Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

TEAM kicks off the season right

WEBUTUCK — The fall sports season might be winding down, but it’s always the season for community service, and Webutuck High School’s Teens Encouraging Athletes to be Mentors (TEAM)  recently traveled to Astor Head Start in Millerton for a morning with the children there.

This is TEAM’s 10th year of service, explained advisor Mark Moren, who coaches the girls varsity soccer program at Webutuck and first organized the group. Any students in grades nine through 12 who participate on an athletic team this year are eligible. This year 42 students enlisted; officers include Katie Ruppel, president, and Alicia Flinn, vice president.

“It’s our way of showing how our athletes can have a positive effect on the community,� said Moren.

TEAM coordinates several events with Astor Head Start, and last Thursday, Oct. 29, the group hung out with the children at the day care, reading with them and working on arts and crafts projects, just in time for Halloween.

“The kids love it,� Moren said. “It’s an all-around positive for the community.�

“They were wonderful,� said Mariley Najdek, executive director at Astor Head Start. “It’s a really nice collaboration that we have with Webutuck. We went on a walk through town and it was the cutest thing. The kids are always very excited to have company.�

Flinn joined TEAM in the ninth grade, saying that she wanted to show the community that athletes can be good role models for other students. With a possible career in teaching ahead of her, the trips to Astor are her favorite TEAM events.

“Going there with the environment and the atmosphere is a lot of fun,� she added.

“I love the field trips and being with the kids,� said Ruppel, who has been with TEAM since seventh grade. “I think it’s a good way to show that athletes can be great role models.�

Heading to Astor before the trick-or-treating holiday is a staple of TEAM’s annual event schedule. Before Thanksgiving, the group will work with the food pantry at the Presbyterian church in town, and head back to Astor before Christmas to spend more time with the children.

“I think it’s a good thing to work on their self-esteem,� Moren added. “They know they’re helping out and not expecting anything back from it. It’s nice to see them in a noncompetitive situation. It’s about helping out the community and feeling like you’re giving back.�

Lakeville Journal

Latest News

A life reshaped by clay in “Matin”

A life reshaped by clay in “Matin”

Left to right: Hannah Wheeler, Matin Malikzada and Yonah Sadeh.

D.H. Callahan

On Monday, Oct. 26, a group of students, teachers and local residents gathered at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville for a screening of the new short documentary “Matin.” The film tells the story of Matin Malikzada, a seventh-generation Afghani potter making a new life in New Milford, Connecticut. The film was made by local filmmaker Yonah Sadeh, creator of the Video Wall at the David M. Hunt Library, and Berkshires-based potter Hannah Wheeler, who were both present for the screening, along with Malikzada himself.

As a member of the seventh generation of his family to master the art of pottery, Malikzada had done things the way his family had for over a century. Istalif, the village where his family has lived for generations, was known throughout Afghanistan for its pottery, with wares sent across the country for use as everyday cups, bowls, plates and other vessels. The pottery-making families of Istalif gathered clay from the same mountain, about 30 to 45 minutes away by donkey. Every July, they would head north toward the Uzbekistan border to gather ishkar, a plant they processed by hand to make their signature glazes.

Keep ReadingShow less
film

Meg Sher finds her calling among the stacks

Meg Sher finds her calling among the stacks

Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.

L. Tomaino

When Meg Sher came to Falls Village in 2006 from Old Lyme, Connecticut, where she grew up, she never imagined she’d someday be the executive director of the David M. Hunt Library.

Although, in hindsight, perhaps it makes sense.

Keep ReadingShow less
our community

Crescendo’s 23rd season speaks to the heart and mind

Crescendo’s 23rd season speaks to the heart and mind

Christine Gevert, founding artistic director of Crescendo, conducts the audience at a performance.

Steve Potter

For Christine Gevert, founding artistic director of Crescendo, music from centuries past is anything but a relic. It is a living, breathing art form, full of drama, emotional complexity and, occasionally, surprises. As the regional choral and period-instrument ensemble launches its 23rd season, Gevert is once again bringing forgotten masterpieces into the present.

“Early Music has been my lifelong passion and the focus of my specialization in Europe and South America,” Gevert said. “Bringing this repertoire to our audiences in a nuanced way that does justice to its incredible depth, intensity, and beauty is deeply important to me.”

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

Close Encounters with Music celebrates 35 years of musical discovery

Close Encounters with Music celebrates 35 years of musical discovery

Close Encounters with Music’s 35th season opens with “Saluting the Clarinet” featuring clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein.

Provided

For 35 years, cellist Yehuda Hanani has been inviting audiences to experience classical music in unexpected ways. As founder and artistic director of Close Encounters with Music, Hanani has built a concert series that goes beyond the music itself, exploring connections to literature, history, politics and the human experience.

This year, Close Encounters celebrates its 35th season with “Celebration & Discovery,” a seven-concert series that opens Sunday, Nov. 1, at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington.

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts

Shinbone Alley brings spooky songs to Spencertown

Shinbone Alley brings spooky songs to Spencertown

Seeing isn’t always believing. Sometimes it’s the lack of a defined picture that can be the most compelling. And when Alex Harvey of Shinbone Alley sings his supernaturally charged sea shanties and street ballads, the unseen will be downright scary. On Oct. 30, the historically inclined storyteller and performer will create a spooky evening of forbidden tales and yarns through a carefully chosen series of songs at Spencertown Academy of Arts.

The repertoire for the performance is a bit fraught. Over the years, Shinbone Alley has explored the world of folklore through music. Though the group usually features two musicians, Harvey, a multi-instrumentalist and singer, will be performing solo. That is, of course, unless you include the spirits.

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts

Malian blues and Moroccan Gnawa meet in Sheffield

Malian blues and Moroccan Gnawa meet in Sheffield
Vieux Farka Touré
Proivded

Desert winds rarely blow into the Berkshires, but on Nov. 5, they will carry the Malian blues and Moroccan Gnawa music to Race Brook Lodge.

That evening, Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré, often called “the Hendrix of the Sahara,” and Moroccan musician Samir LanGus will play at the lodge’s Event Barn in Sheffield, Massachusetts, at a benefit for the foundation Touré directs.

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.