October 2026

Holyoke Safe Neighborhood Initiative
Meeting Notes


Date: October 8, 2026
Time: 1:00pm to 2:30pm
Place: Zoom Meeting


Mission Statement: The Holyoke Safe Neighborhood Initiative is a partnership between local, state & federal law enforcement; city & state government; civic & human service organizations; faith based organizations; the business community; education providers; property managers; and residents coming together with a goal to create safe, healthy & economically viable neighborhoods through information sharing, identifying at-risk youth, referrals and community efforts in specific Holyoke neighborhoods.

Welcome & Introduction 1:00pm - 1:05pm
I just want to welcome everybody. My name's Eddie Caisse, I'm actually retired from my full-time job at the Sheriff's Office, but I'm still working 16 hours a week, and I'm always going to work side-by-side with Mike, continuing to drive the Holyoke Safe Neighborhood Initiative.

I ask folks if you could, please keep yourself on mute until it's your turn to speak, and I just want to go over what the process is going to be. When we do our Zoom meetings, which are a little different than our in-person meetings. I welcome everybody like I'm doing now, and then I turn it over to a speaker. So today, from the Public Health Institute of Western Mass, we're going to have Francesca Bermudez do a presentation, and then we will do a round robin to give everyone an opportunity to mention their name, agency, agency resources, any upcoming activities or events. At this time, I will turn it over to Francheska Bermudez and Liv Anna Homstead from the Public Health Institute.

Francheska Bermudez and Liv Anna Homstead: Public Health Institute 1:05pm - 1:30pm
Thank you, Ed, for looping us back in here. Hi, everyone, my name is Francesca Ramirez. I work at the Public Health Institute of Western Mass. Our office is in Springfield. But we do a lot of regional work, across all four counties of Western Mass. My colleague, Live Anna Homestead is also here on the call, and we are, for the most part, the faces of 413 Cares, which is, we're your support for this platform, which I'll get into momentarily.

I'm a project manager at the Public Health Institute. I work on a variety of things, but 413 Cares is a special project that we manage here at the Public Health Institute. So, I'm going to start sharing slides. I have a couple of slides to share, just overview of the platform, what our intended purpose and use for the platform, some tips, you all can hopefully, know and use for your work. And then I'll shortly demo the platform and then have time for some questions at the end from you all. But before I get started, just want to know, either if you're on camera, show of hands, or in the chat, if folks have familiarity with 413 CARES. Do you use it, have you heard of it? Maybe just haven't, don't know much, or went into the weeds of it, it'd be good to kind of know. Alright, I see some thumbs up, I see some hands. So, a lot of us have familiarity either with knowing what it is, or have heard of it, or maybe you use it. So, I hope wherever you fall on that spectrum, you come out of this with at least something new that you that you've learned that maybe you didn't know about 413 Cares before. So, I'm just going to get started.

Can everyone see my screen okay? And then if folks have questions in the chat, I'm just going to ask my colleague Liv Anna to either respond or just jump in if there's anything I can answer while I present.

So, 413 cares, what it is, it's an online community resource, base platform, directory, folks refer to it differently, but basically it's a platform where folks can find free or low-cost, resources across all of Western Mass, but really, nationwide, because we do partner with Find Help, who's a national, platform that kind of looks for these services and have it on their platform, but we're just a Western Mass branded version of it. So, I say this because there are folks that, maybe they're on the cusp of, like, going into Worcester County or other counties in the state and, see that 413 Cares is mainly for the 413, but that is not true. You can put in any zip code you'd like and get programs based on that zip code.

This platform is completely free to use for both individuals looking for resources, but also for organizations to have their services on here and have the capability of doing some case management with the platform. If you are in a helper role and you have clients, patients, and community members that you are looking for services and trying to help them out, you can for sure use this platform for that as well. I did mention the programs on this platform are free or low cost direct social care services. Information on here is secure, especially on the back end for like any case management tools that we have. It's HI TRUST certified, FERPA, and HIPAA compliant.

With this platform, as you use it, like I mentioned before, Liv Anna and I are your technical or training assistants, that we can provide for you or a team or your organization on how to either be using this platform to help people, or how to have your services on here and manage referrals and things like that as we get through it.

We do have an advisory board that guides 413 Cares and its development since we started and launched in 2019, a little before COVID. We've had, over the years, some partnerships with regional partners to kind of get our word out. To this day, there are some folks that have never heard of 413 Cares. We always think of ways to promote and get the word out that this platform exists to be a tool and to help the community and those who serve the community. Some regional partners have, been BRPC, Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, to help us spread the word, in Berkshire County, as well as up in Franklin and Hampshire County, we've had partnerships with Community Action Pioneer Valley, United Way, etcetera.

The platform is currently being funded by state earmark, and we, at the Public Health Institute, we manage this and keep this running. Over the past, I mentioned we launched in 2019, and we've tracked data on how folks are using the site, and each year since we've continued this database. There are more people using 413 Cares. So more than 200,000 searches have been done on the platform, people looking for services. We have more than 4,000 programs listed on there and there's plenty of users, especially last year. In 2025, we've seen, really high peaks in interactions, so folks clicking around on the platform, clicking on different programs, and those are all things that we like to see to make sure that this platform is useful for the community.

What can you do on 413 CARES? Other than searching for services by your zip code, there are some capabilities that folks that work at community-based organizations, and have services on here; you can have ways to track your program. One of the things I like about having this platform is having the bidirectional referrals.

