NORTHAMPTON — The Downtown Northampton Association will host an annual Holiday Stroll on Friday from 5 to 8 p.m.
Main Street will be shut down between Masonic Street and Crafts Avenue to allow the community to come together in celebration of the season. Offerings include marshmallow roasting, live music, arts and crafts activities, and more.
FLORENCE — Florence Bank has provided a gift of $10,000 to Mass Humanities to help the organization make history and culture more accessible to residents across the state.
The private foundation is in its 50th year, serves all of Massachusetts and is an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Launched on the campus of the University of Massachusetts in 1994, Mass Humanities has been in Northampton for 20 years and recently announced a move to Holyoke.
Brian Boyles, executive director of Mass Humanities, notes that the bank’s gift will be used to help fund two of four key initiatives, the Clemente Course in the Humanities and Reading Frederick Douglass Together.
The Clemente Course is an adult education program offered in partnership with Bard College in six cities across the state: in western Massachusetts, at the Holyoke Care Center and Martin Luther King Family Services in Springfield. The program provides access to those in economically disadvantaged households so they can study history, philosophy and literature, critical thinking and writing and public speaking.
Reading Frederick Douglass Together is offered annually in 60 towns across the commonwealth, where Douglass’ Fourth of July address is read aloud publicly.
NORTHAMPTON — Black art, history, faith and culture converge in a new three-part documentary series exploring the Black experience in western Massachusetts. “Legacies: Stories of Black History in the 413” offers three stories of Black resilience, including one woman’s journey to find her roots, the work of pioneering AfriCOBRA artist and muralist Nelson Stevens, and the enduring history of Mount Calvary Baptist Church and its congregation. “Legacies” premieres Thursday, Dec. 12 at 9 p.m. on NEPM TV, the region’s public television station.
The series is a production of NEPM, based on three projects funded through Mass Humanities’ Expand Mass Stories initiative. It is hosted by Erika Slocumb, director of interpretation and visitor experience at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford, Connecticut.
In addition to the broadcast premiere on Dec. 12, each film in the “Legacies” series will be available to watch online at nepm.org/legacies. The documentary will also air on NEPM -TV on Thursday, Dec. 12 at 9 p.m.; Saturday, Dec. 14 at 7 p.m.; and Sunday, Jan. 18 at 1:30 p.m.; and on NEPM World Channel Thursday, Dec. 26 at 9:30 p.m.; and Sunday Jan. 18 at 9:30 p.m.
HOLYOKE — Holyoke Community College will celebrate the grand opening of its Marieb Adult Learner Success Center, a new support program for adult learners and student-parents, on Wednesday beginning at 11 a.m.
The celebration, which will include a ribbon-cutting ceremony, will be held on the second floor of the Frost Building on the main HCC campus, between the Marieb Adult Learner Success Center and its companion resource room, the Parent Learning Center.
The Marieb Adult Learner Success Center and the Parent Learning Center are funded through a $1 million gift from the Elaine Nicpon Marieb Foundation, which was established by the late professor emerita and HCC alum Elaine Marieb, a longtime member of the biology faculty who went on to become a best-selling author of anatomy and physiology textbooks.
The Marieb Adult Learner Success Center is a small lounge and study area with adjoining staff offices. The nearby Parent Learning Center is a much larger space that contains a special desk with an attached and secure play or napping area for small children, a pack and play, changing station, large screen TV, conference table, art easel and learning corner with children’s books and toys.
Also, sometime in 2025, the college’s Itsy Bitsy Child Watch Center will relocate to a new and larger space on the second floor of the Frost Building, close to the Marieb Adult Learner Success Center and Parent Learning Center.