Co-owners are former area educators with a deep passion for community

NORTHAMPTON—Two former area educators turned entrepreneurs will bring a new version of GoBerry back to downtown Northampton in April.

Co-owners SiriNam Khalsa and Aaron Buford will open a GoBerry ’n Cream shop at 207 Main St., a second location for Khalsa, who has owned a GoBerry ’n Cream in Amherst since 2022. 

Khalsa, of Leverett, and Buford, of Amherst, have a shared passion for engaging young people as well as a commitment to community. 

With a mission to provide locally grown and produced food whenever possible, GoBerry will offer fresh frozen yogurt made with skim milk and organic non-fat yogurt from local farms. Like the Amherst location, the shop will also offer several flavors of the locally produced Bart’s ice cream as well as moo-free frozen Banana Nice Cream and sorbet.  

“We love the new, cozy location on the sunny side of Main Street,” Khalsa said. “We are looking forward to serving the smiling faces of local customers who have missed the distinct flavor of GoBerry.”

Alex and Molly Feinstein were the founders of GoBerry, with shops in Northampton, at 80 Main St., and in Amherst at 28 Amity St. In May 2022, Khalsa purchased the Amherst location, and the Feinsteins later closed the Northampton shop. 

Khalsa and Buford met when they were both educators in the Springfield Public School system and have been colleagues and friends for 15 years; Buford and his children are frequent visitors to the Amherst GoBerry ’n Cream shop. 

When Khalsa’s daughter, Ananda Khalsa, a jeweler in downtown Northampton, encouraged her father to reopen GoBerry in Northampton, Khalsa was intrigued and invited Buford to partner with him. 

“Northampton is going to have two business owners who are very empathetic and have a desire to improve the community and reach out to people,” Khalsa said. “What’s always needed in our society are connection and communication. I think I’m good at that, and I think Aaron is excellent at it.”

Buford said, “I am attentive and committed, and I’m excited to bring my motivation and passion into building a business that is successful and has value in the community. Being a relatively young person of color, I am also excited to model entrepreneurship for youth.”

Khalsa was a teacher and instructional coach in Springfield and is a past owner of Amherst Eco Laundry. He is also a part-time instructional coach at Four Rivers Public Charter School in Greenfield, and he performs with the local jazz band, Masala Jazz. He has three grown children.

Buford was a teacher in Springfield and worked for three years at Amherst-Pelham Regional High School as the restorative justice coordinator. GoBerry will be his main occupation, but he will continue to offer educational consulting. Buford has three school-aged children, and he mentors two young men through A Better Chance.

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AMHERST—Ginny Hamilton was diagnosed with scoliosis at 9 years old and suffered chronic issues with neck and jaw pain for most of her life. For years, she tried—unsuccessfully— to reduce painful spasms using standard western medicine as well as alternative approaches.

Five years ago, acting on a tip from a friend, Hamilton, now 47, met in a private session with Lee Albert, a pain specialist at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in the Berkshires. What Hamilton learned allowed her to keep the pain at bay in a way that was “incredibly gentle and simple.”

A pain specialist herself who uses yoga and reiki as treatment modalities, Hamilton wanted to learn Albert’s treatment method, and on Oct. 15, after 300 hours of study, she was certified as an Integrated Positional Therapy Professional in the Albert Protocol for Muscle Pain Relief.

“It worked for me, so I wanted to go deeper to understand it for myself,” said Hamilton, now one of 18 people with this certification, earned after four levels of classroom instruction with Albert and 200 clinical hours, during which Albert supervised her practice on individual clients. “IPT has put my care in my own hands, and now I can teach others how to manage their pain.”

Hamilton, of Amherst, owns Ginny Hamilton Yoga and has been a Registered Yoga Teacher since 2010. She has also been studying reiki since 2013 and is currently an apprentice with Haleya Priest at Sanctuary Healing Arts Center of Amherst, seeking to become a Certified Reiki Master Teacher; she is on track to receive the credential in 2018.

Hamilton works with people in group classes, one-on-one, and she also leads workshops in the workplace. Her work is based on the philosophy that most chronic pain is caused by muscle imbalances in the body—from sitting, driving, typing, texting and other repetitive motions.

In working one-on-one with people, Hamilton said she first holds a two-hour session with a new client to hear about their physical challenges; the session includes at least one hour of Integrated Positional Therapy bodywork and reiki, received by the client while fully clothed on a massage table or yoga mat, and the session ends with a personalized wellness plan.

“Muscles work in pairs,” she explained. “We often tend to have one stronger than the other because of how we use our bodies every day. These imbalances can create muscle pain. It’s about knowing what to strengthen, what to stretch, and specific body positions to slacken and release muscle tension.”

Hamilton’s group classes are also built on the stretch-and-strengthen principle. She leads a class at the Hadley Yoga Studio in the Hadley Health Center on Route 9 on Fridays at 10 a.m., with drop-ins welcome, and at Serenity Yoga Studio in the South Hadley Village Commons, in six- or eight-week clusters on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m.

Students rave about Hamilton—as much as Hamilton raves about Albert.