Sometimes when we send out referrals, we want to refer someone to a food pantry or to a housing navigation program or anything like that; you can send the referral out and then, not know what happened to it. Did the person get the help? Did someone contact the person? Maybe they no longer are eligible, things like that. There's this gap of not knowing what may happen to this individual. So, the platform does have the capability of having that update at any moment. The client you know got the help or they didn't, or whatever the status is, you can always be notified of what happened with the client. The program you are able to access, like, reporting, so you can see, like, the data that you make on referrals, or the data if you have a program on there, you can see how many people click on it, and have interacted with your program, things like that. For any referral data, or things like that that you may need for your program. You can have that as well. And here I have a little screenshot of, like, an example of a program.

We have the United Way Holyoke Community Cupboard; this is a food pantry in Holyoke. And they have, here in the big teal button, a refer button, and they track their own referrals, and you can see what happens if the person was able to get food and have been able to access the pantry. There are again, two folds of how to use this program on the platform. You can do the searches and help someone, or do the searches on your own behalf, but then there's also the second layer, if you are a CBO, if you work on an organization that has their services on here, or maybe it's not on here yet, and you want to be on the platform. There are free tools for managing your program, for seeing data, for really promoting your service on here and getting folks access to your services. But other than that, we are more than just a platform to just search for programs. We've, over the years; have created a lot of resource pages based on either topics or populations.

Like just last year, we put out six new resource pages for people to access and this is a way to kind of put in one place a bunch of information and organize resources to respond to the need and the priority topics that are happening here especially locally in Western Mass. So that folks can get key information and services on a particular topic or a region. We created a page for the Berkshires; we created a page for Quaboag Hills. Some challenges with resources in rural areas, so we've created partner pages with them. But also, pages for immigrants and folks that are serving or helping immigrants and their families, veterans, older adults, etc. And so, we, through creating these pages, we have created also a list of resources that people can then use for a variety of different things, which I'll get into in a moment. And then, we've been on top of posting information to address federal changes that are impacting MassHealth, or that have impacted SNAP in the past, so we want to be a place where people can find good key information for all these things that affect, our region here in Western Mass.

I'm going to shortly demo the site. I believe everyone has some familiarity with the site, so I won't get into the nitty-gritty of it all, but just to show you, maybe familiarize yourself if you haven't seen it in a while; I'm going to make this a little bigger. Here's the search widget. Like I mentioned, this is the start of the page where you can put in your zip code and do the search and go in to find help to find all these services. But then these are the resource pages that I was just mentioning that we've created over the years, and we now have a lot of them that you can access, outside of the six I showed on that slide. We have pages for food, housing, we have a new transportation page that we just created within the past couple weeks. And these are just key information and resources for Western Mass that folks can know and learn about, especially for folks that maybe feel a little intimidated with doing a search.

There's a lot of information on the homepage, I won't get into everything, but when you have time and want to browse, feel free to check out our blogs, our videos, and things like that. I'm going to put in a Holyoke zip code, just for the point of just doing a search. And before I go into the search programs, just want to note for those that either don't know or maybe don't use this tool a lot, our homepage can always be translated into any language. There's a little language toggle here on the right side, so you can view this page and variety of languages using Google Translate, but also when I did the search, and I'm now in the Find Help section of it all, where I can start looking for programs and searching things, this is where you can put in a zip code or keyword. Under that, you can also toggle it to be in any language. I know a lot of us work with a lot of communities and a lot of folks that maybe English isn't their first language, and so I just want to highlight that this is a resource and a tool that folks can access in their native tongue.

For the sake of just demoing something shortly, I'm just going to search for food pantry. So, I'm going to go under food, and there is a category for food pantry. I can also type it here at the top and it’s going to verify that I'm not a bot. And we'll see some of the pantries here that are shown here in Holyoke. So, you'll get a map, you'll start getting these program cards, is what we call it. This is the screenshot of the one I used. So, the way people can set up how you connect to the programs differently. Some of them have a referral process in place. Others want you to go to the food pantry or call. The buttons can look a little different based on how the organization has set it up. If you see a check mark, that means someone that works there claimed it, and so they have access to edit all the information on here. If it doesn't have a check mark, it means it's unclaimed, and we or Find Help periodically check to make sure that links work or that the information is still as accurate as can be, and part of our job is to do outreach to organizations to make sure that they're on here and to claim it. That's the best way for folks to have accurate information, real-time updates for these programs.

With all these buttons you can click for more info or sharing. You can share a program. I may be working with someone that maybe, I don't know, Russian. I can send this to them with a short little message, and it'll be emailed to them in any language I deem, for this individual. You don't need an account to access any of these services, but if you are in a helper role, or if you want to, just have an account, it is free, it only uses an email and a password, but it gives you the ability to save programs.

If I wanted to create a folder of all the food pantries in Holyoke, or maybe I'm working with an individual, and they have a lot of needs, and food insecurity is one of them. I can start saving programs, either named after this individual or just gather a more city-wide food pantry list, and I can just create it, save it, and it'll generate a list of programs that I can use for anything I may need it for. So, for that feature, you would need an account.

You can, you're more than welcome and have access to doing referrals and actually going through the motions of accessing services. At any moment, if I go through all 23 pantries and there's one missing, I can always suggest the program there. It usually is a link all the way at the bottom on the footer, but we also have this link on our homepage. On the right, there's a suggest a program, and it'll go through the motions of making sure that maybe the web the program doesn't exist under a different name, and if it's not on there, you can go through the motions of putting in as much information as you know. To get this program added, and find help, we'll investigate and put the program on there.

Liv Anna and I also have capabilities of adding a program, so at any moment, you can also contact us to, you know, give us information or give us contacts to who we should contact for the best information for adding the program, and go through the motions that way. And then lastly, what I do want to mention. If I started, making folders of the food pantries, under your profile, there's a Save Favorites. And it generates folders for a lot of things, especially on our resource pages.

