It Takes a Village, Dr. Martin Wohl, and Greenfield Savings Bank celebrated

NORTHAMPTON—United Way of the Franklin and Hampshire Region held its annual meeting online last week, offering two awards in partnership with the Daily Hampshire Gazette and three awards from the United Way alone.

The United Way’s Kay Sheehan Spirit of the Community Award was presented to It Takes a Village, a nonprofit in Huntington. The Community Champion Award went to Dr. Martin Wohl, a dentist from Northampton who is a longtime global and local activist and advocate, and Greenfield Savings Bank was named the 2022 Workplace Champion.

In conjunction with the Daily Hampshire Gazette, United Way honored Robin Bialecki, executive director of the Easthampton Community Center, as the 2022 Person of the Year, and Lilly Fellows, of Orange, was named the Young Community Leader.

“Our annual meeting is always a wonderful opportunity for us to express gratitude to our partner agencies, donors, volunteers, and the community at large, and we are honored to also be able to present awards to activists in the community who offer so much support and ask for nothing in return,” said Geoff Naunheim, United Way’s interim executive director.

Before offering the awards during the lunchtime Zoom meeting, outgoing Executive Director John Bidwell gave a brief overview of the year in review, and Naunheim offered a look ahead.

Bidwell talked about the highlights and efficiencies of the recent merger between the Franklin and Hampshire county United Ways and said the increased need brought on the agency by the pandemic may be beginning to ease. “That doesn’t mean our work is done,” he said. “Agencies continue to face shortages and continue to scramble to find donations, items, and volunteers. The needs have not abated.”

Naunheim gave an overview of upcoming fundraising campaigns and recognitions.

Claire Higgins, executive director of Community Action Pioneer Valley, presented the Kay Sheehan Spirit of the Community Award to It Takes a Village, a United Way partner agency that encourages and supports parents and caregivers in developing their own postpartum networks, decreasing the isolation that is common in rural areas, and improving connection to communities.

The agency also provides family resource kits containing safety supplies and information, provides families with specialized car seat loans for premature infants, and it operates a Home Visit Program and The Village Closet in Huntington, this year’s winner of the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network’s Nonprofit Excellence Award in the Small Nonprofit category. 

In the past two years, largely due to the pandemic, It Takes a Village saw a dramatic increase in need as families ran into COVID-19-related challenges due to missed work and lack of childcare.

“The school site housing The Village Closet program in Cummington was shut down,” Higgins said. “Within a matter of days, they transformed the program into a delivery-only model that focused on their most high-risk families. The first month of this new model resulted in over 80 deliveries to homebound and hospitalized clients. That number was double the total number of deliveries in 2019.”

The Community Champion Award, presented to a local individual or group that contributes to the United Way mission and creates positive, lasting change in Franklin and/or Hampshire counties, was presented to Dr. Martin Wohl by his daughter, Dr. Carina Wohl. 

Carina told meeting attendees that her father’s long history of service began in Washington, DC, in 1975, when he co-founded the Georgetown University School of Dentistry Children’s Dental Education Program. Two years later, Marty Wohl was commissioned as the founding dental director for the National Health Service Corps at Hope Medical-Dental Center in Estancia, New Mexico, where he worked for three years.

In 1981, Wohl and his wife, Marisa Labozetta, moved to the Valley, and Wohl was the founding dental director of the Worthington Health Center, which became the Hilltown Community Health Center. Later, Marty started the Wohl Family Dentistry in Northampton.

Wohl has led dental missions in Ecuador, served as adjunct clinical instructor and consultant for six years at the Dental Hygiene and Sciences Department of Springfield Technical Community College, led the Valley District Dental Society as chair, and he has been involved for two decades with United Way’s dental campaign.

“It is no surprise that Dad’s community support extends to other local organizations,” Carina Wohl said. “He is co-founder and endowment chair of the Northampton Education Foundation Endowment. He advises Grow Food Northampton, Center for New Americans, and Abundance Farm as well as a member of Local Roots Care, a giving group especially concerning sustainable food supply. In 2007, Wohl was given the Northampton Community Enrichment Award.”

