August 2024

Holyoke Safe Neighborhood Initiative
Meeting Notes


Date: August 8, 2024
Time: 1:00pm to 2:30pm
Place: Zoom Meeting


Mission Statement: The Holyoke Safe Neighborhood Initiative is a partnership between local, state & federal law enforcement; city & state government; civic & human service organizations; faith based organizations; the business community; education providers; property managers; and residents coming together with a goal to create safe, healthy & economically viable neighborhoods through information sharing, identifying at-risk youth, referrals and community efforts in specific Holyoke neighborhoods.

Welcome and Introduction 1:00pm to 1:05pm

Guest Speaker: Lindsey Rothschild: Holyoke Hockey Club 1:05pm to 1:20pm
Hello everyone, I've showed up before and so you might have heard from me before. We are a startup new youth hockey organization. We are going to be based in Holyoke at Fitzpatrick. We are creating a free program for Holyoke youth. This is our mission statement; “To provide underrepresented youth in the sport of hockey, including kids of color, nonbinary kids, girls, and economically disadvantaged kids an opportunity to play hockey without cost and a safe and fun environment.

Our season is starting next month in September. We don't have any kids yet, which we’ve had to get ice in place and we had to get financing in place to pay for the uniforms or any equipment. So now we need the kids. I just want to tell you a little bit about how we started. Our friend, I'm here presenting today with Justin and our mutual friend, Bobby Epsteiner, had the idea that hockey should be for everyone. He and I recognize that there are a lot of barriers to entering the sport, and those of us that play, including myself, love it and we have a lifelong love for it, and we all came to it in different ways.

Bobby is a goalie. He's an ENT Surgeon, so he might have met some of our kids taking their tonsils out. He's the dad of two daughters. One is a fierce hockey player, and he's also the president of our board, and he gathered a group of friends and hockey enthusiasts. We have a board of myself, Justin, Jessie and Javon. You can read about us on our on our website.

I want to tell you a little bit about my story, and what hockey has meant for me in my life. I grew up in the 80’s in Detroit, Michigan and I didn't know anything about hockey. My dad wasn't from Michigan. My parents weren't from Michigan, so hockey was not a sport on my radar. Also, being a girl it wasn't that was presented to me. I was playing softball one summer, and the coach who was coaching had twins, a girl and a boy, and so her boy played. Basically, she insisted her girl could do anything her son could do. She signed him up for the only recreational hockey in the city of Detroit. It's Detroit's called Hockey Town, but in reality it's the suburbs, and often kids from the city of Detroit are excluded from the sport.

There was only one rink that had hockey. Since her son could play, her daughter could play, and she talked my father into throwing me in there too. So you can see the picture. Here is my hockey team in Detroit, and we were sponsored by the Detroit Police Athletic League. So much like the League we're starting. Where we offered an affordable league to play in. It welcomed kids not necessarily in the sport of hockey. In the 80’s, and we had to play all the teams. We're not in the city of Detroit, and if you're familiar with the kind of racial makeup of the city of Detroit. It was especially in the 80’s, kids of color, were very white surrounding. What my point is when we were playing we faced a lot of racism.

I got misogynistic comments from other teams, and my teammates got a lot of racist slurs from other teams every game we played. This was part of our experience. I even was thrown out of a game for finally getting fed up when our players were getting punished more than the other teams. This was just part of our experience. Unfortunately, it still exists in the sport of hockey. So we are trying to welcome more people to the sport. As we all know, every experience is better when more people can be included and represented.

Now, I play with a group of women in West Springfield. I don't know if you guys saw Inside Out 2, but I wish I had a team to play on that looked like that when I was a kid. The rest of my story was that I was eleven years old in that picture when I was twelve they said, ‘Okay, you're a girl. There's no more space for you here because you have to share locker rooms.’ I fell in love with the sport, and then was told quickly, because of my gender that I could no longer play. I didn't start playing again until I moved to Brooklyn in my adulthood and joined a Women's Rec League. I want to make sure girls and all kinds of kids can play hockey. Now, I'm going to hand it over to Justin.

Justin Gianesin: Hoyoke Hockey Club
Thank you, Lindsey. I'm Justin, and similar to Lindsey, I started hockey at a very early age. As you can see in the pictures, I think I was probably around four or five years old when my parents first put some skates and stuck a stick in my hand and said, ‘Go try this out.’ One of the great things about my upbringing was that my parents didn't have a lot of money. I grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, so surrounded by the Olympic Training Center. Some of the world's best athletes came to train there, and so it was neat to kind of living in that environment.