I just have one open, called our food pantries list and this is something I can create a link to, so I can share this with someone via a link, and you can hyperlink it anywhere on a website, an email, a newsletter. You can create a QR code so that folks can see this list of food pantries. You can email it to someone, or you can create a team or a group here on 413 Cares and share it with a group, that's another way of using favorite’s folders. This would be like; if you're interested in doing a more of a deeper dive on the tools for community organizations to really do some case management. I'm happy to follow up and do part two and get into the nitty-gritty of what that looks like, and how that looks, and how it can be implemented in your organization.

I just wanted to give you a little teaser, you do have access to some program tools, you can see any inbound referrals, you can get a tab like people you help, and what the status is for that. And maybe I can show you here. Definitely for folks that may want to learn more and do some more case management and how this platform can help with that. So, for example, here we have a demo program. So here in our demo program, I use my colleagues as a test if I'm doing a referral. In here, I can see if I change the status, people will get updated on that. It'll create a little profile for the person I'm helping, and you can use the profile to write in any notes, or any goals with the client, or all these different case management tools you can use for this.

I won't get into the nitty-gritty of that now, just because that would need a more follow-up and more time. But if you're interested in learning more and need more guidance or help with 413 Cares. We're happy to follow up and do that with you all. And that's really it for just showing the platform, and it's more kind of overview of it and how to use it. Liv Anna, feel free if there's anything you want me to show before I go back and finish up with the slides, just let me know.

Liv Anna Homstead
There's a couple questions that came through the chat that I'll make sure we respond to as you finish up, because they relate to some of the other things I know you're going to touch on, so.

Francheska Bermudez
Okay, sounds good. All right. We came here to the meeting, Ed asked me to come in to kind of do a 413 Cares, like, training refresher, to get folks thinking about 413 Cares, especially if maybe you haven't seen this ever, or maybe it's been a while since you've interacted with 413 Cares and haven't kept touch to what we've been doing. But what we would like folks to do, especially if you do work at a community-based organization, is to check 413 Cares to see if your organization's on there. See if it's claimed, and if the information needs to be updated. And so, there are steps to claiming, what are some tips for who should claim the program and who should be, kind of, updating the information, which we can help, and set up a kind of one-on-one guidance for that. You can set up if you if your organization doesn't isn't currently taking referrals oh, go ahead.

Liv Anna Homstead
Sorry, the claiming part is important because someone had asked. If, if there's a way to show what language the services can be offered in, or supported. And so that is a really good question, and in the program card, it does have a place to see what languages are supported at that program, but we know that that information could use more updating by the organizations themselves, for example, I just met with an organization yesterday and they lost their Haitian Creole, the person they had that spoke Haitian Creole and offered services in Haitian Creole due to the you know, the stuff happening around immigration which is really unfortunate. So, they can't offer their services in Haitian Creole right now, and they're hoping to replace that. But that's stuff that the organization needs to update, so I just want to stress the importance of claiming, because organizations have that up-to-date information. And it really does help people like yourselves refer people you might work with to the programs where their native language is supported. So, just wanted to call that out.

Francheska Bermudez
You can definitely use the power and favorites folder function to create custom links can be really helpful, either across your organization as having either printouts of resources or a link to various resources in the region or in the city, but also in case management, if you are working with an individual and want to have a list of all the programs you think is appropriate for them. That's definitely a way you can use that feature on the platform.

We often are asked to come into staff meetings to tell people about 413 Cares, especially if it's the first time, learning about it and using it, but also, like, periodically if there's new staff, or just, like, these refresher trainings, and maybe in a couple months there's something new that we want to highlight for folks to use with the platform, or a new resource page we've created that can be helpful. Setting up some trainings, with staff, is great, and we've, we've definitely been asked to do that. And then there are other free tools that, folks can access with the Find Help platform that can be helpful for CBOs. So that's how the platform can be used more by, by folks like you all.

So, before I ask what types of resources and kind of, if folks don't have any questions, we can kind of grapple with some of these discussion points, but I also want to leave time for the actual resource sharing that is the point of these Holyoke Safe Neighborhood meetings. I just want to stress that we are here as support. You can schedule a training with us for your organization, whether it's a one-on-one or a couple of folks to understand the claiming process and do a more high-level meeting about that, or it could be on one-on-one for you if you wanted some guidance on the platform and things like that, or if it's, like, a staff training and you want to loop us into that.

We are here as your support for all things related to this platform. We have some tip cards that folks can have in their organizations or hand out as they work with clients or patients. We have posters, things like that, so if that's something of interest that you'd like, you can definitely request some printed materials from us. Our tip cards are English and Spanish, but we also have on hand a couple of other languages, and if there is a language that you need that we don't have, we can work on how to get you those materials if needed. And then lastly, we do have the HTML code for the search widget, and this search widget, you can add it to all your to any of your websites for folks that, you know, as an entry for folks to look for services that they may be needing.

Liv Anna Homstead
I just want to add, someone had asked about tabling. We have, as Francesca said, lots of printed materials. And so, we're always interested in good tabling opportunities where we can share information about 413 Cares, or sometimes we have other coalition work and resources that might be important to share out as well. So, we welcome those types of invitations. It's, just a matter of capacity. Since we're a very, very small team of folks, sometimes we don't have capacity to get to every tabling event across the four counties of Western Mass. But we're happy to provide you all with our tip cards too, if you want to put those out on your own tables just for community members to take and learn more about 413 Cares. So please do reach out to us and Francesca is always a great resource for 413 Cares. I just encourage folks to reach out. To me first, because I can help, kind of figure out who's the best person, if it's not myself, to provide the support or request that you're asking. As I know Francesca is taking on other projects as well. So, no wrong person to reach out to, but just saying, feel free to use me as the main source of contact, and I did put my information in the chat.

