Great Barrington — Although retiree Thomas “Tom” Jones was celebrating a milestone on October 12, his 70th birthday, he wasn’t scarfing down a steak dinner at a fancy restaurant or cruising on a dream vacation. Instead, he joined other Friends of Moe volunteers at their annual golf tournament at Great Barrington’s Wyantenuck Country Club, directing traffic, checking in teams, and helping serve spaghetti with meatballs at the VFW dinner afterwards.
What started out as a $4,000 donation stemming from a very small group of pals seeking to honor their friend’s memory 15 years ago has morphed into a philanthropic endeavor worthy of 10 times the earnings of that inaugural event. Friends of Moe (short for “Maureen”) is a South County-based nonprofit organization that raises funds to help local folks in need.
“Some of these people who are in trouble, I know,” said Jones, a lifelong resident of Great Barrington. “That’s what it’s all about.”
Only in her mid-30s at the time, the group’s namesake, Maureen Snyder, was diagnosed with leukemia in May 2002, passing away from complications nine months later and leaving two young children in her wake. For Monument Mountain High School basketball coach Randy Koldys, also of Great Barrington, Snyder was the “love of his life.” “I was devastated because I was madly in love with her,” Koldys said of Snyder’s death. “I just wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.”
Although he said family and friends honored her in typical ways after her death, “there was definitely something missing.” In 2010, with his history of running an annual golf tournament for the school’s basketball program, the idea of administering a similar event in Snyder’s memory was a no-brainer for Koldys. As one of the inaugural tournament’s planners, Jones said the group wanted to keep the endeavor “local.” Raising $4,000 that first year, members chose to donate the proceeds to a Mount Washington family whose husband/father struggled with skin cancer which had spread to the rest of his body.
“You would have thought when we gave it to that family, we gave them $400,000,” Koldys said. “They were just so excited by the fact that we were trying to help them out.”
The initial tournament, held at Egremont Country Club, tallied about 18 teams, he said. At around the same time, Friends of Moe became a registered nonprofit organization.
As the group grew its volunteers, its annual donations followed—first $10,000, then $15,000, and, as of the 2024 tournament, $40,000 was accrued from tournament entries, raffle prizes, and outright gifts from businesses and individuals.
“This particular tournament, we broke all our records,” Koldys said of the recent fundraiser that also doubled the number of teams playing in the first tournament, boasting 36 teams of four players each.
When Egremont Country Club closed, Wyantenuck became the event’s home.
“It’s a testament to our community,” Jones said of event participants and donors, including vendors such as Mahaiwe Tents that offer their goods and services for free. He said most of the tournament golfers donate their prize winnings back to the organization.
Residents are invited to join the meal that always follows the competition. “I totally believe that the golf tournament has become secondary to just making it more and more like a community day,” Koldys said.
Over the last 14 years, through its golf tournament and a March card tournament, he estimated Friends of Moe has helped more than 60 families in need.
“Every time I lose my faith in the human race a little bit with everything that goes on in the world, we run our tournament, and it restores it to the -nth degree,” Koldys said.
The core administrative group meets several times a year to discuss allocations and provided funds totaling $34,000 to five families in 2023. Although local residents are given priority, recipients are discovered by word of mouth, with beneficiaries selected anywhere from Falls Village, Conn., to Becket. They have ranged from individuals affected by vehicle accidents, physical issues, and disease, with those funds often used to defray unanticipated added travel costs associated with treatments, such as hotel fare, gas, food, and lost wages.
“We helped somebody [who had] been bitten by some kind of bug and they didn’t know what kind of bug it was, but it basically paralyzed them for six to eight months,” Koldys said.
The group doesn’t solicit recipients but vets those who need the money before making a distribution, he said.
Jones recalled one recipient, Myron, who used to sit on his scooter in front of the Great Barrington Post Office, enjoying conversing with patrons. Only in his 40s and suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, he needed a scooter to get around until it stopped working, halting his daily greetings to those mailing letters and packages. “So, we got him a new electric scooter so he could drive back and forth to the Post Office again, restoring his whole life,” Jones said.
In a prior year, some funds were allocated to a nursing home cook with cancer who Jones said told him he “could use a little help.” “We gave him $5,000 because he was in that bad of shape,” he said. The recipient responded with tears. “I thought you guys were just giving me enough for a couple weeks of groceries,” the cook said.
For many beneficiaries, the donations are “life changing,” Jones said.
New Marlborough resident Krista Brazie said she was shocked to learn her brother, 40-year-old Eric Borezoski of West Stockbridge, had been diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, in the fall of 2017. ALS is a debilitating, deadly neurological disorder. Borezoski was working as a crewman for a construction and paving crew when he began having weakness in his hands and stumbled on the job.
“When I heard those letters, I went brain dead,” said Brazie, a teacher.
Following the diagnosis, Borezoski’s health declined very rapidly, and word spread of his condition in the Berkshires’ small towns, eventually reaching Koldys and members of his Friends of Moe team who contacted Brazie to see if they could help out.
“As a family, the hardest thing about this diagnosis is you know what’s coming down the line and there’s no help,” she said. “You feel completely alone. Insurance only goes so far. You know you’re going to have to buy every piece of specialized equipment or try to get it donated or try to fundraise.”
In the process, Borezoski’s family drained his bank accounts and retirement fund in addition to his and Brazie’s mother’s retirement accounts. Borezoski made one request from his loved ones: to stay in his home for as long as possible. “That’s where he felt safe and comfortable,” Brazie said of the avid outdoor sportsman.
After just a few months, Borezoski could no longer walk and his family purchased a four-wheeler-type vehicle that he could stand or sit in to take a “walk” through the woods, she said. “It really comes down to quality of life,” Brazie said. Just as quickly as they bought accessories to aid their brother and son, however, he deteriorated so the items weren’t useful anymore. He became immobile, with a lot of his care falling to his family.
Enter Friends of Moe. The group presented Borezoski’s family with a bank check, helping to fund nursing care, a motorized wheelchair, and massage therapist to ease his muscle stiffness.
Through his family’s actions and the generosity of people like members of the Friends of Moe, Brazie said her brother was able to remain in his home until the last few months before his death in January 2019.
To Koldys, those sentiments pay homage to Snyder. “Our goal is to keep Moe’s memory, her spirit, her love, her courage alive,” Koldys said. “And we just don’t want anyone to forget her because that’s the kind of person she was. She was such a giving person, such a wonderful woman. She would do anything for anybody and never ask for anything back. We don’t ask for anything back, we just want to try to help.”
For more information, see Friends of Moe’s Facebook page or contact Koldys at (413) 717-0606.