Norma Friedman in South Deerfield, a student in Hamilton’s yoga classes and a private client, is a retired professor who has several physical ailments that cause chronic pain, including scoliosis and spinal stenosis.

“Those two things, on top of a work lifestyle that had me sitting, reading, and working on the computer, has caused me to have pain all 40 years of my adult life,” Friedman said. “I’ve tried a variety of modalities, and there was really nothing I could do about it except work on posture issues.”

Several years ago, Friedman attended Hamilton’s yoga class. “Within two sessions, the knots in my back were completely gone. Even my physician noticed I was sitting taller. I started to work with Ginny on a one-to-one basis,” Friedman said. “I have found remarkable results. It is just incredible, loosening muscles when they get too tight. It seems so logical to me that the stronger my back muscles become, the straighter I stand and the better I feel.”

Hamilton also leads workshops in schools and businesses around the Valley. Diane Chamberlain, the principal of Fort River Elementary School in Amherst, brought Hamilton in this fall to lead a self-care workshop for staff during a professional development day.

“There was a 100 percent success rate,” Chamberlain said. “Ginny was fantastic and lovely and receptive to different questions people had. It was a great educational opportunity for our staff, and they learned stretches they put in practice right away for themselves, and they are also teaching what they’ve learned to students.”

Likewise, Kara Noonan Pear, director of Human Resources at Noonan Energy Corporation in Springfield, said Hamilton led workshops for about 35 employees in March and May after a technician—who she helped with a muscle-release suggestion while he was servicing her boiler—raved about what he learned.

“She showed them stretches to do on the job and at home,” Noonan Pear said. “I wasn’t sure how the techs would respond. I thought they might be cynical or skeptical, but many employees came to me and thanked us for doing the sessions.”

Hamilton is the former executive director of the Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston and the former policy director of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless. She holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Tufts University. She writes a parenting column for the award-winning Hilltown Families blog.

She is a member of the International Association of Reiki Practitioners and the Yoga Alliance.

For more information, visit ginnyhamilton.com or contact Hamilton at 413-253-0949 or ginnyhamiltonyoga@gmail.com.

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AMHERST—Pathlight will offer its second annual Film Festival, featuring 11 short documentaries highlighting relationships in people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, on Sunday, Feb. 26 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.

“We wanted to focus on a broad range of relationships and highlight how important relationships are within the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” said Brittany Brown, development and communications coordinator for Whole Children in Hadley, a program of Pathlight.

“We would like the films to inspire meaningful conversation and to promote greater inclusion and greater understanding of people with developmental disabilities,” Brown added. “The films help to show that people of all abilities are looking for the same types of meaningful relationships in life.”

Pathlight is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Springfield, and it has served people with developmental and intellectual disabilities throughout western Massachusetts since 1952.

Brown said several Whole Children parents connected Pathlight last year to a nonprofit called Sprout in New York City, which helps people with developmental disabilities to enhance socialization opportunities through various events, including its annual touring video offerings.

Pathlight’s first offering of the Sprout films was so successful it sold out with a waiting list. “We knew it was definitely something the community responded to and something we would like to do again,” she said.

This year, in addition to the films, the event at The Carle will also include a discussion on relationships to be led by three teachers in Whole Children’s Boundaries and Relationships program: Pete Smith, Chris Harper and Liana Marks.

Maggie Rice, Whole Children’s director, will offer an introduction to the discussion.

Event tickets cost $10, and Brown recommends anyone interested in attending buy them in advance through www.wholechildren.org, given last year’s sell-out. The ticket price includes a wine and cheese reception after the films. Five College Realtors is underwriting the cost of the event.

The festival will also be showcased in Ludlow on Sunday, March 26 from 1-4 p.m. at the Paul R. Baird Middle School.

In Ludlow, the films will be offered in collaboration with an event called Pathlight Making Dreams Come True, which will have a carnival atmosphere and feature activities for people of all ages and abilities, including storytelling, games and face painting. A donation of $5 is suggested at the door.

The following are the names and descriptions of the films, which range between three and 12 minutes in duration:

• “Wayne.” A man with limited communication skills learns the harsh reality of love and romance.
• “What Would You Change?” People with intellectual and developmental disabilities answer the same question, “If you could change one thing about yourself, what would you change?”
• “The Best Thing We Ever Done.” Two couples from New Zealand share their personal stories of how they met and the challenges they faced.
• “Can I Call You?” Ben is a young man looking for the perfect relationship but wonders if the fact that he has autism changes the way girls relate to him.
• “I Love Grilled Cheese.” Libby provides some insight about the joys of living with her best friend, and big brother, Max, who has Down syndrome.
• “Fixing Luka.” Lucy thinks her brother, Luka, is broken; inspired from the filmmaker’s experiences of growing up with a younger brother with autism.
• “Family Life 8 mins.” A profile of Clement and Karen Lefebvre and their two children.
• “3:15 to Brunswick.” A romantic connection between two people waiting for a train that never arrives.
• “Brooklyn Love Tales.” A personal look into the lives of three couples with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
• “Be My Brother.” A young man’s charm and charisma challenges the prejudices of a stranger at a bus stop.
• “Bumblebee.” Despite being told as a child he would never speak or walk, Vance accomplished what doctors thought was impossible. But now he has a new challenge: dating.