Liv Anna Homstead
I saw that, someone put in a resource guide for families, which is really interesting. And I know there's a lot of people have their own different lists and resource guides. And I know the ultimate challenge is keeping things up to date. It's definitely something that we are always working towards. But I want to encourage folks to think about or explore the Favorites Folder tool on this platform that allows you to create those lists because they can be a little bit more dynamic than a Word document or something that gets printed So widely, because things can be updated in so many different ways that it all updates in one place online, so it might be a tool to try out and see how it works for you. So, just wanted to encourage that.

Francheska Bermudez
For the most part, when, when folks are searching for the programs, obviously the zip code is a way the program claimed, does play a role in kind of, like the hierarchy of things, but it's also something we've been talking with Find Help because there are sometimes you'll do a search and some programs that are national maybe aren't local kind of populate or programs that are kind of outside of the zip code. So, I think we can kind of strategize sometimes also like the tags that are used or like the keywords you put under your program matter as well for how things kind of populate in the order. I just want to note that it has been a conversation with Find Help to really understand the algorithm, but to understand, the order of things.

Agency Overview and Updates 1:30pm - 2:15pm

Veronica Garcia: Cruzando Puentes Nonprofit organization
Hello, everyone. Thank you, Ed, for this opportunity. So, I'm Veronica Garcia from Cruzando Puentes. This is a nonprofit organization, and we are working very hard in the Women Conference. Living without limits, emotionally healthy. So, the reason that we do this particular, event, it's because we would like to have the opportunity to gather information and resources from the community, and we would like to invite vendors and organizations that they can bring information to hundreds of women that we expect in that event. It's one, event, it's a one-day event, from 8 in the morning to 4.30 p.m. So, we are going to talk about mental health, finance, spiritual health and fitness. So we have this opportunity and we're really looking for vendors that they can come with information. So also, we would like to highlight people that maybe need to be there, and they don't have financial support, so we are looking for a sponsor that we can give away tickets. So, but if you know people that they want, women especially, if they want to come to the event, please let us know. We, we don't want just to reduce the opportunity to bring women because they don't have the money for the ticket. We would like to somehow raise money so we can bring women from the community to have this amazing experience. It's also a bilingual event. So, and if you have any questions, please let me know. I will share the flyer with you in this chat, and also, I will give my information, so yeah, that's what I have. Thank you, Ed.

Miguel Rivera: Rewarding Insurance Agency
My name is Miguel Rivera. I'm the CEO of Rewarding Insurance Agency, and I want to talk about the annual enrollment period. It goes from October 15th to December 7th and that's the time when, when people with Medicare can choose a Medicare Advantage plan. Have you seen this card, Medicare card? Red, white, and blue card? None of you is disabled or retired, but this card, people who are disabled or retired. When they receive it, they might qualify for additional benefits to Medicare. We work with all the major health plans in Massachusetts. We work with Aetna. We work with TUFFS. We work with CCA, Fallon. UnitedHealth. We work with all the major health insurance plans in Massachusetts, and we have our office hours at 284 Maple Street. It's a nice building right across McDonald's here on Maple Street Holyoke and right now, I am at Holyoke Health Center. We have a Medicare Resource Center at Holyoke Health Center, and next week, we're starting at Chicopee Health Center, so that would be 3 locations where Medicare members can go and enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan. If you know anybody who wants… who needs help with their health insurance plan, let me know, send them my way, and we are going to be able to help them. Thank you.


Miguel Arce: Community Resident
Miguel Arce, I don't have anything to report. Two reflections, though. Ed, I would encourage you to keep videoing those very successful events as for archives and for further dissemination to funding sources. I think your work is really laudable, and I want you to really continue to document it if you can. Thank you for your volunteer services.

Megan Gross:UMass Amherst, Bilingual Language Development
Good afternoon. I'm Megan Gross. I'm a speech language pathologist and faculty at UMass Amherst, and I direct the Bilingual Language Development Lab. And we also collaborate with One Holyoke CDC and Enlace de Familias. So, the first update that I have is we've been running a monthly group at Enlace for quite a while.

This fall, we're having a particular focus on supporting families who have a child on the autism spectrum. We're calling it Autismo Juntos. We were supposed to meet in September, and then the storm, we ended up not meeting, and then it was fine, but we will be meeting in October, so I'll put the link to that in the chat. Any families are welcome. And we provide those workshops in Spanish, or bilingual, and we have activities for kids. And then we have an ongoing research study, ABC Familias, which I'll also put in the chat, and we've recently made some updates to that project to try to really streamline the experience for families. So, feel free to share with anyone who might be interested. Thanks so much

Kim Colwell: Girls Inc. of the Valley
Hey everybody, I'm with Girls in the Valley, and I'm here because we have reopened our after-school and summer camps. In a beautiful new building on the corner of Hamden and Linden Street. And we have openings for both after school, and we will be opening our summer camp registrations pretty soon, too. So, if you know anyone, we take vouchers as well as private pay. Girls and anyone who identifies as a girl or is exploring their gender identity are welcome here, ages 5 to 18, and we also have an alumni association, so if you know any alumni and you want to send them our way, we'd be happy to connect with them as well.

Jenna Centofanti: Community Legal Aid
Corinne asked me to step in for today because I'm with the housing unit, and we're doing a couple events each month for eviction ceiling, and I wanted to share it with you all, so if you know anybody's dealt with the eviction process. We could set up appointments with people to come into our office and either A, help seal their evictions or B, explain the process. Not every case is always ripe for sealing right away, but it's good to know at least the timeline based on the new statute on when they could and how that could affect their record going forward.

