton. They gathered work from fellow artists, put notices in local newspapers, and set up in the ...
Ask Wilbraham Selectman Bob Russell what his town’s main business is, and he’ll tell you: quality of life. The town of nearly 15,000, located about 12 miles northeast of Springfield, has an abundance of protected open space, parks, recreation facilities, and other features that can be enjoyed by its residents, and a small-town feel that hearkens back to its origins as a close-knit farming community. “It’s a bedroom community,” Russell said, and townspeople revel its neighborly activities, like summertime concerts and community-wide flea markets held at Fountain Park, gatherings of moms and dads and their young ...
Elms College has continued to grow its MBA program and add new concentrations, with its flexible/hybrid education model allowing students a way to connect and interact with classmates and professors. To explain all this and more, Elms will host an information session on Tuesday, Sept. 12 at 5:30 p.m. in the MBA Office on the third floor of Berchmans Hall. The session will bring together a panel of Elms College MBA graduates from a mix of concentrations and career paths including healthcare, accounting, and management.
Solar Power World, the leading publication covering solar technology and development, published its annual Top Solar Contractors list in July. PV Squared, a local solar-installation company and worker-owned cooperative, was listed prominently among other top solar contractors and developers across the country. PV Squared is a local leader in the field of solar design, installation, and maintenance. A worker-owned cooperative, the company has provided renewable-energy solutions to a range of clients, including business owners, commercial property owners, farmers, and homeowners since 2002. PV Squared currently employs 42 people, 19 of whom are co-owners of the business. In 2016, it completed ...
Massachusetts and Connecticut business leaders are being surveyed about their companies’ outlook, methods to recruit and retain talent, and thoughts on how to address the region’s most pressing transportation issues. The 2017 Business Survey is once again being conducted by the New England Knowledge Corridor (NEKC), an interstate partnership of regional development, planning, business, tourism, and educational institutions working together to advance the region’s economic progress.
As a business, your most valuable assets are your employees. When your staff is happy and motivated, they’re more likely to perform at the highest levels. “The best way to create this type of environment is by giving everyone a sense of ownership,” said Margaret Lenihan, senior vice president, Cash Management at PeoplesBank. In other words, get all your employees to think like entrepreneurs. “If your employees don’t feel they own their own spaces, they will constantly wait for your day-to-day directions and expect you to solve every problem,” Lenihan added.
In keeping with its mission to empower women to be more confident in their personal and professional lives, Dress for Success of Western Massachusetts is hosting a tag sale at the Holyoke Mall to raise funds and awareness, while also working to meet the needs of women throughout the community. The sale is scheduled for Friday, Aug. 18 from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday, Aug. 19 from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday, Aug. 20 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Customers may peruse through the racks of new and gently used ...
For the second year in a row, the Gateway to College program at Holyoke Community College has received national recognition for exemplary performance. The Gateway to College National Network, based in Portland, Ore., honored HCC with its 2017 Gateway Program Excellence Award at a conference in Providence, R.I. last month. Gateway is a second-chance, dual-enrollment program for students who have either left high school or are at risk for dropping out. Gateway students take college classes and earn college credits while also working toward their high-school diplomas.
The Springfield College Athletic Training Program has been granted 10 years of continuing accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE). The Springfield College Athletic Training Class of 2017 earned a 100% first-time pass rate on the Board of Certification (BOC) examination. Accreditation by CAATE is focused on student and program outcomes, including board of certification exam first-time passing rates and student placement in graduate-level programs. Accreditation is important because, in order to be eligible to sit for the board of certification exam for athletic training, a student must graduate from an accredited athletic-training education program.
After creating your business plan, raising capital, and opening your doors, your next task is to make a profit. But once the money is coming in and your operation is sustaining itself, you want to start thinking about growth. How do you achieve growth? The answer is to plan for it, and it is never too early to start, said Jay Seyler, vice president of Business Banking at PeoplesBank.
As she worked as a Pathlight fellow in Valley Venture Mentors’ (VVM) accelerator program this spring on technology designed to offer fire-safety guidance to individuals with intellectual disabilities, Lili Dwight learned she needed to tweak some components of her product. Having access to test audiences provided by Pathlight, VVM and other organizations were key in the learning, she said. An entrepreneur and a founder of Galactic Smarties in Deerfield, Dwight’s app was originally called Fire Drill, and it was intended to tell the user such things as where the fire is and the best route to safety. As part ...
United Way of Pioneer Valley and Peter Pan Bus Lines will launch the annual Stuff the Bus campaign with a press conference event on Friday, July 28, 2017 at 10 a.m. outside the Target store at the Holyoke Mall. The campaign will collect new school supplies from July 28 to Aug. 16. The supplies will be distributed in new backpacks to children who are homeless in Chicopee, Holyoke, Springfield, Westfield, West Springfield, and South Hadley. “All children in our community deserve to enter school feeling confident, proud, and equipped to learn. Yet, in our community, hundreds of children are ...
Holyoke Community College President Christina Royal has been appointed to the board of directors of the United Way of Pioneer Valley and the American Assoc. of Community Colleges’ Commission on College Readiness. Her appointment to the United Way board was unanimously approved at the regional nonprofit’s 95th-anniversary celebration and annual meeting on May 31. She began her three-year term on July 1.