My parents really took advantage of all the different opportunities that our city provided. So they signed me up, basically for any sport, and all sports. I got to try out pretty much everything. Again, we didn't have a lot of money. My parents worked extra jobs to kind of make ends meet to be able to make those things happen for me and my younger siblings. So kind of fast forward to junior high and high school, I was still very much involved in hockey, loved playing hockey.

I played for my school based teams and did face some racism. I'm half Korean, and oftentimes I was told that Koreans don't belong on the ice and all kinds of other really racial kind of hurtful slurs and things like that, I experienced as a kid. That really stuck with me as I continued my hockey experience into college. I played one year of hockey at Minnesota College, and that was a great experience in many ways, but also a very clear reminder of who the sport welcomes and who the sport sometimes doesn't welcome.

As I became an adult, I've always kind of been reminded of that, and I wanted to make sure that I could do something to try to help change that a little bit. As an adult, now I've spent a long time as an educator. This is my twenty-third year of being a public school educator. For a long time I was a school counselor. I worked in the inner city of Springfield for many years before moving into the Amherst-Northampton area schools and working in some of those districts. Just in the past two years I've become a Physical Education teacher to just kind of switch things up a little bit.

It's been great to be able to have the youth around me, some of who are very excited about sports and some of them who are not very excited about sports. I see my job as a Phys Ed teacher to introduce as much movement activities to all the kids. Similarly to what my parents did for me just to try things out, and I see some crossover in our Holyoke Hockey Club.

I think all of us that are involved in the board feel very strongly about making sure that the wonderful game of hockey is something that can be accessed by everybody, no matter what your financial means are, no matter what language you speak, no matter what color of your skin, and no matter what your experience is in athletics or hockey in general. When we kind of look at the game of hockey, most of us when we turn on the TV or we go to a game, it's pretty obvious to see that the people on the on the rink are mostly white men.

That's changing, I think we've got a Pro Women's League that's popped up, and that's been really nice to see. But I think there's still a lot of work to do in the game of hockey. We can't control what happens in all ranks across the nation, but what we can control a little bit at least what's happening in our in our nearby communities. We felt it was a really important thing for us to be able to try to start something up and be able to have some of these kids who may not have the financial means and that lack of exposure.

We'd like to be able to help expose more kids to that. Take away those financial barriers, take away sometimes even the language barriers where you know many of us on the board are bilingual, and we're looking to recruit more helpers and volunteers to be part of our club. That will also be bilingual folks to kind of help with some of the translation, if that's necessary. But also just people who are interested in like really giving something back to the city of Holyoke, and giving something back to the game of hockey, and more importantly, giving something as an opportunity to our youth that I think are always looking for something positive and healthy to do.

Our program is really focused on helping kids get a foot in the door with that. We're really looking to serve kids around the ages of like 2nd to 8th graders is really kind of the age that we're starting off with, and we'll kind of see, after our first couple of years, how things look and if we want to kind of grow that, or even narrow it down a little bit more. But to start off with, we're really looking for youth around 2nd to 8th grade. We start up, as Lindsay said pretty quickly, starting in September.

September 6th our program will run through November 22nd, and it will be on Fridays from 5:00 to 5:50 drop off. We're hoping to have people get their kiddos there around 4:30, just because that will give us enough time. So we're not feeling rushed to get kids fitted for equipment. If kids need help getting some of that equipment on and figure it out to make sure the fit is okay, that gives us a little extra time to do that. As mentioned before, we're trying to do all of this right at Fitzpatrick skating rink. So it's a pretty local place, hopefully not too far for some of these kids to travel to and we're really excited about it. I'm hoping that with talking with you all and your connections to community folks that you can help get that word out.
Lindsey Rothschild
Thank you, Justin. And so yeah, that's what our ask is from you today is to just help spread the word to families with kids in 2nd to 8th grade. We are recruiting just like a month out, because we had to get money for ice and get them ice and get the ice booked. And we've already gotten financial support. We're happy to say $10,000 from the Bruins, and a $1,000 from our local thunderbirds. That's just a start. So we are really excited about that.

If you can share our website, Holyoke Hockey Club on our website. You'll see there's a download for two flyers. One is in English and one is in Spanish, and they have QR Codes on there for people to register. If you have, if you're around, if your agency interacts with kids in this age group and families, please spread the word you can invite us to an event or group. You can partner with us. We're open to ideas. We want to be in the community. You can sign up to volunteer, that's all on our website, or you can donate. So thank you for your time today and we're really excited to be here, and really grateful and appreciative of all the work that all of you do.