We are actively sealing cases as they come in. We did have an event for this month, but unfortunately, by the time I was on this call, we have filled up our last spot for it, but we do one once a month, so I put my direct phone number and email in the chat, because clients can reach out directly to me to set up their spot, and as soon as we do have, our next Hamden event ready, they can call me, and I will get them off the waitlist and put them on it. We also do have events in the Berkshires and Greenfield, but I'm figuring our Springfield location will be the most convenient for everybody. But again, if you know anybody who has been through the eviction process and is looking to seal their record or have some advice on how it could affect their record, reach out to me directly and I'd love to set them up with our attorneys.

Gloria Penagos: Holyoke Community College
I want to say just if some of your clients are looking to take these free job trainings. You know that all the trainings that we are providing is the clean energy, Para educators, nurse aide, more with Jumpstart, there is customer service, pharmacy technician, et cetera. But it's two of those free trainings that are worrying me a little bit, because probably it's the last two that we will have in November. We are not sure what happened with the new grants, if we can get them, so probably it's the last chance about the free job trainings for Line cooks and Hospitality. So, it's basically invite, you guys as organizations, if it's somebody looking for get the certification that these free trainings provide and that make things easy for get a job. So, just to continue to share this information, and to have us the opportunity to, provide the training. Thank you so much

Elizabeth Rogers: Bay State Family Advocacy Center
Hi, everybody. Elizabeth Rogers from the Bay State Family Advocacy Center. We work with young people up to age 24 who have experienced a trauma, and I think this might be the first time I'm ever able to say this, but all of our waiting lists are open. So, the number there, I'll put the number in the chat, but 413-794-9816. So, for our trauma-focused program, they have to be considered a victim of a crime. There doesn't have to be a police report or anything like that.

For our clinic portion where there's billing, it could be traumatic bereavement or suicide bereavement, and then we also have one program that's for any ages, and that's for somebody if they've unfortunately lost somebody to homicide. So, like I said, all three of those programs are now open. We do have a Spanish-speaking clinician now, too, so that's been really helpful for us. And then, Ed, we've updated our training booklet, so we have some trainings that are free for the community, some have a cost but there's a whole four pages long, so I'm going to send you the booklet to have and to send out, please, to everybody. I think some of the ones that might feel relevant to people are trauma-informed care, vicarious trauma and self-care, traumatic grief. And we have a commercial sexual exploitation, and trafficking training around, being aware of what red flags are for youth, so I'll send that to Ed today. And if you have any questions, I did put my email in the chat. So, thank you very much, and thanks for the 413 presentation, that was super helpful.

Diana Pagan: My Ombudsman
Hi, everyone. My name is Diana Pagan from the My Ombudsman program. I'm the community outreach manager for a free resource for members of MassHealth. So, you can refer anyone who's having difficulty navigating the system, especially now with all of the changes. If you need information on the federal changes. You can definitely contact me. I'll put my name on the chat. One announcement I did want to make is that we're now offering bilingual office hours virtually twice a month. So, you go on our website. An individual… can, join the Zoom meeting and have a one-on-one-on-one support. And thank you, I'll be in touch. Thank you.

Cesar Cruz: Westover Job Corps
Hey, good afternoon, everyone. I hope everyone's doing well. My name is Cesar Cruz, and I work as the Career Transition Manager at Westover Job Court, as well as serving as the Director of Communications for the Latino Scholarship Fund (LSF) of Western Mass.

Today, I'm speaking on behalf of LSF. Right now, we're currently in the middle of running our Hispanic Heritage Month fundraiser, so we've been sending out emails just highlighting our board members, accomplishments throughout the year, as well as, sending information regarding our, fundraiser. So, we're asking, everyone in the community to help our cause, the money goes straight to our scholars at the end of next year for our annual banquet. It helps them pay for their scholarships, so everyone's support is greatly appreciated.

We thank everyone for supporting us, you know, for the past few years now. As well as this, we're also holding our information session on the 28th of October. If anyone's interested in joining the board as a board member or as a committee member, we would love to see everyone on that, information session call. It's going to be via Zoom. I can send out a flyer if anyone's interested, but via email. But yeah, that's all our updates. Thank you, guys, for having me here.

Catherine Gobron: Now Lightworks / Lighthouse Holyoke
Hi, everyone! Thanks for, thanks for doing this, Ed. Nice to be back, I haven't been here in a while. I'll be quick, so I'm Catherine Gobron; I'm the Executive Director of Now Lightworks. Our flagship program is Lighthouse Holyoke. We work with young people who are looking for a new way to pursue their education in middle and high school. And then we also have De La Luz Sound Stage. We are in the former Gateway City Arts Facility, and we've reopened the venues. Two years ago, already as De La Luz, and we have a program called Pay What You Decide. They're really trying to open the doors to people to experience arts and culture, so if you go to the website I'll put the website in the chat, but delaluz.org, and there's lots of opportunities to come in, and if what you decide is zero, that's okay, and if what you decide, you know, you get to decide the whole point of pay what you decide. And then the last part is. We are collaborating with Palante Transformative Justice to do a teen Halloween. We have these beautiful spaces and these venues, and we really want to open it up to host a safe and sober Halloween event for teens ages 13 to 19. So, I'll put the flyer. In there, it is, from 7 to 10 pm, and we'll have a harm reduction team. They have to put in an emergency contact, so we will be turning away and sending home any kids that come in under the influence, and really try to hold a space, for it to be a… have a safe and sober Halloween. Flyer to come

Ashley Stackow: Healthy Air Initiative
Hi, I'm Ashley Stackow, I'm a resident of Holyoke, and I’m also an RA for Healthy Air Initiative with Francesca. I advocate and do lot of advocating in the city. Especially for my kids in the school department and a better Holyoke.

