October 2025

Holyoke Safe Neighborhood Initiative
Meeting Notes


Date: October 9, 2025
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.

Edward Caisse: Hampden County Sheriff's Office 1:00pm - 1:05pm
Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Eddie Caisse; I work for the Hamden County Sheriff's Office. I also facilitate the Holyoke Safe Neighborhood Initiative. I did put a link in the chat, we are still looking to get additional trunks for our Trunk or Treat event that's going to be on October 29th, up at Mount Marie. Roxane may speak a little bit about that, but we are still looking for some additional trunks.

Guest Speaker: Julia Popkin: Community Legal Aid 1:05pm - 1:20pm
Hi everyone, my name is Julia Popkin. I am the Senior Supervising Attorney of the Family Preservation Project at Community Legal Aid. I'll get into what that is for those of you who don't know. But I also have with me Ben Abbott, who is the case manager on our Springfield FPP team. We're just here to tell you a little bit about the work of the Family Preservation Project. So, just a reminder that Community Legal Aid is the free, civil legal aid provider for residents of the five counties of Central and Western Massachusetts, so that includes Hamden County. We have an office in Downtown Springfield, and we also have offices in Worcester and Fitchburg, in Greenfield, Northampton, and Pittsfield.

We provide free legal help with a range of civil legal problems, so not criminal, but we assist folks who are facing evictions or foreclosures. People who are also experiencing domestic violence and need help in family court with custody, divorce, or restraining orders. We help folks who have had their public benefits reduced, terminated, or denied. We have an employment unit and a corian reentry unit that helps people seals their criminal records or appeal denials of employment or housing based on their criminal records. We also have an education law unit which assists students who might not be accessing special education, or are being bullied or unfairly disciplined at school. We also have a subsidiary, the Central West Justice Center who's able to provide humanitarian-based immigration services.

We also have the Family Preservation Project, and what we are is a team made up of a staff attorney, a case manager who has a social work background, and a parent advocate who is someone with lived expertise with the child protective system. But what we do is we work with Department of Children and Families, or DCF-involved Families who are still together. So parents who still have custody of their children, but have open cases with the Department of Children and Families, and we work with the families to help them connect to services in the community. We provide support and advocacy at home visits with the department, and we try to really address any of the unmet legal or non-legal needs that are sort of driving people into the child protective system in the first place.

So, what I mean by that is oftentimes families might have DCF involvement because they're facing eviction, or because they're having trouble with income related to public benefits, or maybe they're experiencing domestic violence and they need help with a restraining order to keep themselves and their children safe. Maybe their child is really struggling in school and could benefit from an education law attorney to make it more likely that they might be successfully going to school. So all of those are reasons why a family might come into contact with the Child Protective System, and our team works to try to address those on the legal side, but then also help evaluate what can a family use from the community, from community-based resources. So we approach the work in a strength-based way, we're client-centered, we're trauma-informed, and like I said, we're interdisciplinary. We're really trying to reduce the amount of surveillance of poor families. We're decoupling poverty from neglect. We really want to help avoid the removal of children from their home, and empower parents and strengthen families.

We have an interdisciplinary team. I'll speak a little bit about the attorney role, and then Ben will speak more about his role as the case manager and our parent advocate's role. But the attorney is able to assess what are the legal needs and make referrals to other units within Community Legal Aid to provide those services, whether it's a family law assistance, education law assistance, or housing assistance. They can also represent folks in fair hearings to challenge administrative findings of neglect that might affect someone's ability to find employment in the future. They screen all the cases that come in, and they're really driving the strategy behind what are sort of the legal interventions that could help stabilize a family.

Ben Abbott: Community Legal Aid
Hello I'm Ben the Case Manager on the team. I have a clinical social work background. The role is to understand the clinical issues at work within the case to help direct what kinds of services we might be looking to connect with, and also to help frame the issue differently for DCF sometimes if we have a different understanding of what's going on than they do. Then to do a clinical intake with the client to understand what other parts of community legal aid and what other community supports might be important for them and might be useful. What we can understand about the history of the case that helps us really understand about whom we are and who they are and what they're doing.

Then when the parent advocate isn't able to, I also support with sitting in on home visits when DCF is there. The parent advocate is a person who has lived personal experience dealing with the Department of Children and Families in their own life. Is the primary person on visits, that helps with a lot of logistical support, interacting with the family pretty regularly, getting external referrals completed and made, meeting up with people at all sorts of different things if they need, and also helping the advocacy with DCF. Making sure that we're translating effectively between the department and the family so that everybody really understands what everybody's trying to say. And then Julie you wanted me to talk a little bit about what happens when you make a referral to us?

Julia Popkin: Community Legal Aid
Yeah, that would be great. One thing I'll just add is that a traditional court case that might happen after a child is removed from their home, we're really working to try to find solutions that would prevent that removal, and work to address whatever protective concerns DCF might have. So, we're really hoping to sort of, work with families in a way so that when they can get their DCF case closed, and they're sort of left in a position where they're better off than when they started, and hopefully are more empowered in the future.

Ben Abbott: Community Legal Aid
When we get a referral, sometimes we get them from DCF, often from other people in agencies in the community, sometimes from the parent themselves, and usually the attorney does some initial outreach and info gathering with that family. Make sure we don't have an internal conflict going on, and then it gathers enough information that we can think about what we want to do. We take that back to a team meeting, sometimes we have a short waitlist, and sometimes we're ready to open cases right away as they come in. But we talk about the appropriateness of the case, if there's anything else we need to know before we'd want to open it. How urgent it is compared to other things that are on our waitlist if we've got them.