Agency Overview and Updates: 1:20pm to 2:05pm

Abbie Germain: Western Mass MOMS
Hi everyone, good afternoon. Thank you so much for that presentation Lindsey and Justin, that was really helpful and amazing to hear your personal stories as well as your mission for your project. We will definitely share that with our network. My name's Abbie, for those of you who don't know me. I do represent the Western Mass MOMS program at Viability. I just wanted to give a quick update for those of you who might not know the purpose of our program; it was to enroll between eight-hundred and one-thousand moms in and around Holyoke, Springfield, and Chicopee area.

We provided a stress management course so that we can help moms with any stressors of being a parent. We know that being a mom is stressful. It comes with some isolation, some feelings of overwhelm, sometimes even depression and things like that. So the goal of our program, which was a research study, was to address maternal mental health, so that when moms feel better they'll be able to move forward and achieve their personal educational and employment goals.

I've been attending these meetings for probably about two years now, and usually I'm recruiting and asking people, ‘Hey if you know any moms send them our way.’ However, we're at the end now. Enrollment closed on June 30th but an update, which is wonderful, as we met our numbers. We were able to enroll eight-hundred and eighty moms in the study. These participants are going to be followed for future surveys to check in to see how they're feeling, what their symptoms of depression are and how they're doing on their goals.

So once the study data collection concludes, we should have a report out in 2026. We’re really looking forward to showing how well and how effective our program is with addressing maternal mental health in our area. I just want to thank those of you who have sent moms our way. It's just been a really great experience and I just wanted to thank everybody, especially Eddie, for always inviting us to events and coming to our events as well. So thanks again, Abbie from the MOMS Program, although I'm not recruiting. I just wanted to give you all an update on the end of the program stuff. Thank you.

Andrea Kennedy: Signature Realty
Good morning, thank you for telling us about the Holyoke Hockey Club. It was very interesting and forty slots wow! That's not doesn't seem like too hard to do. Good luck with that. My name is Andrea Kennedy, and I'm here today networking as a real estate agent this year I changed brokerages, and just as soon as I bought new business cards and stationary, my brokerage changed their name.

Today, I wanted to point out my new name, and my brokerage is a Signature Realty, where a few agents who broke off from a local brokerage and started a small group.
I wanted to let people know that in September the market is always has an uptick in September. People know that if you put your house on this market in September, so it can be sold by the end of the year. You're not selling your house at Christmas, and there's a rumor going that the Feds are going to drop the rates again in September, so I'm looking forward to a busy month, and if you know anybody looking to sell their home. Please give them my name and number Signature Realty, Andrea Kennedy, and thank you for having me.

Aracelis Medina: YWCA
Hello, I'm from the YWCA and I'm one of the Domestic Violence Counselors. So here at the Y we work on a couple of things so our team specifically works on domestic violence counseling and sexual assault counseling. We also do DCF and mandated DV courses that consist of eight weeks and towards the end they would receive their certificate of completion.

We also provide safety planning and also a program for address confidentiality to be able to provide them more protection against the perpetrator. We have a range of programs here that can help and it's all free. It's not through insurance or anything, so they're able to call our 24/7 hotline and are able to get connected with whichever program they're looking for.

Brenda Evans: UMass Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences
Good afternoon everyone, my name is Brenda Evans. I am the Community Research Liaison in the Center for Community Health Equity Research House at UMass Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences. I also co-convene the Hampden County Resource Network along with Ed, and I have nothing to report or update. Thank you.

Brett Fortin: US Department of Labor OSHA Office, Springfield
Good afternoon, my name is Brett Fortin, I'm the Compliance Assistance Specialist for the US Department of Labor OSHA Office in Springfield. Our mission is to make sure that employers are providing employees with safe and healthful work environments. We handle complaints, questions from the general public, or concerned employers. My role specifically is I do outreach presentations to groups on their worker rights, what rights they have, how they can make complaints, confidentiality, things like that. I'll leave my information in the chat, and thank you for having me.



Bruce Miller: New North Citizens Council
Hi, and I'm glad to hear about the Holyoke Hockey Club I think that's a great idea. I am Bruce Miller from New Life Program, part of New North Citizens Council. I have a couple of my colleagues on the call as well. I don't have any updates per se, but in case you're not aware our specific program; we do care coordination for African-American and Latino men who have been incarcerated and have substance use issues addictions. We work with them to reintegrate them into the community and support their recovery. So if you happen to know anyone who fits that criteria, then you could always refer them to us New North Citizens Council, New Life.

Caitlin Moran: River Valley Counseling Center
Good afternoon everyone, I'm from River Valley Counseling Center. My organization has a lot of counseling in Holyoke and the surrounding areas. I personally am the Adolescent Sexual Health Program Manager. So I would primarily love to connect with youth organizations where we can teach relationship and sexual health. We run a curriculum called ‘Rights, Respect, Responsibility,’ and thank you for your time, hopefully we can connect.

