HOLYOKE — The Rowing Strong/Rowing Together annual Young Parents Regatta will take place at the Holyoke Rows Boathouse on Jones Ferry Road in Holyoke from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday (a rain date is set for Sunday).
Six races are planned for teams of young mothers from Holyoke, Springfield, Chelsea and Hartford. The regatta is the culminating event of the summer rowing program, designed by The Care Center and Mount Holyoke College, that brings the power of women’s rowing to underserved pregnant and parenting young moms. Rowing Strong/Rowing Together is the only rowing effort in the country that links college programs and community rowing programs with teenage mothers.
During the past three months, pregnant and parenting teen mothers have been practicing twice weekly to get ready for this annual rowing festival. The rowers started with strength building and then learned how to handle boats, row as a team, and row on their community river. This summer the program was housed at the Holyoke Rows Boathouse in Holyoke, and other clubs in participating communities.
Close to 100 spectators are expected to be on hand to cheer on the rowers. Volunteers from The Care Center, Yankee Rowing Club, Northampton Youth and Community Rowing, Clark University alumnae rowing team and Holyoke Rows will staff the event.
SOUTH HADLEY/HUNTINGTON — The towns of South Hadley and Huntington are receiving grant money from the state to make culvert repairs in those communities.
South Hadley will get $50,000 from the state to design and engineer a culvert replacement project on Pearl Street to improve stream connectivity of Elmer Brook.
Huntington is in line for $42,000 to fund field data collection for two culvert replacement projects on Bromley Road which will improve stream connectivity of a tributary to the East Branch of the Westfield River.
The funding is among $6.4 million announced this week by the Healey-Driscoll administration through its Culvert Replacement Municipal Assistance Grant Program. The money went to 14 projects designed to strengthen community preparedness for large storms, improve climate-ready infrastructure, restore flood storage capacities, and protect fisheries, wildlife, and river habitat. The funding was announced by the Department of Fish and Game and the Division of Ecological Restoration.
NORTHAMPTON — The Hampshire, Franklin and Hampden Agricultural Society, the nonprofit organization that manages the Three County Fair and fairgrounds, is making financial contributions totaling $10,000 to three different funds established to assist local farms following this year’s extreme weather events.
The funds selected include the Massachusetts Resiliency Farm Fund, the CISA Emergency Farm Fund and the Local Farmer Awards Emergency Flood Relief Fund managed by the Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation.
Each fund is providing aid in valuable ways to the farms who have been impacted by the late season frost or damaging rains this summer.
The Resiliency Fund was presented with a check for $5,000 from the Three County Fair this week at a fundraising event at the Berkshire Brewing Company in Deerfield. The fund will help western and central Massachusetts farmers, their families and their livelihoods, while also supporting food security, combating hunger and assisting farms respond to climate change.
The Three County Fair has also donated $2,500 each to both the Local Farmer Awards Emergency Flood Relief Fund and the CISA Emergency Farm Fund.
The CISA fund, in partnership with the Franklin County CDC, is offering zero-interest loans of up to $25,000 for Massachusetts farms in Franklin, Hampden, and Hampshire counties affected by this year’s extreme weather events.
The Local Farmer fund managed by the Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation has utilized their Local Farmer Awards network to communicate with nearly 300 farms following the mid-July flood devastation and has quickly supplied two rounds of relief checks to those impacted.