Then somebody else, often me, follows up again to talk with this person about opening, about what we're going to do, send them our opening documents, and then once we've got those, we send a letter of representation to the DCF worker, let them know that we're involved, and ask that we be included in meetings and communication with the client, and be able to look over things that they're being asked to sign. So from there, we really just try to meet with the client, to stay in contact with DCF, and to understand what it is that's going on that they're seeing needs fixed, what we can bring to that, what we can help maybe shift if we don't think that it's working properly, or don't think that the question being asked is the right question. We proceed from there until we can find a way to get everybody satisfied and those cases closed.

Julia Popkin: Community Legal Aid
We welcome referrals from community partners and from DCF. We receive referrals from both but just some general eligibility. So to be eligible for FEP, someone has to be generally eligible to be represented by CLA, so that means they have to be low income, so generally that means 200% or under of the federal poverty level. They have to live in our service area and they have to have an open neglect case with DCF. We also can't work with folks who all of their children are in DCF custody because that generally means that they have an open care and protection proceeding, and so they would have an attorney already assigned.

But I would just say that if you wanted to make a referral to us, I wouldn't worry too much about whether or not it meets our criteria because we'll certainly figure that out on our end, and we try to help as many people as we can as possible. These are just some quotes from people who have worked with us. I won't just read them all out loud to you, but I think one of the general themes of the feedback we get is that we generally just help folks feel a little bit less overwhelmed in what can be a pretty overwhelming process. The FEP team just generally seems to go above and beyond for the people that they represent.

So we do have a community partner referral form that I can share, I guess I could share with Ed, and it could go to the listserv. We just ask folks to fill out our referral form if you want to make a referral, and then that can get emailed to me. Clients can also self-refer by applying for help from through our website or our intake phone line, and that information is available here, but just also on our website. That's all we have for that. Does anybody have questions?

Edward Caisse: Hampden County Sheriff’s Office
Any questions for Ben or Julia? Thank you guys for coming and presenting for us, we appreciate that. If you do think of a question, Julia and Ben may stay on, and if you can just put your questions inside the chat, I'm sure they'll be willing to answer those questions.

So, if you just joined us, the next portion of our meeting is actually going around the room. The networking meeting is really a means to try to get agency representatives connected, to hear more about what the resources are in the agencies. That's why once a month we give an agency an opportunity to present for about 15 to 20 minutes, and this month it was CLA. So, if you are interested in presenting one month, you can just send me an email. Our next opening is actually February of 26. When I get the email, that's the order I put people on the list. I hope I never forget people, but I think sometimes that happens, so, forgive me if I forget you and you have to reach back out to me.

The next portion of the meeting, one month we start in the beginning of the alphabet, next month we start at the end of the alphabet. Today, we're actually starting at the end of the alphabet, so I'll call on you the best, you show up on my list. I just ask you if you can mention your name, your agency, any agency resources, or upcoming activities, or events, whatever you want to share about your agency. And again, we're going to start at the end of the alphabet. We will have meeting notes, but if there's something that you feel like when you talked you didn't get everything you wanted out, you can go ahead and put things in the chat, and we will make sure those chat notes are part of the meeting notes. So, I'm going to start at the end of the alphabet, and I'm going to call on you, Zenaida Smiley.

Agency Overview and Updates: 1:20 - 2:25pm

Zenaida Smiley: CHOICE Recovery Coaching
Hi, everyone! Happy Friday Eve! My name is Zenaida Smiley. I work here at Choice Recovery Coaching, and I am excited to share that we have recovery coaching at no cost for the recoveries’. About 6 months to about a year. We support the recovery through mindfulness, wellness, and also people that are in recovery for substance abuse, and we have a broad spectrum. We also have two people that speak sign language. So, if you have anyone on your caseload or anything that needs recovery coaching, we have Owen, who's amazing, and we have Karen, she's amazing. We can connect with the recoveries either through, Zoom or Face Time. We'll figure that piece out. So, I inserted the two cards. My name Zenaida and I'm the Community Engagement Specialist.

Veronica Garcia: Founder of Cusando Cuentes
Hello, everyone. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity. I'm Veronica Garcia, Founder of Cusando Cuentes, a nonprofit organization. We're all about connecting families, organizations, and experts to create a strong more united community. So, our mission is to break our barriers that impact especially the Latino community. We do conferences; we gather videos like digital stories. I would like to highlight our special event that is coming up on October 23rd. I'm very excited to share that information, October 23rd; we're going to recognize some of the leaders in our community. That is going to be at Sheraton Hotel, please register now. It's going to be an amazing networking event that we're going to bring nonprofit organization, people that are entrepreneurs, so it's a great event. October 23rd, we're going to start at 5:30 in the afternoon, so thank you. I will share the information through the chat.

Timothy Powis: Hampden Superior Probation
Hi there, Timothy Powis from Hampden Superior Probation, nothing to report, no events upcoming as of now.

Sicry Garcia: Nuestras Raices
Hi everybody, I'm Sicry Garcia from Nuestras Raises. Thank you for having me in this meeting today. I just wanted to highlight about an upcoming workshop that we're having, November 6th to 8th. It's a ServSafe certification class. I will put the flyer in the chat. If you have any question about this workshop, just reach out to me, and I will be answering any question that you may have. Thank you for having me today.

Shellie Daries: Department of Children and Families
Hi everybody, Shelly Daries from the Department of Children and Families. I am a Foster Care Recruiter. We are continuing to have virtual information sessions every Monday at 5:30 and every Thursday at 10 a.m. We have special Spanish language ones that are available. My information is in the chat. We're just trying to create awareness about all the children who sometimes have to enter the foster care system right here in our community, and we want to provide loving, safe homes until they can be returned to their families. But, thanks for having me today, and, have a good day.