For more information about the films, visit Sprout Film Festival, at http://gosprout.org/sprout-touring-film-festival/. For more information on the local event offering, contact Brittany Brown at Brittany.Brown@pathlightgroup.org or 413-585-8010.

About Pathlight:

Pathlight was founded in 1952 by five mothers of young children with developmental disabilities. It was the first organization in Hampden County dedicated to serving individuals with an intellectual disability. Pathlight currently serves children, teens and adults throughout western Massachusetts with residential and employment supports, recreation classes, autism services, social skills training and performing arts programs.

Pathlight programs include Residential Supports, Shared Living, Adult Family Care, Autism Connections, Whole Children, Milestones, Valley Tees and Family Empowerment.

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Founder Jordie Kern said Northampton native Susie McCrea was hired recently to assist the team in recruitment and strategic planning for the expansion of 7 Eagle Group. McCrea joins four other local staff members: Kern; Chris Caffrey, a former captain in the U.S. Marine Corp; Bob Clark; and Lorrie Dragon, a U.S. Army veteran. David Davidson, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL, of Stuart, Fla., and Megan Johnson of Queens, N.Y., work remotely for the firm.

“Our growth allows us to better serve our clients across the country who are interested in connecting with America’s highly qualified military veterans,” Kern said.

“Our military veterans are dedicated, loyal, multi-skilled and have can-do attitudes,” Kern added. “They have risked their lives for our freedom and deserve our support in finding them great careers that match their talents.”

McCrea said, “We assist military veterans employed in the civilian workplace to secure even better positions that align with their talents. 7 Eagle Group also partners with veterans transitioning from the military to ensure that they are placed in the best job possible. It’s a win-win for both the employer and the military veteran.”

Employers and veterans seeking more information can visit www.7eagle.com or contact McCrea at 413-537-4083.

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The livery business began when Gary Bosselait and his sister Valerie bought a van and a telephone answering machine in 1986 and started taking reservations for and delivering passengers to area airports and train depots, including Bradley International Airport, Logan and JFK.

Now, Valley Transporter employs more than 40 staff members, including reservationists, round-the-clock dispatchers and drivers, and it holds to a commitment of diversity.

“Our fleet is clean and well-maintained,” Bosselait said. “It has achieved an economy of scale that allows it to provide affordable 24-hour local transport on demand, and charters are a growing part of the business.

“Valley Transporter has taken its place in the local economy by making airports readily accessible,” added Bosselait. “We not only provide a service, but we help stimulate commerce by being a trusted part of the regional transit network.”

Passengers who travel with Valley Transporter include college students, vacationers, business travelers, groups and individuals coming to the region for events and conferences, and people in need of a ride to and from medical appointments.

Valley Transporter provides hourly shared rides from Northampton, Amherst, Springfield, Greenfield and other towns and cities along the I-91 corridor to Bradley, most for under $60, including tip. With 10 fuel-efficient minivans and 10 larger vans, the Amherst-based company takes reservations by phone, email and online at www.valleytransporter.com

Bosselait said that Valley Transporter has weathered setbacks that included the virtual standstill in travel in the months after 9/11, which would have put it out of business without the help of its bankers. “We are proud that slow and steady growth has made us a stable and reliable part of the expanding livery sector in western Massachusetts,” he said.

A Worcester County native with family roots in the travel industry, Bosselait is committed to keeping Valley Transporter a responsive, energetic and professional enterprise into its fourth decade.

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Schieffer, 38, is a clinical herbalist, holistic health consultant and Shiatsu practitioner who specializes in complete holistic lifestyle consulting. His wide range of expertise covers digestive health, food allergies, sleep troubles, muscle tension and pain, restoring vitality and acute and chronic sports injuries. He also operates his own practice, called the Vital Herbalist, out of CLINIC Alternative Medicines in Northampton.

“It’s a great opportunity to work within an integrative medical practice,” Schieffer said, noting that at Amherst Family Practice, traditional doctors, behavioral providers and complementary practitioners all contribute their perspectives to patients’ care. “I was impressed by how open the physicians are to working collaboratively and with the team meetings in which staff look at patient conditions from all angles,” Schieffer added.

Given his background in naturopathic medicine, Schieffer said he hopes to be a resource so that the “science of life,” as he calls alternative medicine, is accessible to patients, and his holistic work will supplement the more traditional approach of the practice.

For three years, Schieffer took courses with the East West School of Planetary Herbology. He was also the head medicine maker at an herb farm in Conway, and he apprenticed at the Goldthread Herbal Apothecary in Florence. He has owned the Vital Herbalist for the past two years.

Atkinson Family Practice is located at 17 Research Drive in Amherst. The practice team includes three physicians, three physician assistants, one psychologist, four social workers, a nutritionist, massage therapist, physical therapist and clinical staff.
For more information on Atkinson Family Practice visit www.doctorkate.net.
For more information on Schieffer or Vital Herbalist, visit www.vital-herbalist.com or call (413) 320-5063.

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