AJ Beatty: Hope for Holyoke
Hi, everybody! Good to see everybody, and Francesca, thank you so much for your presentation. I am the Outreach Coordinator at Hope for Holyoke Peer Recovery Center on Suffolk Street. We have several events coming up this month. Next Wednesday, October 14th, we are having our Hispanic Heritage Celebration. It's going to be from 11 to 3. We're going to have food, music, dancing, and community fellowship. It's going to be, you know, just a good way to bring people together and celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. And then the 31st, we have our Halloween block party we're going to have our block party outside the center from 1 to 4 p.m. We're doing it earlier in the afternoon, so that if folks end up wanting to, you know go home and trick-or-treat in their neighborhood, they can, but if they don't feel safe to do that in their neighborhood, they can come out and get some candy and, you know, compete in our costume contest do some games and activities and have a good time. We are accepting tables from local agencies, so if we haven't talked already, and you would like to set up a table for your organization, you know, bring some candy, and have a good time with us, definitely please feel free to reach out and let me know, and I will post those flyers in the chat.

Jenneke Reynolds: 413 Health
I thought you forgot about me. No worries at all. I'm Jenneke Reynolds. I work with 413 Health, which used to be called Central Pioneer Valley Public Health District, but that was a whole lot of words, so we simplified it. I work with the health departments in Chicopee, Holyoke, and South Hadley. One thing that we've been working on is advocating for more people to take the Community Health Equity Survey that's, available now through the end of November.

I was at the Senior Center today and we had some things to hand out, thanks to the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts. We had just little wound kits and these nice little booklets that had sticky notes and a pen and stuff. People were so generous with their time at, like, the Senior Center, at the Senior Center. It was just so beautiful. I really appreciate everybody who took the survey. If you all haven't taken it, I'm going to drop it in the link, but if you guys are holding an event, and you are open for us tabling and just asking people, it does take 10 to 15 minutes. It's in multiple languages; you can skip questions that make you uncomfortable. I've been just surprised at how willing people are to give their time for the City of Holyoke to have their voices heard, so I’ll put my email, and I'll drop a link to the survey if you haven't done it yet. So, thank you guys very much.

Abbie Germaine: Viability, Inc.
Hello! My name's Abby, I represent Viability. My camera's off, I'm in a shared space, I just want to respect those that might walk behind me. So, for those of you that have been here, I always say this, this is one of my favorite meetings. I just want to thank Eddie and team for coordinating these monthly meetings. Before I make my announcements, I also just want to, kind of applaud Holyoke Safe Neighborhood for the Back to School event. That video, if you haven't seen it, was unbelievably, just a really nice picture of how that day went, and it was just unbelievable. Very moving and touching. Thank you, Eddie, that was awesome.

I wasn't able to make it to that, but I was at the backpack stuffing event, which was just as spectacular, and I recommend if those of you can do it next year to join us, that's a good time, too. Okay, so Viability is a program. We serve Holyoke and surrounding communities, all across the state. We're also in other states as well, but we work with individuals with disabilities and mental health issues. Oftentimes that crosses over, into folks that are in recovery or experiencing homelessness, food insecurities. Our folks are coming from a lot of different backgrounds and always need a lot of different resources, so this meeting, is a great way to learn about all of your services, and also to share a little bit about viability.

So, if you're not familiar with Viability, I'd love to meet with you one on one so we can get to know each other a little bit more and bring our services together. Number two, I wanted to invite you all to an upcoming event that we're having. I'm gonna go ahead and put it in the chat now. But we're having an open house at one of our Holyoke locations. This is on Appleton Street in Holyoke. We have a clubhouse out there called Odyssey House. Some of you have been there. But would love to welcome you back, and if you have not been there, this is really a great way to meet our members, other community members. We're gonna have some leaders and elected officials there. And also, just to remind folks that, again, if you're not familiar with Clubhouse model, the members really run the show. They run the kitchen, they run the phones, they do the tours when guests come in, so we really wanted to give you all a chance to see it for yourself, and kind of see what the clubhouse is all about. So, I put that flyer in the chat along with my contact information. And then lastly, I wanted to also share that Viability will be at a table at the Community and Connection Annual Conference for Nonprofits out in Worcester.

I'm gonna also put a link to that, just in case anybody's interested in that annual conference. But again, that's going to be coming up October 21st out in Worcester, Mass. And it's a gathering of the largest nonprofit professionals in Massachusetts, a day-long event where there's keynote speakers, it's going to be a pretty big deal. But Viability is going to have a table, so if you can make it, come on by. Again, some of us have met in person, some of us have not, but we love for you to go there, if you can. Like I said, I put the link in there. You do have to register, and things like that, but if anybody would like to connect, feel free to call or email me. But I'm just excited and just grateful. I know you can't see it on my face, but I hope you can hear it in my words that this is really an honor to be here with you all and to share resources. So, thanks again, Eddie

Mike Pratt: Sheriff's Office/HSNI
Hey everybody, Mike Pratt, Hamden County Sheriff's Office, Holyoke State Neighborhood Initiative with Eddie Caisse. I just want to share a couple upcoming events, and also thank you to everybody that came out to the Heritage State Park cleanup last week, or two weeks ago.

We have the upcoming Trunk or Treat Event at Mont Marie on the 29th. I know Eddie will talk about that more, but we're definitely looking for trunks. If you or family or friends want to come out and host a trunk, I know Eddie sent out the link, just register a trunk, we really appreciate it. We try to at least have 40 trumnks every single year, and we we get hundreds of kids over there, so it's it's really a great, great event.