Sandy Ward: Funeral Consumers Alliance
I'm Sandy Ward, a volunteer with the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Western Massachusetts, just reminding you that we have a free service, easy to access on the web with comparative price surveys of prices. We got 94% of the funeral homes in the four counties of western Massachusetts to give us their itemized price lists. We have lots of other information about your rights and options for death care, and we have a voicemail system that can collect your questions 24-7, and we'll get back to you with our volunteers as soon as we can. Try to help the community understand their choices.

Roxane Cotton: Mont Marie
Hi there, I'm Roxanne. I'm the Director of Admissions at Mont Marie. We're an 84-bed skilled nursing facility with 50 private rooms. We have 4 specialty programs which are heart failure, pulmonary, ortho, and renal. And tonight we start our first pulmonary support group at Mont Marie, so if you know anyone that needs the support group, it starts at 4:30 at Mont Marie. We also have our Trunk or Treat coming up that Ed just talked about, October 29th, and a rain date of the 30th. We're still looking for more trunks. We want to try to get to 50 and make it a huge event. It's always a big event; usually 800 to 1,000 kids we get that come through. We also just had a quarter auction to raise money for the Holyoke Safe Neighborhood Initiative for everything they do for us, and I'm happy to say that we raised $1,260 on Sunday Ed. So, when I get back from vacation, we will get your check to you.

Miguel Arce: Holyoke Resident
I'm Miguel Arce; I don't have anything to report.

Messiah Allah: Behavioral Health Network
My name is Messiah. I'm the housing specialist for BHN in Holyoke. We offer housing to the homeless, to individuals who may be dealing with substance misuse or mental health issues as well as. I have a CPR service. Just teaching the life-saving skills of CPR throughout the community so on and so forth. So that's all I have to report for today. Thank you.

Mark Prehn: My Ombudsman Program
My name is Mark Prehn. I'm with the My Ombudsman program. This is my first time here, very excited to be here. I’m stepping in for my coworker, Diana. My Ombudsman is the official mediator program for the Mass Health Network. It's a completely free resource for any active Mass Health member who needs help navigating that system or accessing covered benefits or services. We're really trying to expand our presence in the Western part of the state. I will be there in person next Friday at the MCS Holyoke office, that's the Multicultural Community Services office at 260 Westfield Ave in Holyoke, from 11am to 1pm. So if you all would like to come meet me, learn more about our program, or if you know folks in your communities that might benefit from Mass Health assistance Mass Health is giving them a hard time with something, that's an opportunity for them to meet with us face-to-face. We have some additional office hours coming up in the Springfield area, and I'd also love to connect with anyone who might be interested in us doing a presentation meeting with community members, etc. I'll be sure to send that flyer and info on our outreach team in the chat. So, thank you all so much.

Kim Lee: Mira Vista/Tara Vista
Good afternoon, I am Kim Lee. I am here with Mira Vista and Tara Vista Behavioral Health Hospitals. I am their Chief of Creative Strategy and Development. I just wanted to remind everybody that Mira Vista offers inpatient treatment for adolescents, 13 years and older, as well as adults, and our sister hospital in Devens, Massachusetts, Tara Vista starts at age 5, and then goes up through adults. We have 88 beds right here in Holyoke, 16 of those are for adolescents, and 72 are for adults. We have a whole host of outpatient substance use programming as well. Including opioid treatment programming, which means we're dosing methadone, but we also provide access to Suboxone, Vivitrol, and Sublocade, as well as ongoing substance use counseling as well.

But in order to gain inpatient access here at Mira Vista, you no longer need to go through the emergency department first. So, medical clearance or a visit to the ED is no longer a requirement in order to access inpatient treatment here at Mira Vista. I'm going to put my email in the chat, and if anybody would like to learn more about our direct admissions, please do reach out.

Julio Torres: Hampden County Sheriff’s Office
My name is Julio Torres. I work for the Hampden County Sheriff's Office. I'm the Holyoke Ward 3 Coordinator. I work with Mr. Caisse. So, if you need to contact me my information's on the chat. We recently had the Holyoke cleanup activity. Really good turnout, people were very thankful in the community for that, and we look forward to continuing working with the community. Thank you.

Juan Perez: Gandara Center
Yeah, good afternoon, first time here, how you doing, Case? Juan Perez, Recovery Coach for Gandara. I work at the Holyoke District Courthouse trying to help the community get to a better place.

Jonathan Moquin: Holyoke Parks & Recreation
I'm the Director of Parks and Recreation Events. We collab a lot, I feel like we're a part of every event if people want us to be. We do have a movie in the park event at Kennedy Field coming up I'll send the flyer. We also have suburban tryouts for all boys and girls, 5th grade through 8th grade, starting Monday and Wednesday next week at Peck. In regards to anybody that has flyers and events in Holyoke we will definitely share your stuff. I just want people to be able to send us things that you want us to share. We'll show up and take some videos and get it out there, try to show that Holyoke's got a lot going on. I think we've been doing that lately, but more and more is the goal.

Jenneke Reynolds: Health Departments Holyoke, Chicopee, and South Hadley
I'm Jenneke Reynolds and I work with the Health Departments in Holyoke, Chicopee, and South Hadley, and we have a relatively new mental health, well-being, and, self-help site. I would love to get send some flyers out. I think I'm going to see if I can send them out through you, Ed, and if anybody is interested in getting more information on it, my stuff is in the chat, and I'd be happy to talk to you about getting the word out about this. Thanks so much.

