Community Day

AARP Foundation Tax-Aide provides tax assistance to anyone, free of charge, with a focus on taxpayers who are over 50 and have low to moderate income. Tax-Aide is the nation's largest free tax assistance and preparation service. Our volunteers are IRS-certified every year, so they understand the latest changes and additions to the tax code. As an AARP Foundation Tax-Aide volunteer, you’ll receive training and support, learn new skills, and connect with people in your community while helping others. We're looking for volunteers for a variety of roles. You can have fun and feel good knowing you're making a positive impact with a team of volunteers.

Berkshire Center for Justice, Inc., a nonprofit, charitable, public interest organization was founded in 2006 by Attorney, Eve Schatz. As of mid-2017, we’ve served over 3,200 clients and their families, in a wide variety of legal and social issues. Her vision to create a legal/ social/community program that was user-friendly and never turned anyone away was clear and made her a pioneer in the field. When BCJ was founded, social service organizations didn’t address legal issues. Lawyers didn’t address social and community needs. Recognizing that legal, social, and community issues are inseparable, the Berkshire Center for Justice was designed with this in mind. Bridging and addressing this trinity of issues together profoundly benefits clients while strengthening the community. BCJ helps Berkshire County residents who are experiencing very real barriers to accessing the civil legal counsel they need and deserve by holding weekly free legal clinics, providing sliding-scale direct legal services, teaching clients how to self-advocate where appropriate in the legal system, offering community education programs, conducting interviews, and speaking publicly about the ways law and social issues interface. By networking intimately throughout the community and listening closely to client needs, BCJ is positioned to collaborate with existing health, educational, housing, domestic violence, and women’s organizations to identify gaps in services and help fill those needs without duplicating services. These collaborations allow those with expertise on various legal and social issues to work together, all in greater service to the community. We have 24 attorneys, two accountants, and two mediators, who volunteer pro bono and reduced-fee professional services to BCJ clients. We’ve helped people across a range of issues, including single mothers avoiding eviction, elders recovering money from insurance companies, and entrepreneurs getting the legal and zoning support they need to develop their new businesses.

Berkshire Pride's mission is to provide safe spaces and events where LGBTQIA+ community members can live and thrive as their authentic selves, not only during Pride Month but also throughout the year. Berkshire Pride Fest is the Berkshires' annual LGBTQIA+ Pride Festival & Parade. Started in 2017, Berkshire Pride welcomes over 1,000 members of the LGBTQIA+ community in The Berkshires and beyond. Every June, with our community partners, we come together to show our pride, celebrate our successes, and stand in solidarity with the marginalized.

A 501(c)(3) therapy dog organization operating in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. We train and certify therapy dog teams and provide therapy dog services to facilities in Southern Berkshire, Columbia, and Litchfield Counties.

CHP Berkshires spans Berkshire County with nine practice locations in Great Barrington, Lee, Pittsfield, Adams, and North Adams, providing medical, dental, and nutrition services. Our CHP Mobile Health team carries on our long and effective practice of taking health care on the road, to find people where they are and where they need care. Each year, we care for more than 30,000 Berkshire area residents, and we promise care to everyone who enters our practices, regardless of insurance status.

Storytellers use the art of drag to read books to kids in libraries, schools, bookstores, and beyond. DSH captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models. In spaces like this, kids can see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where everyone can be their authentic selves!  ​Drag Story Hour (DSH) was created by Michelle Tea and RADAR Productions, under the leadership of Julián Delgado Lopera and Virgie Tovar, in San Francisco in 2015. It started out as drag queens reading stories to children in libraries and grew into a global phenomenon! DSH now offers literary and creative programming for kids and teens of all ages led by drag queens, kings, and all other royal beings!  DSH is a national 501 c 3 non-profit with a global network of local organizations, each of which is independently managed and funded.

The Eagles Trombone Ensemble was formed in 2012 as an outreach of the Eagles Community Band located in Pittsfield and has grown from 5 members to 20. At present the group consists of 16 trombonists, 2 tubas, 1 French horn, and a percussionist. The group performs mainly pop tunes from the 40’s through the 90’s and also has an extensive Christmas repertoire performing often during the holiday season. In addition to many performances in the Berkshires, the Trombone Ensemble has performed on NPR radio and was the first group to be invited to perform twice at the Linde Center on the Tanglewood Campus.

The mission of Elder Services of Berkshire County, Inc. is to provide Berkshire elders, caregivers, and individuals with disabilities the opportunity to live with dignity, independence, and self-determination, and to achieve the highest possible quality of life. Elder Services practices nondiscrimination in employment practices and service delivery. Embracing diversity, our in-home and community-based services are available to all without regard to race, ethnicity, language, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or lifestyle.

Heart & Soil Collective’s mission is to connect people to the land where their food grows, making healthy food and hands-on nature experiences accessible to all.

The mission of the Lenox Library is to connect our community to resources and programs that encourage lifelong learning and celebrate our collective history and culture. The Lenox Library strives to enhance the quality of life in our community by: - Offering a wide array of engaging, high-quality programs for all ages - Maintaining collections and resources that support life-long learning in the community - Improving access to and promotion of the Local History Collection - Providing a welcoming and comfortable community space where individuals can connect with one another and to the resources they need and enjoy

The Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum, Inc. is a not-for-profit corporation, dedicated to preserving the Birthplace and raising public awareness of the wide-ranging legacy of the great social reformer, Susan B. Anthony, who was a pioneering feminist and suffragist as well as a noteworthy figure in the abolitionist, opposition to Restellism (opposition to abortion), and temperance movements of the 19th century. As part of its mission, the Museum will highlight the familial and regional influences that shaped Ms. Anthony’s early life, by displaying the textiles and furnishings of that period, as well as the literature and other memorabilia associated with her ​later career.

Love Of T’s mission is to promote access to and address gaps in behavioral healthcare services while building relationships and fostering community conversations on how to promote systemic change.

UCP of Western Massachusetts — an affiliate of the United Cerebral Palsy Association — was established in 1961. UCP of Western Massachusetts offers service navigation, direct programming, assistive technology, and advocacy for any individual, regardless of disability, to pursue a fulfilling, self-determined, high-quality community life — a life without limits.

Ventfort Hall is an imposing Jacobean Revival-style mansion built in 1893 for Sarah Morgan, the sister of J. P. Morgan. Designed by the architects Rotch & Tilden, it is located in Lenox, Massachusetts. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and declared an official project of “Save America’s Treasures,” a Millennium program of Hillary Rodham Clinton and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Ventfort Hall is the home of The Museum of the Gilded Age. Ventfort Hall was one of the approximately seventy-five so-called “Cottages” built in Lenox in the late 19th century when the village became a popular Gilded Age resort. Located on spacious grounds in the heart of the village, we are continuing its restoration, with the first floor completely open to the public along with many of the rooms on the second floor. Through lectures, exhibits, theatrical performances and other events, The Museum of the Gilded Age interprets the great changes that occurred in American life, industry, and society during the Nineteenth Century, a fascinating period of American history.

Will Kempe’s Players is a regional theater cooperative from Troy, N.Y. that produces a wide range of theatrical performances utilizing the methods used by William Shakespeare and his contemporaries. We aim to create quality experiences by promoting an inclusive creative environment and making Shakespeare’s works engaging and accessible to modern audiences while retaining historical authenticity.