I'm definitely going to be recruiting coaches and volunteers for the basketball league, and if for those of you that don't know about the basketball league, it's a pretty low commitment. It's one game per week. We ask you to host one practice. If you want to be an assistant coach to come check out, maybe if you want to do in the future, please let me know. But if you can think of family, friends, anybody, please reach out and contact me or Eddie. We need 32 coaches and right now I think we're sitting at about 20. So, we got openings in third and fourth, fifth and sixth, seventh and eighth and high school. So, if you're able to come out or know anybody in your agency or anybody that's willing to, we really just try to find the best people to mentor our kids. And we got 384 of them every season, so we can use the help. Thank you.

Eddie Caisse: Hampden County Sheriff’s Office / HSNI
I just want to add to what Mike was talking about, volunteers for the basketball, not just coaches. If coaching doesn't interest you, not even being an assistant coach, if you want to just come around and be an example, or a mentor, a chaperone. We could utilize you as a court leader, we could utilize you as a scorekeeper, we can utilize you as a chaperone, and like Mike said, you don't have to commit to the 12 weeks of the Basketball League. You can commit to come when you can. Even if it’s only once or twice throughout the 12 weeks, we would appreciate anything you can give us, so I just wanted to add to that.

The other thing is, I want to just add a little bit more about the Trunk or Treat Event. Like Mike said, we always hoping for 40 trunks. This year, we would really love to see 50. We're still in need of some trunks. So, the event is gonna be on the 29th from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. We are asking folks that are gonna have a trunk to show up by 5:00 to get their trunks set up and ready to go, and we open up the gate around 5.30. There's other opportunities to volunteer. If you don’t want to set up a trunk, we're going to be having two popcorn stations, and we're going to have hotdogs, so if you want to voluntreer in the food tent or the popcorn tent, just send me an email, and I can get you guys connected there.

The last thing I want to say is we're doing a food drive at both stop and shops on November 8th, from 9am to 3pm. I sent the volunteer registration on that as well. We don't want to have a whole bunch of people have to be there from 9am to 3pm, so we have four different shifts. So please take a look at that, it should be a good day. This is our fifth annual food drive. All the food that we could collect, Francesca, as you put up the United Way cupbard was on your 413 Care list, and we actually partner with them, they're a real good partner on our Holyoke Hub. Any family that comes to the Hub that needs to get connected to food, the United Way gets them connected, gets them bags of groceries. So what we started to do was to do a food drive to support the cupbard down on Race Street. So all of the food that we collect is going to be for that cupboard. So, if you're able to volunteer with us, check your email for the volunteer registration, if you don't have it, just reach out to me, and I'll get you a registration link for the food drive if you want to volunteer. So, I think the shifts we have is, like, 8:30am to 11:00am, 10:30am to 1:00pm, 12:L30pm to 3:00pm or 8:30am to 3:00pm.

I'll send that information out one more time anyway. That's all I have. I just want to end the meeting by saying thank you so much for the work that each of you do in your own agencies, and how you come together and collaborate. Mike talked about the citywide clean-up that we just did, we had over 100 volunteers cleaning in seven wards of Holyoke. It was a really good event. It was just good team building, and then the back-to-school event in August just was outstanding to see all the volunteers, 300 volunteers, and another 100 in the community service area, so we just truly want to thank each of you for your partnership with us. So, thanks for the work that you do, and hopefully we can continue to partner, and hopefully we'll see you at our next networking meeting. Have a great day, have a good rest of the week, have a good weekend as well. Thank you for being here.

CHAT NOTES:

Abbie- Viability, INC
Checking In- Abbie Germain, Viability, INC 413-217-0348 agermain@viability.org
Please join us! October 16! Holyoke!

Miguel Arce
Miguel Arce, Holyoke resident

AJ Beatty, Hope for Holyoke
AJ Beatty - Hope for Holyoke - abeatty@gandaracenter.org ; 413-296-6241

Liv Anna Homstead
Hi everyone! Liv Anna Homstead, PHIWM/413Cares, LHomstead@publichealthwm.org

Abbie- Viability, INC
Welcome, Francheska!

Kim Colwell, Girls Inc. of the Valley
Hi! Kim Colwell, Girls Inc. of the Valley. kcolwell@girlsincvalley.org

Cesar Cruz
Director of Communications- Latino Scholarship Fund of Western MA- communications@latinoscholarshipwesternma.org

Jenneke Reynolds
I know about 413 cares! But happy to learn more!

Ashley Stackow
I am Ashley stackow I am an RA for the healthy air

HCC-Gloria Penagos
Gloria Penagos - gpenagos@hcc.edu with FREE JOB TRAININGS wit HCC - Free Job Training Programs | Holyoke Community College

Liv Anna Homstead
Thanks Eddie and Mike for being on our Advisory Board!

Elizabeth Rogers
Elizabeth Rogers, Baystate Family Advocacy Center, Elizabeth.rogers@baystatehealth.org

Ashley Stackow
Is there an app for 413 cares

Liv Anna Homstead
There is not an app at this time. Helpful to know if that would be helpful for us to consider for future work

Miguel Rivera
Miguel Rivera, Rewarding Insurance Agency, 413-359-2771, 284 Maple St, Holyoke, MA.
Medicare Annual Enrollment Period Oct 15 - Dec 7

Liv Anna Homstead
https://www.413cares.org/

Megan Gross
I really appreciate 413 cares and include at the top of the resource list we give families involved in our lab's activities. Do you have, or would you consider, a page for families of children with disabilities? Or a list of sensory-friendly activities?