Carl Borden: Western Mass Council Scouting America
Hi I am Carl Borden, from the Western Massachusetts Council Boy Scouts of America. Our biggest announcement is we're entering into recruiting season and popcorn season. So if you see cute little Cub Scouts running around Holyoke asking you to buy popcorn, please buy some of it, because that helps self-fund their program and helps have the kids feel a sense of ownership in what they're doing.

Our units are meeting on Thursday nights over at the Mount Tom Lodge in Holyoke, right across the street from the library, and we are always looking for more adults to volunteer to help us with that program because we are growing, and it takes a lot of individuals to help us do great. I know Heather had a great time last week stuffing bags with you, Ed, and I missed out. I was at the ROCA recruiting event.

Denise Kelly-Lachat: Hampden District Attorney's Office
Hello, everybody! I am Denise Kelly-Lachet, from the Hampden District Attorney's Office. I'm the Diversion Specialist in the Holyoke Juvenile Court in Holyoke District Court, and I don't have anything to add right now. I thank you.

Diana Biagioli: Federation for Children with Special Needs
Hi, everybody! I'm Diana Biagioli from the Federation for Children with Special Needs. I left a bunch of links in the chat, but we provide guidance information referrals to young people with disabilities, any family members of those young people or professionals working with them. There are two things I wanted to highlight that I put in the chat. First, Next Gen Careers is provided by MRC. We're helping them do outreach, and if you have any young person with a disability that wants to look for employment, that's a good pilot program that MRC is providing right now.

I'm very excited about the second one; is pandemic coordinated pandemic response stipends that we're giving right now. Basically, the Department of Education initially gave us a pilot, gave us a small amount of money, and we got rid of it very quickly. We're going to be given a large amount of money in August. So I left the dates, the eligibility requirements. That's the third link I put in there. I think Ed, my colleagues are presenting in November about this program, so I won't say anything else, but here's the information. Thank you, Ed.

Ellen Broadhurst: Private Social Worker
Good afternoon, everyone. I always love listening to this group because I get so much valuable resources and information for the clients that I work with as a private social worker. So thank you everybody.

Everlyn Pabon: Volunteer for Holyoke Public Schools
Hello guys, I'm Everlyn. I'm just a volunteer for the public schools work with education. Nothing further to say.



Faith Sarisley: CrossPoint Clinical Services
Hey everybody, my name is Faith, and I'm the Marketing and Community Relations Coordinator for CrossPoint Clinical Services. I left my info in the chat as well as our website link to check out CrossPoint. We continue to provide faith based and traditional mental health counseling services from our four Mass offices, the closest ones being in West Springfield. We also have health and wellness options like life coaching, personal training, and all things kind of mind, body, and wellness.

I wanted to touch on the three big events we have coming up. Starting in September, we take insurance for all these programs, and we would love if you could share them with your team people you may know who may be interested and could benefit from them. Starting in September, we have the ‘Respect 101 Anger Management’ for men class as well as two marriage workshops. There are seven principles for making marriage work for people who are already married as well as newlywed program called ‘Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts.’

All great programs; they take cash, card, but also insurance, which is a really great feature. All these events are also available virtually or in person for whoever is interested across the State. You can learn more and sign up for any of them in the events and coaching section of our website that's in the chat or by downloading our app. Thanks everybody.

Georgie Brown: OneHolyoke
Hi, I'm Georgie, I work for OneHolyoke. Got a lot going on right now; I'll definitely put some links and stuff in the chat. The big thing is that we're doing is we just started our affordable home ownership lottery. So we have three homes currently on the market right now for low income first time home buyers. We do it through a lottery process. There's a lot more information on our website, but we're really looking for people who are interested to submit applications to be in the lottery.

Again, there's a lot more information on our website but it's a really a wonderful opportunity to purchase a home for a first time home buyer below market rate. They're all duplexes too, so then you can rent out a second unit as a form of income. So that's kind of the biggest thing.

Then we have our community walk coming up at the end of the month on Saturday, the 31st. This is just a great opportunity to ask people to come out and walk and then we will have a resource fair at the end too. We're looking for if your organization is interested in being there and having a table to share resources, or if you're interested in volunteering or supporting. Everything is on our website, and I can provide some links for that too. Other than that, we have our Financial Wellness classes once a month on the 4th Thursday, so the 22nd.