Molly Mead, a United Way board member, presented the Workplace Champion award for running an exemplary United Way workplace campaign to Greenfield Savings Bank.

A longtime supporter of United Way, Greenfield Savings Bank has continually placed employees on United Way boards and committees and donated over $600,000 in the past decade. 

The bank made a generous gift of $10,000 to match the first 100 donors of $100 in June for the United Way’s 2022 $100,000 in Our 100th Year Campaign.

“These gifts are crucial, but giving back to the community is much more than cutting checks for Greenfield Savings Bank,” Mead said. “The bank shows up. It is common to see bank staff at events across the community. They are visible. They ask questions. They listen. They help.”

To learn more about United Way of the Franklin & Hampshire Region, its partners and mission, visit uw-fh.org.

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Local artist makes $76,000 bequest and anonymous donor gifts $100,000 to the nonprofit serving Franklin and Hampshire counties

NORTHAMPTON—United Way of the Franklin and Hampshire Region recently accepted two major gifts totaling $176,000, enhancing the power the organization has to impact the lives of people in need across Western Mass.

A $76,000 bequest was arranged by the late Hale Johnson, an artist from Colrain who passed away in April, and an anonymous donor gifted $100,000.

“We are thrilled with these incredibly generous donations and the fact that they come so closely together is also meaningful,” Donor Relations Manager Holly Martineau said. “Gifts of this magnitude allow United Way to reach more people and transform more lives. All gifts, in all amounts, help us support people living without ample means, and gifts of this magnitude give us even more power for change. The power of these two gifts alone will impact many for years to come.”

Johnson and his wife of 55 years, Lorraine Johnson, who passed away in 2016, were community supporters of organizations such as the Colrain Fire and Rescue, Dakin Animal Shelter, and the Franklin Land Trust. In tribute to his late wife, Johnson made a sizable donation to the Greenfield Public Library Foundation in 2020, as Lorraine Johnson was a longtime member of the Friends of the Greenfield Public Library.

Lorraine Johnson was an avid reader, the founder of two floral businesses, and the founder of the Foundation for Fiber Arts in Amherst.

Hale Johnson’s paintings capture the countryside of the Valley as well as coastal Maine and Northwestern England. Done in the American Realist tradition, his work is often compared to that of Andrew Wyeth and Eric Sloan. Johnson was known to be perceptive, compassionate, and generous throughout his life.

The donor of the anonymous $100,000 gift lives in Franklin County.

“We are grateful to these generous donors, and we will respect and honor their legacies and stewardship,” Martineau said, noting the announcement of the two donations offers the United Way the opportunity to educate people in the Valley about the importance of giving and the various ways to donate.

Martineau said all gifts to United Way of Franklin and Hampshire Region benefit local people with real needs.

She said donations come to the organization through many avenues, including corporate pledges and individual gifts made on the Donate tab at uw-fh.org or those mailed to the organization.

Gifts can also be made through wills, estate plans, and other disbursements.

Individuals can name United Way as a beneficiary in their will, make an outright gift of cash or appreciated stock or real estate, name United Way as the beneficiary of a retirement plan or life insurance policy, or establish qualified charitable distributions through their investments or IRAs.

A $230,000 bequest received in 2005 from the late Frederick Ames was one that United Way leaders say changed the future of the organization—as well as the futures of many people in need who have been supported since as a result.

The gift from Ames, an active community supporter, eliminated the need for United Way to operate from a line of credit, providing a financial foundation that allowed the agency to focus more on services.

“United Way still relies heavily on the generosity of our neighbors, so that we might assist more neighbors,” Martineau said. “We welcome gifts of any size, and we acknowledge that major gifts continue to give us the longterm security and strength we need to remain a committed presence in Franklin and Hampshire counties.”

To learn more about United Way of Franklin and Hampshire Region or to make a gift, visit uw-fh.org.