James Maloney: Hope for Holyoke
Hello everyone, my name is James Maloney; I'm the Assistant Director at Hope for Holyoke. We're a peer recovery support center located on 100 Suffolk Street. Open 7 days a week, 11 hours a day, Monday through Friday. We're open, Saturday 8 to 4, Sunday 8 to 3. We have a lot of opportunity for people to come in and grow in their recovery. We offer recovery supports, recovery coaching, referrals, and opportunities to grow in recovery. Membership is a simple process. 3-step process, come in, get a tour of the center one day, the next day you come in, you fill out the membership application, there's no cost. Final step is attending one of our member orientations. We have 6 a month now. We're a bilingual community, offering services in English and in Spanish. Our monthly calendar is available. If you'd like to put it out on our mailing list, you can certainly reach out to me. We have a couple of programs also attached to us. We have Highway to Hope, which is a detox transportation program that'll help, get people to a detox across the state, and the Massachusetts Ambassador Project, which is the gambling prevention program. If you want to get in touch with us to set up some times, we'll wait your call. We're always ready.


Heather MacInnes: Scouting America – Western Mass Council Office
Hi, I'm Heather MacInnes. I'm with the Scouting America Western Mass Council Office. I also run the Scouting units here in Holyoke from kindergarteners all the way through, we have programs till you age out 21. We actually have our very first girl, in our Sea Scout ship. The girl is going to be making Eagle, so we are very excited to have the very first girl in Holyoke, actually achieve the rank of Eagle. Her community service project is actually building flag retirement boxes. So, she's worked really hard on accomplishing that.

We have a meeting tonight with the troop meetings for the boys and girls troops. We meet at Mount Tom Lodge on Thursdays, and it goes by Thursday for one Thursday's Cub Scouts, next Thursday is the troop meetings, and we have on Wednesdays our Sea Scout meetings, which are from 14 to 21, and we're available for all youth to help teach them life skills, to social skills, to leadership roles. Once I get the information on when the Eagle Court of Honor will be for our girl that has achieved it in Holyoke, I'll be sure to share it around and I just had to put her on blast as being the very first Eagle in Holyoke to achieve that rank.

Gloria Penagos: Holyoke Community College
I’m Gloria Penagos from Holyoke Community College with Workforce Development. We still have 3 other trainings that are open for your clients in case that they are looking for a job. We can provide the training. For hospitality we have an October 15th next week, another one in November 5th. The Line Cook, the last one will be October 20th, and the North Sea also will be on October 10th. I probably will contact you to see if Mary can present in February, or when there’s a chance to present because this training has been an amazing training, and people really benefit from that. That will start on December 1st. I will send this, email to you with all the information. Thank you so much, and let's continue a smile.

Gladys Lebron-Martinez: Alianza
Good afternoon everyone. My name is Gladys Lebron Martinez and I'm the Community Engagement Coordinator with Alianza. I put on a lot of the information on the chat but we have several events coming up. There's one on October 16th, it's a friend fundraiser for Alianza that we use these resources for those kind of resources that sometimes we cannot use from other grants to support our survivors. As well as there is a November 6th event coming up that I'm seeing that Veronica Garcia also posted about a faith community, kind of, Domestic Violence event coming up that is free of charge, and we're hoping to gather more faith community to come out. Just letting you know that we're still doing the project on this prevention effort, this is one of 10 that people applied, and we were one of them who got this funding. It's to work with the Latinx community with a community assessment that's going to be released. We are being guided by an advisory board that exists of 15 individuals of many different provider sectors, and we have even named the project, and the project is called Basta Ya. If you guys seen the card that I just uploaded it's the program that was named after our advisory decided a name on it and voted on, and what we're targeting, and the subgroups, and where we're servicing. So, please if you could keep your minds open in regards to possibly your clients that when we are ready to do our one-on-one interview or community focus group, and possibly online replying to the survey, we would love to hear from your clientele. Thank you so much.

Georgie Brown: One Holyoke CDC
Hi, my name's Georgie. I work for One Holyoke CDC as a Community Engagement Coordinator. We have a couple things coming up. First of all, we're hosting a series of bilingual candidate forums for the Holyoke's municipal elections. That's going to be the week of October 20th, so if any of you guys are based in Holyoke, we'd love it if you would share that information. We're trying to get as many people to tune in as possible. Then our annual community dinner, which is in its 10th year, will be in December, but we're already starting to look for volunteers and sponsors, so I'll put that flyer in the chat as well, if you or anyone you know is interested. Yeah, and that's it from us. Thanks.

Elizabeth Veillette: Center for Human Development
Hi, everyone! I'm a navigator for CHD's Diversion, Shelter, and Housing Division, and I have no updates for you other than being really excited to see so many of my friends here.

Elizabeth Rogers: Bay State Family Advocacy Center
Hi everybody, I'm Elizabeth Rogers from the Bay state Family Advocacy Center. We provide trauma-focused services to young people up to age 24 who've experienced or witnessed a trauma. We have a specialty program for young people if they're at risk or experience commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking, and then we have another specialty program for any age if somebody's lost somebody to homicide. I do want to update people. We started a new group this week for parents who are raising a child who is exposed to substances in utero. We're running a concurrent parent group, parent caregiver group and children's group, and it's been really well received so far, so I can be mobile for the parent group if people are interested in that in the future. And then at the end of the month beginning of November we’ll be launching a virtual support group for parents who've lost a child to homicide. We had an in-person one in the summer, and we'll also be starting a hybrid group for adult siblings who've lost a sibling to homicide, so I'll send all the flyers to Ed when they're ready to send out. So, you don't have to be a client, like, a current client of the FAC for those groups. You can be a community member, and I'll also be sharing our calendars with Ed, probably by tomorrow to send out. So, thank you, everybody.