Nayroby Rosa
Nathalie Vicencio - nathalie.vicencio@oneholyoke.org We currently need volunteers and sponsors for our Annual Community Dinner taking place this year on Saturday December 12, 2026. Here's the link: https://www.oneholyoke.org/community-engagement/community-dinner-2026/

Catherine Gobron
This looks great! I wasn’t aware of this site. Super helpful.

Megan Gross
Is there a way to find out what language(s) the services themselves may be available in? I sometimes wonder if I share a service with a family through a resource like this that has translation, but then what happens if they go or call and nobody there speaks their language

AJ Beatty, Hope for Holyoke
Do you do tabling/outreach with the community to make people aware of this resource? Would love to talk more about how we can connect

Abbie- Viability, INC
Francheska, I would love to connect you with our Marketing Director (Ricard Torres) to review and update Viability, INC.

Megan Gross
Great! Thank you for that information about language access.

Abbie- Viability, INC
Francheska, please share your email address in the chat, if you would be so kind!

Miguel Rivera
I’d like to list our health insurance enrollment centers with 413 Cares

Liv Anna Homstead
I'm happy to talk more in depth about 413Cares. Please feel free to contact me LHomstead@publichealthwm.org

Megan Gross
That favorites tool sounds great!

Catherine Gobron
@Ashley Stackow there’s a way to make any webpage act like an app on your phone in the meantime. Here are instructions: https://screenskills.substack.com/p/how-to-turn-any-website-into-a-one

HCC-Gloria Penagos
Francheska could you please provide your email address please. Thank you

AJ Beatty, Hope for Holyoke
Thank you for presenting!

Dahyanna Pagan
Can we have your emails?

Francheska Bermudez
Francheska Bermudez, Fbermudez@publichealthwm.org

HCC-Gloria Penagos
Thank you

Liv Anna Homstead
Liv Homstead, LHomstead@publichealthwm.org

AJ Beatty, Hope for Holyoke
When is this? Do you have a flyer?

Sarah Terrell
apologies my mic is not working

Miguel Rivera
Miguel Rivera, Rewarding Insurance Agency, 413-359-2771, 284 Maple St, Holyoke, MA.
Medicare Annual Enrollment Period Oct 15 - Dec 7. We work with the major medicare plans in Massachusetts. CCA, fallon, Uhc, HNE and others.

Veronica Garcia
If you know of any women who may not be able to afford the ticket, please let us know so we can provide them with financial aid. You can email me at cruzandopuentes2023@gmail.com or call me at 413-657-6271.

Megan Gross
Megan Gross, speech-language pathologist and director of the Bilingual Language Development Lab (https://websites.umass.edu/bld) at UMass Amherst - focused on supporting Spanish-speaking families who have children with an autism diagnosis or other special education needs Megan Gross, Bilingual Language Development Lab, megangross@umass.edu, 413-461-4399
Opportunities for families with the BLD lab
Autismo Juntos: Supporting Bilingual Families monthly group at Enlace de Familias: https://forms.gle/rTwaKCP7hCnsRsFs5
Project ABC Familias (children ages 4-6 with autism diagnosis): https://bit.ly/49vwNnG
Megan Gross sent you files

Jenna Centofanti (CLA)
Jenna Centofanti (CLA)- (413)-686-9080 jcentofanti@cla-ma.org

AJ Beatty, Hope for Holyoke
Do you have an email list where you announce the eviction sealing events? Would love to get on that if so

Jenna Centofanti (CLA)
We are figuring out our schedule for the rest of the year around the holidays. But if you send me an email, I can reach out once we have those dates. Thank you

Kim Colwell, Girls Inc. of the Valley
Girls Inc. afterschool program has openings! Amy Bonilla is our Center-Based Director, abonilla@girlsincvalley.org or 413-532-6247. We have a bus stop for most of the Holyoke schools and accept vouchers (as well as private pay) for girls* ages 5 - 18 🙂

Elizabeth Rogers
Baystate Family Advocacy Center 413-794-9816 for referrals.

Dahyanna Pagan
Dahyanna Pagan dpagan@myombudsman.org myombudsman.org

Cesar Cruz
communications@latinoscholarshipwesternma.org

Catherine Gobron
Lighthouse Holyoke (a new way to approach middle and high school) https://www.lighthouseholyoke.org/
De la Luz Soundstage (with many Pay What You Decide events) https://delaluz.org/

AJ Beatty, Hope for Holyoke
abeatty@gandaracenter.org

Catherine Gobron
Teen Halloween https://delaluz.org/events/teen-halloween

Jenneke Reynolds
Jreynolds@southhadleyma.gov

Abbie- Viability, INC
Abbie Germain, 413-217-0348, agermain@viability.org. Please join us on October 16, details in the flyer... Please share. All are welcome!

Jenneke Reynolds
Www.mass.gov/community-health-equity-survey

Francheska Bermudez
Francheska Bermudez sent you images

Abbie- Viability, INC
Annual Conference | MA Council of Nonprofits | MA Council of Nonprofits

Megan Gross
Do you still do career presentations for the youth?

Mike Pratt: Sheriff's Office/HSNI
Yes!

Liv Anna Homstead
Thanks Francheska for adding the flyers above in the chat. These are two great free events. Please share the childbirth education class with anyone who is pregnant. HUD will be at the Healthy Homes event sharing info about funding they have to support lead abatement for Holyoke residents.

Kim Colwell, Girls Inc. of the Valley
Thanks, everyone!



Old Business / New Business
Next Meeting: November 12th, 1:00pm on Zoom

Close Meeting 2:30pm
Contact Information:
Edward Caisse
Hampden County Sheriff’s Department
(413) 858-0225
ed.caisse@sdh.state.ma.us
Friend Request us on Facebook @ Shsni Holyoke