Historic Black churches to unite for Amherst service
Goodwin Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church will host a joint worship service Sunday, Aug. 30, at 11 a.m. with two other historic African Methodist Episcopal Zion congregations from western Massachusetts — Gardner Memorial of Springfield and Price Memorial of Pittsfield. The service will be held at 41 Woodside Ave. in Amherst, near the Amherst College campus.
The gathering is intended to strengthen ties between faith communities across Hampden, Hampshire and Berkshire counties, and is part of a broader effort by the New England District of the A.M.E. Zion Church to bring local Black churches together to share resources and launch ministries serving people in need across the region.
“Our heritage as the Freedom Church means we cannot separate spiritual healing from community service and social justice,” said the Rev. Janet Davenport, the newly appointed pastor of Goodwin Memorial. “True unity is not the absence of differences or conflict, but a passionate commitment to one another.”
Davenport added that despite being a small congregation and the only A.M.E. Zion church in Amherst, the church stands “shoulder-to-shoulder with our neighbors to ensure Amherst remains an anchor of safety, dignity, and equity for everyone.”
Goodwin Memorial’s original chapel was built in 1869 on land owned by Amherst College. The congregation officially affiliated with the national A.M.E. Zion Church in 1907, later raising funds — with help from supporters including Booker T. Washington — to purchase the land from the college and build its current church, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The A.M.E. Zion Church is known as “The Freedom Church” for its legacy of justice and abolition, with early activists including Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth among its historical supporters. The denomination continues to support underserved and under-resourced missions both domestically and globally.
Belchertown FD to demonstrate home sprinklers
BELCHERTOWN — Belchertown Fire Chief John Ingram, Belchertown firefighters and the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services will demonstrate the life-saving power of home fire sprinklers during Belchertown’s National Night Out celebration on Tuesday, Aug. 4, at 6:30 p.m. at 59 State St., in the Chestnut Hill Community School parking lot.
The demonstration will use the Department of Fire Services’ side-by-side sprinkler trailer to set two common household fires in identical rooms, one protected by fire sprinklers and one without. Spectators will see how properly installed sprinklers can contain or extinguish a fire in its early stages, giving residents time to escape while firefighters respond, compared with an unprotected fire that quickly spreads and can become deadly within minutes.
More than 80% of fire-related injuries and deaths in Massachusetts last year occurred in residential settings, according to the Department of Fire Services, even though homes are among the least likely properties to be protected by sprinklers. Officials say modern building materials and synthetic furnishings have made house fires burn faster and release more toxic smoke than in the past, allowing a typical house fire to turn deadly in three minutes or less.
A single sprinkler head can usually contain or extinguish a residential fire using about 12 to 15 gallons of water per minute, officials said, while an uncontrolled fire can double in size every 30 seconds and require firefighters to use hundreds or thousands of gallons of water to put out.
Funeral price survey now available online
The Funeral Consumers Alliance of Western Mass has published its 2026 funeral price comparison table, available online at funeralconsumerswmass.org. The table, found under the Price Comparison dropdown, allows visitors to sort pricing for immediate burial, direct cremation and other basic costs at 96% of funeral homes in western Massachusetts.
Fourteen funeral homes post their own pricing online, according to the organization, and FCAWM fills in the rest by collecting General Price Lists from nearly every funeral home in the region. The site also links to a PDF of the full General Price List for 79 of the 81 funeral homes in western Massachusetts, allowing consumers to explore the wider range of services each offers beyond the basic costs shown in the comparison table.
FCAWM compiles the pricing data every two years as part of its mission to promote consumer choice in funeral arrangements. The organization, a volunteer-run 501(c)(3) nonprofit independent of the funeral industry, also offers information on final arrangements, disposition options, consumer rights, home funerals, Massachusetts funeral and cemetery laws, and complaint procedures. Volunteers respond to inquiries by email, phone or letter and provide educational programs, speakers and newsletters, and advocate for consumer rights at the state and federal level in partnership with the national Funeral Consumers Alliance.
East-West Rail: Senate advances $5M for Palmer rail stop
State Sen. Jake Oliveira, D-Ludlow, secured $5 million to advance the future Palmer Passenger Rail Stop, marking a significant development for the commonwealth’s long-planned East-West Rail initiative. The funding came after the Massachusetts Senate adopted his amendment to a $325 million Economic Development Bill (S.3178).
The funding provides the Healey-Driscoll administration the resources and authority to move the project forward as part of Phase I of the state’s Compass Rail initiative, covering planning, design, engineering, site preparation, construction, accessibility improvements, parking and other infrastructure.
“West-East Rail is about far more than getting from one place to another,” said Oliveira. “It’s about reconnecting communities and expanding access to jobs, higher education, and healthcare, while creating new economic opportunities across western Massachusetts. Reliable passenger rail will help revitalize our downtowns, attract private investment, strengthen our workforce, and position our region to compete and grow for decades to come. Today’s investment moves us one significant step closer to making that promise a reality.”
MassDOT began the Palmer Station planning process in 2024, and Gov. Maura Healey and MassDOT selected the South of Palmer Yard site at 1199 South Main St. in February 2025 as the preferred location. The Palmer stop would serve both the proposed Boston & Albany Corridor and the Inland Route, connecting Springfield, Worcester, Boston, New Haven and other communities as part of the Compass Rail network.