Dirk Vernon: Northeast Center for Youth and Families
Hey, how's everyone doing? My name is Dirk Vernon; I am the new outpatient clinic director at NCYF. I just wanted to talk about our services. We have outpatient, we have in-home therapy, we have therapeutic mentor, and we have medication management. The coolest thing is that we have immediate openings for medication management. So, please, we're right over the mountain in East Hampton. If anybody has any needs for outpatient, medication management, therapeutic mentor, or in-home therapy I'm going to drop a flyer in the chat just so that you could have that. Thank you.

Karen Bell: Attorney General’s Office
Hi, everyone. Today is my first meeting. Thank you so much for inviting me. I am the Acting Managing Attorney for the Criminal Bureau at the Attorney General's Office, so it's great to be a part of your meeting. I know Nia usually attends and Kiara as well. It's great to be here and I appreciate all the great work that you all are doing, so thank you.

Dave Haslam; Homework House
Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Dave Haslam. I'm the Executive Director at Homework House, which is an after-school program for students here in the city of Holyoke. We service grades 1 through 5. We recruit tutors from all over the Pioneer Valley that come and work as a one-on-one mentor and tutor for these students.
I'm going to throw in the chat here our flyer for an upcoming fundraiser; we have our Holyokey Karaoke event that's going to be at the De La Luz and the Divine Theater on Race Street on November 6th. All the funds from that fundraiser go directly to support our after-school program and summer program as well. We are currently enrolling, so if anyone knows of any students that could use some extra tutoring. They just must attend Holyoke Public Schools, and then be picked up by 6 p.m. We are open every day that Holyoke Public Schools is, so feel free to shoot a message if you know anyone who could benefit from our services or are looking to even volunteer.

Cinnamon Smith: Westover Job Corps
Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Cinnamon Smith with Westover Job Corps. I'm the Business Engagement Specialist. Westover Job Corps is a vocational training facility for young people ages 16 to 24. We are currently enrolling students, so if you have any, or know any young people who might be interested in a trade they can get their high school diploma, high set, high school equivalency here, they can get their driver's license and permit here as well. Also, we offer 14 trades, quite a few hard trades, and a couple soft trades as well. If you have any, interest, or, like I said, you have a young person you'd like to refer. I did put my information in the chat, my email is in there, so you guys are more than welcome to reach out, and I'm just glad to be here. Thank you.

Chasity Santiago: HCS Head start
Hi everyone thanks for having me. My name is Chasity Santiago; I'm with HCS Head Start. We are currently waiting listing for our program prioritizing families in Holyoke and Chicopee. We service families with pregnant parents all the way up until children are 5 years old. So, if you know any families, feel free to refer them. They do get extra points, from being referred from another agency. Thank you.

Carla Zhingre: Community Action Head start and Early Learning Programs
Hello everyone, Carla Zhingre here with Community Action Head Start and Early Learning Programs. I just wanted to share that we still do have a few part-day preschool openings in our Northampton site. So we service all of Franklin, Hampshire, and Western Hampden County. So if you guys have any families that are looking for a free, part-day preschool program, please share this information with them.

Carl Borden: Western Mass Scouting & Exploring
Hello! Heather took care of most of the stuff, but we do have our Career Development Exploring that's expanding right now. Our office here in Holyoke is open on Wednesdays, if anyone wants to go shopping for camping supplies. We have Woe coming up next weekend, which is our event at our camp, and this coming Woe, we're going to have the largest ham radio show on Earth going on. It's called the Jamboree on the Air, where tens of thousands of kids around the world talk to each other via ham radio, and the Mount Tom Ham Radio Association is hosting it. At our Woe event up in Moses, so if you wanted to come up, experience ham radio, and meet some other Holyoke people who do ham radio, its $15 a person for the day to come up from 9 to 3.

Brynn Gillis: Holyoke District Court
Good afternoon, thanks for having me today. My name is Brynn Gillis; I'm a probation officer at Holyoke District Court. Not too much of an update, although our doors are always open if anyone has any questions or needs any support. One thing that we do have going on is on Tuesday, October 21st, from 9 to 2 p.m., we're getting the support of Holyoke Park and Rec., thank you for that, Jonathan, we're hosting a cultural appreciation celebration out on Heritage Street. There's going to be vendors and live music and some dancing from local schools, so if it's open to the public, so please feel free. Roka's going to be cooking up some burgers and dogs, and, we'll have coffee and tea and all of that kind of stuff, so if you're able to stop over, we'd love to see you.
Austin Bechler: Springfield Rescue Mission Workforce Development
Hey there, Austin Bechler, Springfield Rescue Mission Workforce Development Coordinator. We are excited for everything that's been going on. We just keep getting people that we get to serve, especially out there in Holyoke. So, we thank you, and if there's any ways that we can better serve your city, by all means, please let us know, and I would love to work with you in that. We have two events coming up. This Saturday, we have our All Cars Car Show, held by the Corvette Club, and they are being generous and giving their proceeds to us, their proceeds towards our organization, all the proceeds, so, free to go out to and attend, and, obviously there's a fee for the actual competition part of it.

Then on the 24th of October, we have our second annual gala event, which is our biggest fundraiser of the year. I’m still looking for some gift card donations and some different prize donations and things. So if you or your organization would be willing to contribute anything by all means reach out to me. So, I've kind of seen that there was two major areas that people would like to see worked on, and one of those is maintaining parks so that they're being family-friendly and welcoming and inviting for the community. As well as filling in sidewalks, especially for our individuals with disabilities. I have a couple of ideas that if you or your organization or somebody you know might have some sort of way to help me talk through some of that, please let me know. I appreciate it.

