CHESTERFIELD — The newsletter of the Northern Hilltowns Consortium of Councils on Aging, which serves more than 2,000 seniors across seven communities, will continue on for at least another year thanks to the efforts of dedicated residents, Council on Aging directors and lawmakers.
The regional publication keeping seniors apprised of local events and resources had been in danger of losing its funding this year.
“Boy are we relieved,” said Janice Gibeau, director of the Chesterfield Council on Aging and chair of the consortium.
Money for the newsletter comes from the state Executive Office of Elder Affairs, but that grant was set to run out at the end of June. However, funding was subsequently extended for an additional year.
“It’s a story with a good ending,” Gibeau said. “At least for a year.”
Gibeau expressed gratitude for the people who wrote in support of the newsletter, council on aging directors and Reps. Lindsay Sabadosa, D-Northampton, and Natalie Blais, D-Sunderland, in working to save the publication.
For her part, Sabadosa credited the Elder Affairs Office for its decision to extend funding.
“They really found the work of the Northern Hilltowns Consortium to be really compelling,” she said.
Local councils on aging had previously produced their own newsletters, until the Northern Hilltowns Consortium of Councils on Aging successfully applied for a grant to produce an omnibus newsletter for its member communities: Plainfield, Cummington, Goshen, Worthington, Chesterfield, Williamsburg and Westhampton.
“It reaches over 2,400 households,” Gibeau said of the publication, which began its run in 2014.
The newsletter is customized for its local communities via different local sections, she said, and is delivered monthly to every household in the seven towns with someone 60 or older in it.
“That newspaper’s a linchpin for a sense of being connected,” Gibeau said.
Costs and a lack of computer literacy prevent a number of elders from accessing the internet, she said, making a physical newsletter important. “People want something they hold in their hands to read,” Gibeau said.
Going forward, Sabadosa said she plans to fight to make sure that there’s a permanent funding stream for the newsletter.
Bera Dunau can be reached at bdunau@gazettenet.com.