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In past years, I have written the stories that appear in United Way of Hampshire County’s annual campaign report. This year, the agency is telling its tales in blog form to raise awareness. United Way of Hampshire County funds 34 programs that deliver 21,687 acts of service per year. Over 250 volunteers give over 5,000 hours of their time. I am proud to be able to help spread the word about this trusted, important organization. What follows is a recent blog I penned.

There is a deep need to get diapers into the hands of parents and onto the bottoms of newborns and toddlers. 

People cannot use food stamps or support from WIC to purchase diapers, and let’s face it, they are not a luxury item, even though they come with a steep price. Diapers can cost up to 50 cents apiece—or $4 or $5 per day—and that is more than some families can manage without making difficult choices, such as whether to buy diapers or their child’s next meal. 

More than an economic issue, the lack of affordable diapers is a health matter for infants, as they are exposed to more health risks without frequent, clean changes. The problem also poses mental health dangers: Stressed out parents raise stressed out children. 

Barbara Black, formerly the early childhood coordinator for Northampton Public Schools, is passionate about meeting the need for affordable diapers, and she came to United Way of Hampshire County five years ago to encourage us to start a diaper drive. In that first year, we gathered roughly 33,000 diapers to give away to parents. We later teamed with Amherst Survival Center to fundraise and provide diapers through annual drives.

The demand continued to exceed our supplies, though, as it did in Franklin County, where the United Way had established a diaper bank and was donating 6,000 to 10,000 diapers per month to parents, continuously fundraising to replenish.

Now, all involved individuals and organizations have banded together. Bolstered by a grant from the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, we are collaborating with the United Way of Franklin County on a single United Way Diaper Bank that is a member of the National Diaper Bank Network. We provide 14 partner agencies with diapers to disperse to parents.

In July, the new bank distributed 9,100 diapers to families in need. We are thrilled with the program’s success and relieved to be able to meet the need. As we explore a merger with United Way of Franklin County, we are excited to have a model program that so well showcases the success and growth we can achieve together. 

We have worked in unison with United Way of Franklin County for decades. A merger will better serve the region through shared programs like the diaper bank, increased capacities like with fundraising, and allow new efficiencies, such as grant processing, which we’ve already begun to meld. 

The diaper bank was the first and most defined collaboration to date, and it was made possible in March through a $35,000 grant from the Community Foundation’s COVID-19 Relief Fund. As the pandemic cost people their jobs, buying diapers became more out of reach for some and out of reach for the first time for others. Need increased quite a bit.

We are excited that the grant funding helped us purchase just over 190,000 diapers, which we received at a discounted price of 18 cents per because of our new membership in the National Diaper Bank. 

Parents who need affordable diapers don’t need to worry about where they will get them. Through the new diaper bank, diapers are available at Community Action’s Family Center, Franklin County Community Meals Program’s Orange Food Pantry, The Center for Self-Reliance Food Pantry, Montague Catholic Social Ministries, Leyden Woods, It Takes a Village, The Children’s Closet in North Leverett, Greenfield Community College’s Food Pantry, the Good Neighbors Food Pantry in Charlemont and the West County Food Pantry in Shelburne Falls, Amherst Survival Center, Easthampton Community Center, and Jubilee Diaper Ministry.

At least for now, our regional United Ways don’t need to worry about where the funding will come from to provide. The grant, the partnership, and the diaper bank membership offer us all a huge, collective sigh of relief. 

State Rep. Mindy Domb, D-Amherst, who led the Amherst Survival Center for many years and was a critical part of the diaper drive efforts in Hampshire County, is now working to meet diaper need on a larger scale.

With Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli, D-Lenox, and Sen. Joan Lovely, D-Salem, she has filed a bill that, if passed, would create a new fund offering grants to nonprofits that distribute free diapers. The trio hopes that an initial, one-year pilot program could provide funds for up to 12 organizations in the state. 

While this kind of effort will also provide relief, we know the need will continue, and we will need to assess it, and fundraise, continually. And you can help.

Funds can be earmarked for the diaper bank, and we also accept in-kind donations throughout the year. Please contact our office before dropping off as our hours have changed due to COVID-19. 

Click here to make a gift or learn more. 

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