We started movies in the park back up again. We had our first one last night. It's every first Wednesday of the month in Eli Park. We show the movies, we start once it's dark enough to start the movies. So that's kind of a short overview of what we have going on. Thank you.

Gina Anselmo: Hampden District Attorney’s Office
Hi good afternoon, everyone. My name is Gina and I’m from the Hampden District Attorney's Office. I work in the Community Safety and Outreach Unit, so CSO for short. CSO is kind of the hub for all of the DA's prevention and education programs. So we spend a lot of our time in schools talking about a lot of different topics, like healthy relationships, and social media impaired driving, substance use, and so on and so forth.

These presentations are available for schools, yes, free of charge. But also, if you just have a group of young people, we're happy to bring our presentations to those youth. We also have a lot of opportunities for youth as well such as our Youth Advisory Board Program for high school students. We have a Future Lawyers Program. So if you know any young people that are interested in becoming a lawyer or interested in learning more about the criminal justice system, we have those programs. We also do court tours for young people as well to kind of expose them to the different job opportunities. So I will leave my information in the chat if you have any questions about what we do here. Thanks.


John McCarthy: United States Citizenship and Immigration Services
I'm from USCIS Citizenship and Immigration Services and I do Community Relations. I work out of the Boston Office. In April of this year, there was a fee schedule that was announced, and as a result of the fee schedule announcement there was also some changes to the N400 application for naturalization. If there are people in the education community that are involved with citizenship classes, I realized that getting into the fall a lot of these classes are starting up.

If there is a desire to have a presentation on completing the new form, the changes in the new form, and additional information about that, I'd be happy to provide that for you. I've put my name and my contact information in the chat. I've also put into the chat two URLs. One URL is simply to the temporary protected status location on our website and they have that there because there are two nationalities in particular that are coming up;
Haiti has been announced for TPS and for a resignation of TPS.

Those who are renewing their TPS have to renew it within a sixty day period of time, and they run the risk of not being eligible to work. So they don't get the automatic extension if they don't file within the sixty day period of time. The time limit is running out at the end of August, August 30th. If there are Haitians out there that you deal with that need to renew their TPS, they have that timeline in front of them, and also I wanted to mention Somalia. Somalia was recently TPS extended, and also a resignation. People from Somalia, who have been in residence here in the United States since July of this year, July 22nd, they're eligible to apply for TPS now in the United States.

Another item I would like to mention is just that I frequently do a presentation with the Boston Public Library in a virtual manner every month, and this month's meeting is going to be on Wednesday, the 28th. It'll be from 12 o'clock in the afternoon until around 1:30. The topic is a little bit up in the air, because there has been an announcement by the president of a new program that has to do with the unity and stability of families, and you may have heard about this where individuals who are undocumented and been in the United States for up to ten years, and are married to an American citizen, may be eligible for parole in place.

The idea of having that presentation on the 28th of the month for out of the Boston Public Library is what we're aiming for. But the information on that process has not been released to us, and it looks like it's going to be a little bit delayed. So it's a little bit up in the air what the topic will be that day, but it will be announced in the Boston Public Library website bpl.org. If you go to events, and you go to the date of the 28th and you look around noon, there should be an announcement in a week or so of what the topic is going to be for that day. So if there's anybody interested in attending I encourage you to take a look at the website, and that's all I have. Thank you very much for the time.

Laurie Dimock: Hartsprings Foundation
Hi, everybody! I'm Laurie Dimock and I represent Hartsprings Foundation. Our organization collects donations of unwanted clothing, shoes, housewares, sporting goods, and more diverting these items from landfills with the proceeds funding our partners at Big Brothers Big Sisters youth mentoring through Hartsprings Community Partnership Program our organization also partners with local agencies, youth groups, and other nonprofits throughout Western Massachusetts to raise important funding for causes that are close to home.

We are so proud to have the Holyoke Safe Neighborhood Initiative as one of our community partners, and I'm happy to announce that last quarter, our 4th Saturday clothing donation drive has diverted over 3,500 pounds of unwanted items from landfills and generated almost $300 for the Holyoke Safe Neighborhood Initiative's amazing programs.

Our next donation drive will be Saturday, August 24th from 9:00AM to 12:00PM at Holyoke High School. I encourage everybody to just stop on down and spread the word, please. Every donation matters.



Magda Colon: Learn to Cope
Hi everyone, I'm Magda Colon, I work for Learn to Cope. Learn to Cope is family focused peer support programs for parents and loved ones of those impacted by substance use disorder. I wanted to let you know or make you aware that August is Overdose Awareness Month. At the end of the month we celebrate Overdose Awareness Day. So they're going to be a lot of vigils around in your communities. I will ask you to support those vigils, and in memory of those that have been lost to substance use disorders. Also, in Easthampton we have a center, and we are in our at the East Works Building in Easthampton.

