$100K Feigenbaum grant helps Pleasant Valley Wildlife Sanctuary improve accessibility
LENOX — Pleasant Valley Wildlife Sanctuary’s Opening Doors to Nature capital campaign is within $50,000 of its $1,125,000 goal thanks from a grant from the Feigenbaum Foundation.
The $100,000 grant will help improve Pleasant Valley’s accessibility, allowing the wildlife sanctuary to welcome a broader and more diverse audience for outdoor recreation and creative nature-based education programs.
Opening Doors to Nature supports construction of an addition to the sanctuary’s 18th-century program barn that includes accessible visitor amenities and outdoor learning spaces. The new building will open this spring and allow the site to meet the growing demand for visitation, programs, and partnerships while welcoming people of all backgrounds and experiences to forge their own connections to nature.
This is the second gift from the foundation in support of the sanctuary’s capital project.
—A.K.
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Lenox Cultural Council awards local grants
LENOX — State Representative Smitty Pignatelli and Arlene D. Schiff, chair of the Lenox Cultural Council (LCC), recently announced the award of 26 grants, totaling $12,600, for cultural programs in Berkshire County.
Grants have been awarded to the following programs: Arts in Recovery for Youth; Berkshire Bach Society; Berkshire Children’s Chorus Take the Lead! Program; Berkshire Music School 2021 Lenox Loves Music Series; Berkshire Opera Festival Much Ado About Shakespeare; Berkshire Pulse Dance Outdoors Festival; Berkshire South Regional Community Center Berkshire Ukulele Band and Sings!; Berkshire Theatre Group BTG Plays!; Cantilena Chamber Choir Outdoor concert series and Talking Choral Music YouTube Channel; Chester Theatre Company 2021 Season; Rob Zammarchi’s “Elijah T. Grasshopper & Friends”; Lenox Library Virtual Winter Children’s Concerts; Express Yourself in Pastel and Sketch Your Berkshire Neighborhood; Mass Audubon Berkshire Sanctuaries Bringing Nature to You; Music in Common Berkshires Worldwide; New Stage Performing Arts Center Inc. Rights of Passage: 20/20 Vision; Pittsfield Shakespeare in the Park 2021 Free Summer Production; SculptureNow IceFire 2022; Sara Campbell “To Indian Territory and Back Again”; Shakespeare & Company 2021 Fall Festival of Shakespeare; Stockbridge Sinfonia 2021 Concert Series; Three of Nine Reading & Discussion of J.D. Salinger Stories; Trio Candela; WAM Theatre and WildFire Sculpture.
The LCC is part of a network of 329 local cultural councils serving the 351 cities and towns of the Commonwealth. The program is the largest grassroots cultural funding network in the nation, supporting thousands of community-based projects in the arts, sciences, and humanities every year. The state legislature provides an annual appropriation to the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency, which then allocates funds to each community. The Town of Lenox also provided funding to the council for this grant cycle. Nearly half of all LCC funds support educational activities for young people.
Decisions about which activities to support are made at the community level by a board of municipally appointed volunteers. If you are a Lenox resident and would like to help shape the arts programs in Lenox and the surrounding area, contact Arlene D. Schiff at arlenedschiff@icloud.com.
The Lenox Cultural Council will seek applications again in the fall. Applications and more information about the Local Cultural Council Program are available online.
—A.K.
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Bellenchia named executive director/CEO of Columbia County Habitat for Humanity
HUDSON — Albert “Al” Bellenchia has been named executive director/CEO of Columbia County Habitat for Humanity, announced Christian Kersten, president of the board of directors.
“We are pleased to have Al taking on this critical leadership role at Columbia County Habitat for Humanity, succeeding Brenda Adams, who is retiring after 13 years,” said Kersten. “We have houses ready for families to be selected and new construction locations in the pipeline.”
Bellenchia most recently served as executive director at Abode of the Message, a retreat and spiritual center in an historic 19th century Shaker Village located in New Lebanon. He is a graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University, and has worked for AT&T, CDPHP, DuPont, Gettysburg Flag Works, and MVP Health Care. His community service locally includes chairing the Business Education Committee of the Capitol Region Chamber of Commerce, and serving on the board of directors for Friends of Lindenwald and the Tri-Village Rotary Club in Kinderhook.
—A.K.
