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Pittsfield Rotary Club seeks host families for a Rotary Youth Exchange student. We are seeking families to host an exchange student for the 2025-2026 academic school year. Students typically stay with a family for 3-6 months (ideally, we’re looking for 3 families to cover the academic year) and will receive training and support from Rotary to make this a success. Currently, we believe we are looking to welcome a student from Argentina to Pittsfield.
Briefly, we are looking for families to provide a safe and welcoming environment for trust and friendship to develop between the student and your family. This includes providing room and board for the student. All students must have their own bed. If the student must share a room, it should be with a child of the same gender and similar age. Successful families will teach the student about the local culture, and learn about the student’s culture. The Rotary Club & District have Exchange officers & councilors to help support the student and families to make it a successful year. You can find more information about being a host family in the Rotary International guide for host families: Do you know someone that would be a great host? Maybe your house is a little empty these days? This is a great opportunity to welcome a student here and share our wonderful community with them. Hosts report that it is such a fulfilling experience for the host family, too. We're hoping to identify families to serve as hosts, so that at maximum it would be a commitment of half of the school year including someone new in your family. What do you say? Can you volunteer or recommend someone? Please share your ideas with me. Give me a call -- 413-441-8036 -- and let's figure out something great for a student! Thank you for your consideration, -Alex Alex Reczkowski Pittsfield Rotary Club Secretary. |
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President Tom Bernard declared the "choice was easy" as he announced immediate past President John Hudnall as the 2025 Butler Award winner. John is the vice president of CT Brigham, a family-owned wholesaler of paper goods, chemicals and supplies for the hospitality industry. John was taken aback by the award - while he may have been surprised, Members were not as John is truly a dedicated Rotary member and works hard to promote Club ideals and programs. Representatives of Sparks Tower joined the awardee at his second home, Antimony Brewing in Lenox late Thursday afternoon where he was still ever grateful for the special honor. John and bride Jess live in Pittsfield along with their son Jackson and daughter Juliana. The Butler award is presented annually by the Club President in honor of a Rotarian that best embodies the qualities of the namesake Don Butler. Like John Hudnall, Don Butler was a devoted family man, committed to his profession and his community. Cheers and congratulations to this year's Butler recipient, John Hudnall! 
Stephanie Bergman, development director of Berkshire Grown was our guest speaker last week. She explained the important work her organization does including supporting farmers with business, technical, financial, and marketing support for their small enterprises. The group works hard to help sustain and strengthen local farming and food production. They directly operate a winter farmers market or two and provide technical support for other farmers markets in the area. Ms. Bergman urged us all to support locally raised food and the farmers that produce the bounty. The group supports food banks and families suffering from food insecurity and conducts various workshops in furtherance of their mission.
Leslie Loffredo, pictured nearby, co-president of the Elizabeth Freeman Center in Pittsfield accepted a $5,000 award from the Foundation in support of a security system purchase for the organizations new headquarters om Allen Street near City Hall. The Freeman Center recently moved into their new space and welcomed a new director in Divya Chaturvedi. The new space is better suited for their mission of "providing life renewing help to survivors of domestic and sexual violence and their families" Ms. Loffredo explained that their new digs are a much more welcoming space, especially for children as a play area has been added. The group sees more than 4,000 people a year in need of their special services.