If you want more information you can stop by there or give me a call. I will put some information in the chat about that and our overdose vigil is in August 26th, that's Monday, August 26th between 5:30 and 8:00. Thank you.

Megan Benway: Department of Veteran Affairs
My name is Megan; I'm a Social Worker with the Department of Veteran Affairs Homeless Outreach, and a little bit about our program. Our main goal is finding veterans’ permanent housing. Whether that's permanent housing or supportive permanent housing, we link them with resources. We're based out in the community on the streets. I will put our contact information in the chat. Thank you.

Millie Ruiz: Way Finders
Hi good afternoon, everybody. I work at Way Finders; I'm the Housing Mobility Outreach Specialist. I collaborate with MassHire Springfield and MassHire Holyoke. I help people that have vouchers through our office get them into trainings. So basically, anything that they need I can help with. And if I can't, I will reach out to somebody that can, and I don't have anything else to say. Thank you.

Nia Johnson: Attorney General’s Office
Hello, everyone! My name is Nia Johnson. I'm the Western Mass Community Engagement Coordinator for the Office of Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell. I just want to remind everyone that we have educational ‘know your rights’ trainings from landlord tenant rights trainings, working rights trainings for both adults over the age of eighteen and our youth workers.

We have scams and ID theft training, and we have a social media training that will be coming out later this fall into next spring. If you need to contact me, I'll be placing my contact in the chat. Thank you so much, Ed, for all that you do, and have a nice day.

Orlando Mercado: New North Citizen Council
Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Orlando Mercado. I am the Program Director for New North Citizen Council's New Life Program. We're located in 476 Appleton Street in Holyoke, and we've been out here three years now helping individuals who are leaving the House of Corrections and integrating back into the community. So far our criteria, is to see African-American males and Latino males, eighteen years of age or older, who reside in either Springfield, Holyoke, and have a history of incarceration and substance abuse. So far we've been successful at the work we're doing, and we're planning to keep growing and extend this help to everyone. We can thank you.

Rafael Irizarry-Fields: Holyoke Public Defenders Office
Hi everyone, Rafael Irizarry-Fields, I am a Public Defender, a Staff Attorney at the Holyoke Public Defenders Office. Just always happy to join these meetings and hear about what's going on and often very helpful for clients and families. No real new updates. We're in a new permanent office space in the same building here on Front Street second floor, right above the DTA.

Always looking to be involved and offer whatever support and services we can. We are working on maybe doing some like lunch in the community where different public defenders will kind of volunteer to be out and around, and at least be able to help people figure out, are there active warrants? Where are they? Can we help you clear them up? And so more on that in the future, thank you.

Rafael Santos: Hampden County Sheriff's Office
Hi good afternoon, everyone. My name is Rafael Santos, and I'm here at the Hampden County Sheriff's Office. I work as a High-Risk Offenders Transition Counselor and obviously helping individuals when they put resources. Once they leave out of here, for me, demonstrate some kind of interesting support. I also support the Holyoke Safe Neighborhood Initiative, the Basketball League, and all the different events and activities that they have going on.

Rosa Tobin: Massachusetts Fair Housing Center
Hi all, happy to be here. I work with the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center. We provide free legal services to people who've experienced housing discrimination in Western and Central Massachusetts. Then, I specifically facilitate trainings and workshops on Federal and State Fair Housing Law and community members’ rights under those laws, and coordinate with organizations as well as community members to do trainings for caseworkers or clients.

You can always reach out to me if you want a ‘know your rights’ training for staff or clients. We also have a housing search, counseling program for folks who are receiving public assistance and housing vouchers. If you're working with someone who might be interested in our support through the Sun Program, I'm also happy to connect with you, and we'll put our information in the chat. Thanks so much.

Roxane Cotton: Mont Marie Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center
Hi, I'm Roxane, from Mont Marie in Holyoke. Mont Marie Rehab will be doing a quarter auction to benefit this Holyoke Safe Neighborhood Initiative. So at this point, right now, we're looking for vendors. I'm not charging the vendors anything. Usually, I guess they have to pay $50 for a table, but we're not charging anyone. We just want to have a donation for our auction. That's going to be September 29th.

Sandy Ward: Funeral Consumers Alliance of Western Massachusetts
I'm a Volunteer with the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Western Massachusetts, a Volunteer Run Information Group answering questions about death care and collecting price lists from funeral homes. Right now, we're looking for some new people who might like to serve on our board. I'm on the nominating committee, so if anyone's interested, I've put the website in the link, I'll be glad to talk to you about it. Thank you very much.