Art Lobdell: Holyoke Rotary
Today I wanted to mention several things coming up. We're looking for folks to be joining our organization, which does community service for the City of Holyoke and beyond. Our upcoming meetings are 8 in the morning at Egg & I, 10/15 and 10/29. Come on out, and then at the public library on 10/20 that's for lunch.
Again, we do all sorts of things from community cleanups. We're working now on a campaign to bring books into Holyoke schools. We're going to be delivering books to each and every school for 3rd grade. Again, need folks to get involved with us on those kinds of projects both working on them and delivering the goods. We're doing an ongoing plastics recycling project to add benches around the city. We recycle plastic and it gets turned into benches. In March, we're going to be hosting a youth leadership conference at Dean. It's for high school students from all over, Massachusetts. Hopefully we'll get some representation from the City of Holyoke, so work with us on that. So come on out and join the Holyoke Rotary Club as soon as next Wednesday morning, 8 o'clock, at Egg and I. Thank you.

Angelique Rodriguez: Holyoke Community College
Hi everyone, my name is Angie Rodriguez, I use she/they pronouns. I work at Holyoke Community College. I work specifically in the Office of Admissions on the degree credit side. I have just one reminder, registration for spring classes that are beginning in January opens up on 10/27. So if anyone you know or you are looking to get into school for this upcoming semester, classes fill up pretty quickly, so just try to apply soon so you can get in. Reach out to me, though, if you have any questions. Thank you.

Aleyx Bernard: Pa’lante Transformative Justice
Hi my name's Alex Bernard. I am the drop-in manager here at Pa’lante Transformative Justice. We serve youth 13 to 19 years old. We have a lot of resources here, but I think our biggest catch with the youth is that we pay them. So, we have a lot of political workshops and educational workshops that they can attend, and they get paid. We also have showers, washers and dryers, a food pantry that they are able to access. We have clothes, computers, you name it, we mostly have it, and therapy on-site as well. We also provide transportation, so if a youth is looking for a ride, we only do transportation Mondays and Wednesdays, so we can provide transportation on those days. On top of that, we also have our second annual Haunted House. It's going to be on Halloween this year, and it'll be run, some of you guys might know, Kayla Rodriguez, so Kayla Rodriguez is one of our staff members here, and she's going to be helping facilitate the Haunted House. Thank you.

AJ & Milly: Hope for Holyoke
Hello, I'm Milly I'm a recovery coach at Hope for Holyoke. Hi, my name's AJ. I am an Outreach Coordinator at Hope for Holyoke, a peer recovery center. We don't have much information because James Maloney gave it all. We don't have much to say, but I'm here, I'm a recovery coach. Whoever needs me, I'm here anytime for help.

Abbie Germain: Viability, INC
Hi everyone, good afternoon. My name's Abbie. I wanted to mention that we were approved to have a trunk at the Trunk or Treat, Eddie, so we're going to be signing up again this year. We've been there many years in the past; it's always a good time.

My name's Abbie, I represent Viability. We're non-profit serving communities in Holyoke and across the state of Massachusetts. We also have programs outside of the state of Massachusetts as well. For those of you that is new, welcome. Our mission at Viability is to assist folks with disabilities and other disadvantages through a variety of different programs. We offer community-based day programs, adult foster care, we have clubhouses, we even have youth programs for students with special needs in high schools, and much more. Another major part of our program is our employment services, so we help our job seekers prepare for interviews, create resumes, and find jobs that are going to match their skills and abilities. I'd love to connect with you or someone in HR, or other folks that make hiring decisions in your agency, so I can learn more about your employment needs. Hope to connect in the future on that. And I think that's it. Yeah, I think that's it. Thank you.

Edward Caisse: Hampden County Sheriff’s Office
Thank you, Abby. I just put that link back in about the Trunk or Treat event, and thank you for the ad, Abby. It is a good event, a lot of families come out, and so what's cool about it is, we run 12-week basketball leagues, so we get a lot of kids in the league, but it's cool to see the families. It's cool to get additional touches at different activities in the community, like the Trunk or Treat event, so that's the thing I like the most about it.

The other thing I wanted to mention is, a couple weeks ago, I sent out flyers. If you have any youth, we're kicking off our registrations; the registrations actually have been open for the last two weeks for our upcoming basketball league. We're anticipating about 350 kids. We're going to have 3rd grade to 12th grade, so we have 4 different leagues, a 3rd and 4th grade league, a 5th and 6th grade league, 7th and 8th, and high school. I am going to send those flyers out again. If you're working with any youth or families that have young kids that want to play in the basketball league, pleases share with them. We're going to be doing our evaluation starting in 2 weeks, and we do three weeks of evaluations, and then in November we'll have a draft, we'll make the teams, and we open up our season in December. So, I just wanted to throw that out.

In closing, I just want to say thank you to each of you for all the work that you do, day in and day out, trying to make impacts with youth and families in our community. Thank you for what you do, and we'll see you guys soon. Have a great weekend.

CHAT NOTES:

Carl Borden W.Mass Scouting & Exploring
The Great Adult Lie... Next week will be less busy

Abbie~ Viability, INC
Abbie Germain, Business Developer Viability, INC agermain@viability.org 413-217-0348

Jenneke Reynolds
Jenneke Reynolds, Shared Service Coordinator CPV PHD jreynolds@southhadleyma.gov

Edward Caisse
Ed Caisse, Hampden County Sheriff's Office: https://forms.gle/cnauM4DuwW4hBcYGA

Chasity Santiago
Chasity Santiago Family Center Admin here at Holyoke Chicopee Springfield Head Start. Enroll Main line: 413-417-7779 Email: Enroll@headstart.org

Carl Borden W.Mass Scouting & Exploring
Carl Borden, Scouting America, Career Development Exploring Director. 850 High St, Holyoke, 413-594-9196 x 7003. Store Open Wednesdays 9am - 4pm. carl.borden@scouting.org website www.wmascouting.org

Chiara McNally (AGO)
Chiara McNally, Paralegal MA Attorney General's Office, chiara.mcnally@mass.gov

Angelique Rodriguez
Angelique Rodriguez (Community Outreach and Admissions Counselor for adult and non-traditional students). My contact is arodriguez@hcc.edu or 413.552.2243.

Brynn Gillis
Brynn Gillis Holyoke District Court Probation
(413) 493-0221
Brynn.gillis@jud.state.ma.us

James Maloney- Hope for Holyoke
Hello everyone,
James Maloney,
Assistant Director of Hope for Holyoke Peer Recovery Support Center
jmaloney@gandaracenter.org
413 315 5798

Julia Popkin, Community Legal Aid
Julia Popkin, Senior Supervising Attorney, Family Preservation Project, Community Legal Aid, jpopkin@cla-ma.org

Mark Prehn
Mark Prehn, Outreach Ombudsman with the My Ombudsman program (free assistance for MassHealth members). mprehn@myombudsman.org; 617-977-4348.

Dave Haslam - Homework House
Dave Haslam - Homework House - dhaslam@homeworkhouseholyoke.org

Elizabeth Veillette
Hi all! Elizabeth Veillette, CHD's Diversion Shelter and Housing Division, Navigator. eveillette@chd.org, 413.266.9840

Gladys Lebron - Martinez
Gladys Lebron -Martinez, Alianza Community Engagement Coordinator working on a prevention Domestic Violence project in Holyoke Chicopee, Springfield with subgroups of young adults 1+, survivors, mature adult 55+, GBLTQ, individuals with disabilities, we are going to be doing a community assessment thru email, one - one interviews, focus group to hear what is understood about domestic violence and see what may be the resources and the issues we need to be addressing. My contact information is (413) 363-3737 and email glebron@alianzadv.og




Aleyx Bernard
Aleyx Bernard- Pa'lante Transformative Justice, Drop in Manager. aleyx@palanteholyoke.org We have a month full of events and a Haunted House on Halloween!

Messiah Allah
Messiah(Elhajj) For Pact-Holyoke & Unity Building LLC & Messiah's Mobile CPR Training Service. 413-693-5199

Cinnamon Smith
Good Afternoon everyone, Cinnamon Smith, Westover Job Corps, smith.cinnamon@jobcorps.org,

Messiah Allah
Housing Specialist For Pact-Holyoke

Abbie~ Viability, INC
Check Out Viability- Homepage - Viability

AJ & Milly
AJ Beatty (they/them), Hope for Holyoke Peer Recovery Support Center/ abeatty@gandaracenter.org

Gladys Lebron – Martinez
Gladys correction on young adults 18+ missed the number

Cesar Cruz
Good Afternoon- Cesar Cruz, CTS Acting Manager Westover Job Corps & Director of Communications for the Latino Scholarship Fund

Chiara McNally (AGO)
Complaints with our office can be filed in person or online. We only collect information that is necessary to a complaint. Thanks everyone!

AJ & Milly
Good afternoon, My name is Milly recovery coach at Hope for Holyoke.

Sicry Garcia
Hello everyone! I hope everyone is doing good in this chilly day. Outreach and Event Coordinator at Nuestras Raices. At Nuestras Raíces we offer: Farming program, community gardens, Servsafe Certification Class, we rent Commercial Kitchen. Today I want to highlight the upcoming workshop we will have in Nov. 6-8 from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm. This workshop is in Spanish.


Shellie Daries
Shellie Daries
Foster Care Recruiter
Western Regional Office
1350 Main Street
8th floor
Springfield MA 01103
Phone: 413-452-3247
413-781-4482 fax
Email: Michelle.Daries@mass.gov
https://www.mass.gov/foster-care

Carla Zhingre
Enrollment Generalist at CAPV-Head Start & Early Learning Programs, czhingre@communityaction.us, Office: 413-387-1224

Aida Rivera
Holyoke Public School
Homeless Education Services Assistant and Enrollment Clerk airivera@hps.holyoke.ma.us
(413) 534-2000

Diosdado Lopez-martinez
I will be on for 25 minutes. Just an fyi. Another meeting at 1:30pm today.

Therese Ross
Rick's Place Grief Support
Hi from Rick’s Place! We provide free grief support to youth (ages 5-18) and their caregivers after the death of a sibling or parent. We facilitate peer grief groups in area schools and also provide professional development about the impact of grief on youth and families. We also offer community loss response and resources and referrals. Email: info@ricksplacema.org

Zenaida Smiley
Choice Recovery Coaching serving all of Mass and beyond. my role is Community Engagement Specialist and currently we are offering Recovery coaching at no cost to the recoveree.

Abbie~ Viability, INC
Zenaida, thanks what's your email?

Heather MacInnes
Scouting America Western Massachusetts Council- Holyoke Scouting units ages Kindergarten to 20 years old- for all youth- heather.macinnes@scouting.org

Zenaida Smiley
aww sorry zenaida@choicerecoverycoaching.org

Gladys Lebron – Martinez
Enclosed a friend raiser information for Alianza on 10/16/25

Brynn Gillis
Thank you for all this great information!

Ben Abbott, Community Legal Aid
Ben Abbott, Case Manager, Family Preservation Project at Community Legal Aid. Happy to take questions by email as well, babbott@cla-ma.org. (413)686-9082.