Sidney Richeux: Gandara Center
Hi everyone, my name is Sidney. I am the Triage Clinician from Gandara Center for the Intensive Care Coordination Program. Right now, we have a low waiting list. So that means that we can assign cases immediately. I am going to share the referral form in the chat. Also with my contact information, in case you need more information about the programs or how to refer them. Thank you.

Terri Lombardo: HCS Head Start
Hi everyone, Terri Lombardo, with HCS Head Start. The only real update I have is we are currently getting ready for a new school year, we are accepting applications. I will put our website in the chat. That's where parents can access the application. We have six preschool classrooms on Commercial Street in Holyoke, and one preschool classroom on Maple Street in Holyoke. So spread the word, thank you.

Juan Anderson-Burgos: Legislative Aid for Representative Duffy
Hi everyone, Juan Anderson-Burgos, Legislative Aid for Representative Duffy. We don't have any updates, but if you have any constituents and the city of Holyoke, who's having issues with unemployment, I am the king of getting unemployment issues resolved. Even R and B stuff. Thank you so much. Thank you for everything you all do.

Edward Caisse: Hampden County Sheriff’s Office
I know that Lori mentioned that the clothing drive is on the 24th, I know it's also our Back To School Event day, but I did send out a volunteer link for the Back To School Event. I'll probably send it out again today or tomorrow. I just want to encourage folks. We need three-hundred volunteers at the back to school event. So maybe, as you're going to be heading down to the back to school event, you can drop off some clothes.

I'll be sending out the flyer to that as well. I'm just thinking if you're volunteering for the Back To School Event, maybe you got some old clothing at your house. You can actually donate it on that day. That would be great.

Art Lobdell: Holyoke Rotary
Hi, I am Art Lobdell representing the Rotary Club of Holyoke, South Hadley, and Granby. We have our next meeting coming up on August 20th at the Holyoke Public Library. We're handing out two scholarships. We handed out five scholarships at our July meeting. We're also having the Rotary District Governor is coming to speak that day. We have ongoing projects. We make meals twice a month at Kate's Kitchen. We're looking for more volunteers to get involved with our club and that project.

We also provide volunteers to the Miracle League, the fall ball. I'm looking forward to that coming up in September. We have an event that is a fundraiser for all the service projects and helping us administers everything that the club does that's going to be at Wine House in Granby. That's a celebrity bartender event, so we're looking for folks to be celebrities and folks to come out and enjoy the night. That's on September the 25th, on September the 27th, and 28th.

We're working with Source to see Cleanup, Connecticut River Conservancy doing conservation work along the river. So that is the Rotary Club of Holyoke, South Hadley Granby, looking for folks to join us. We meet the 3rd Tuesday of every month at the Holyoke Public Library at noon. Thank you so much.

CHAT NOTES:

Faith Sarisley
CrossPoint Clinical Services, Inc.
fsarisley@crosspointclinical.org
www.crosspointclinical.org

Abbie-Western Mass MOMS
Western Mass MOMS 413-561-7413 agermain@viability.org

Abbie-Western Mass MOMS
Love this!!

Abbie-Western Mass MOMS
Awesome!

Terri Lombardo
I will definitely let our Head Start families know, what a great program to have in Holyoke!

Millie Ruiz
Do you have a flyer you can share?

Andrea Kennedy
How many kids are signed up so far?

Lindsey Rothschild
Yes - we are a 501c3 organization

Aracelis Medina
Are children with autism able to be accommodated?

Lindsey Rothschild
We don’t have any kids signed up so far— just got the ice and $ - so we have 40 slots!

Carl Borden,
Western Massachusetts Council Scouting America Membership Director. We are growing and looking for help to continue that growth. Also Popcorn season has begun and make sure to buy some popcorn from our Holyoke Scouts so they can self-fund their experience.
Carl.Borden@scouting.org 413-594-9196 x 7003

Diana Biagioli
Transition Specialist, Federation for Children with Special Needs. We support, guide and give information and resources to young people with disabilities, their family members and any professionals working with them. Here is our website: https://fcsn.org/. We are also doing outreach for a pilot program run by MRC called NextGen Careers to help young people with disabilities get employment: https://fcsn.org/nextgen/

Diana Biagioli
Recently we also received a grant from DESE to provide stipends for young people born between March 10, 1998 and September 30th 2001 who were in High School receiving special education services through age 22. Here is a flyer with more information: https://fcsn.org/transition-support/

Brett Fortin
Compliance Assistance Specialist US DOL-OSHA fortin.brett@dol.gov, 413 785 0207

Andrea Kennedy
Offering all new and previous clients a 4% commission rate when you list your house with me. Please spread the word!