Julio Torres
Hello everyone, my name is Julio Torres. I work for the Hampden County Sheriff's Office. I'm the Holyoke Ward 3 Coordinator. Please to meet you all. My email is holyoke.ward.3@gmail.com
My number is 413-858-0286

Veronica Garcia
I’m so excited to invite you to a powerful night of celebration on Oct 23 at 5:30 PM at the Sheraton Springfield — the Bridge Builder Award Celebration! We’ll be honoring inspiring leaders who are making a real difference. I’d truly appreciate your support by joining us and sharing this with others who believe in building stronger communities. Let’s make an impact together! 🎉🙏 Info & tickets: https://cruzandopuentes.org/oct-23-event/. Visit our website: https://cruzandopuentes.org

Diosdado Lopez-martinez
Good afternoon Ed

Veronica Garcia
Hello Diosdado, can you please share your email and phone number?

Gladys Lebron - Martinez
A networking Faith community event on domestic violence please see detail to register and reach out to Ashley Figueroa afigueroa@alianzadv.org or (413) 887-1610

Zenaida Smiley
Nice job!

Heather MacInnes
Flyers for Scouting in Holyoke for all you ages 5 years old (In kindergarten) through aged 20 years old

Veronica Garcia
With much love, we would like to invite you to a Free Dinner on November 6 at 5:30 p.m., at 214 Elm Street, West Springfield, MA.
It will be a time of unity and hope, where together we will reflect on “Breaking Cycles of Violence” with the guidance of three speakers who will inspire us to keep building safe communities.
Your presence will be a blessing. Register here 👉 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdZuSY551cbclC33qC3Dc2g3pjtx_FMQkAWifAAp6xXeNzvAw/viewform?usp=send_form&usp=embed_facebook

Mark Prehn
Feel free to reach out to our outreach team with any questions! 617-395-6610; communityoutreach@myombudsman.org. More info on our website at www.myombudsman.org. Thanks!

Sicry Garcia
This Friday October 10th Join Nuestras Raíces at Cuenta Comingo Community Garden along with Umass extension department of Urban Agriculture to learn about sustainable ways to maintain your garden soil health.

Kim Lee
Good afternoon everyone. klee@miravistabhc.care 413 264 3042. Also, we are able to detox inpatient as well with a primary diagnosis of mental health.

Ivelisse Lozada
Sorry but my audio does not work.

Eleana Mejia
We are having problems with our audio camera. We just want to let you know that we are still in the process of selling the South Holyoke homes and will be holding open houses every Saturday in October from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Interested parties can't come to the corner of Sargeant and Clemente Streets.

Zenaida Smiley
Congrats Girl power !!!! fly like an eagle

Eleana Mejia
Im having issues with the audio. Thanks Julio

Elizabeth Rogers
Elizabeth Rogers, Baystate Family Advocacy Center, Elizabeth.rogers@baystatehealth.org 413-794-9816

Dirk Vernon
Please save these flyers!! Utilize as needed Thank you!

Cesar Cruz
Apologies everyone, have to step away. My name is Cesar Cruz and I am the Acting CTS manager for Westover Job Corps and the Director of Communications for the Latino Scholarship Fund of Western MA. We currently have our Hispanic Heritage Month Fundraiser going, and we just had our Information Session to join as a board/committee member. You can reach us at communications@latinoscholarshipwesternma.org. Thank you for having me in the meeting, take care!

Karen Bell
My email is Karen.Bell3@Mass.gov

Aida Rivera
Hi everyone just an head up my audio not work I am Aida Rivera-Holyoke Public School, Homeless Education Services Assistant and Enrollment Clerk With the partnership of C2C, we have coats to provide to the community, which will be distributed to community partners.
airivera@hps.holyoke.ma.us
(413) 534-2000

Carl Borden W.Mass Scouting & Exploring
Next weekend at Moses Scout Reservation WHOA event in Russell MA, will be a HAM Radio event with Mt Tom Ham Radio club that will speak with thousands of youths around the world. $15 per person www.wmascouting.org/whoa


Gloria Penagos
Gloria Penagos - HCC workforce development - Free Job Training Programs | Holyoke Community College
Solar Tech FREE Training - Clean Energy & Green Jobs Training | Holyoke Community College

Heather MacInnes
Our Scouts in Holyoke are always looking to help out in conservation projects.

Aleyx Bernard
Aleyx Bernard- Drop in Manager at Pa'lante Transformative Justice, nonprofit org. aleyx@palanteholyoke.org and 413-200-0624 We have a month full of events most that are paid for youth (13-19yrs) to attend.. We are located at 220 Linden Street in Holyoke and we are open Monday -Friday 3-7pm. Also on October 31st we will be hosting our second annual haunted house!

Art Lobdell Holyoke Rotary
Help make Holyoke a better City join us Egg and 10/15 8 am. Literacy Project for 3rd grades in Holyoke. Holiday Gifts Clean Ups plastic recycling. Youth Leadership dg.7980.2728@gmail.com

Edward Caisse
https://forms.gle/cnauM4DuwW4hBcYGA

Abbie~ Viability, INC
Thank you Community Legal Aid!! Viability is a nonprofit agency serving Holyoke and communities across the state of MA and outside of that. Our mission is to assist folks with disabilities and other disadvantages through a variety of programs and services. We offer community based day programs, adult foster care, clubhouses, youth programs for special needs students in high school, and more! Another major part of our program is our employment services. We help our job seekers prepare for interviews, create resumes, and find jobs that match their skills and abilities. I would love to connect with your HR department or with those that make hiring decisions at your agency. I hope to make that happen in the near future to learn about your employment needs.

Close Meeting 2:30pm






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