Shannon Burke
Sorry, I have to step away. I have a family I need to meet with.

Faith Sarisley
Events - Crosspoint Clinical

Sandy Ward
volunteer with Funeral Consumers Alliance of Western MA, https://funeralconsumerswmass.org/ with price info from almost 80 funeral homes in western MA.

Diana Biagioli
Apologies I have to jump to another meeting. Thank you Eddie for all you do!

Lindsey Rothschild
Thank you for your positivity! I need to pop off to attend another meeting.

Denise Kelly-Lachat
Hampden District Attorney's Office, Diversion speciaist, Holyoke Juvenle and Holyoke District Court. Dense.kelly_lachat@mass.gov

Gina Anselmo
Gina.Anselmo@mass.gov - Hampden District Attorney's Office, Community Safety & Outreach (CSO) Unit

Justin Gianesin
Thanks everyone. What a wonderful group of people doing amazing work! I need to go to another meeting.

Aracelis Medina
Domestic Violence Counselor for the YWCA of western MA. Some programs offered are domestic violence and sexual assault counseling, 8-week DCF mandated DV education course, safety planning, and more. We have a 24/7 hotline number 413-733-7100, where clients can get connected to desired programs and/or emotional support. Here is our website with more information with the programs we offer, ywworks.org .

John McCarthy
USCIS Boston John.j.mccarthy@uscis.dhs.gov 617 356-5441
https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/reminders-on-the-process-to-promote-the-unity-and-stability-of-families
https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/temporary-protected-status

Laurie Dimock
Every 4th Saturday 9-12 Hartsprings Foundation 4th Saturday Clothing (and more!) Donation Drive with proceeds benefitting HSNI. Next date is Saturday 8/24 at Holyoke High School. We accept donations of unwanted clothing,
housewares, sporting goods, dvds & books, and more!
Please spread the word! Every donation matters. https://www.facebook.com/HartspringsFoundation/posts/pfbid02DMVfcmtYQfzHhXHtPjxL18aBsMmn1JpHnmmna3PD2TJYZrrB7mnPQWBJAJFR56BLl

Ellen Broadhurst
Magda, does LTC have groups for teenagers and/or young adults? Thank you!

Nia Johnson
Nia.johnson2@mass.gov 413-867-1619
Office of Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell
Community Engagement Coordinator

Megan Benway
Department of Veterans Affairs- Healthcare for Homeless Veterans (HCHV) 413-584-4040 ex. 2122
megan.benway@va.gov

Magda Colon
Family focus peer support for parents and loved ones of those impacted by substance use disorders- Mcolon@learn2cope.org we are 116 Pleasant st is Easthampton.

Rafael Irizarry-Fields
Staff Attorney at the Public Defender's Office, 100 Front Street, Suite 202, Holyoke, MA 01040. ririzarry-fields@publiccounsel.net and (413) 471-3392.

Magda Colon
Hi Ellen- our goups are for parents and loved ones of those affected by SUD. our group participants should be 18 and older, however their person can be any age. -

Georgie Brown
Here are some flyers for our August Events! More details can be found on our website: OneHolyoke.org
My email is Georgianna.brown@oneholyoke.org

Rosa Tobin | MFHC
Massachusetts Fair Housing Center - contact me at rtobin@massfairhousing.org if you'd like to collaborate on a know your rights training for staff and/or clients. In addition to providing free legal services to folks who have experienced housing discrimination, MFHC also provides housing search support for people with housing subsidies, through our SUN program. You can refer folks to our SUN program through sun@massfairhousing.org

Magda Colon
please reach out to learn more about what we have to offer

Sidney Richeux, Triage clinician Gandara Center
Hi everyone, I am the triage clinician from Gandar Center. Attached you will find the referral form for ICC services My contact information is : 413-433-2671 Sricheux@gandaracenter.org

Terri Lombardo
www.hcsheadstart.org

Carl Borden, Western Mass Council Scouting America
he is trying

Terri Lombardo
If families receive SNAP, they automatically qualify for Head Start at no cost.

Rosa Tobin | MFHC
I need to hop into another meeting, but thanks to everyone for sharing more information about these wonderful resources!

Abbie-Western Mass MOMS
THANK YOU!!!!

Faith Sarisley
Thank you Ed and everyone! Have a great day!

Old Business / New Business
Next Meeting is Thursday, September 12th on Zoom




Contact Information:
Edward Caisse
Hampden County Sheriff’s Department
(413) 858-0225
ed.caisse@sdh.state.ma.us
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