 And good morning everybody, I want to welcome you to the December virtual cup of Joe with Amherst Town Manager, Paul Balkaman. My name is Brianna Sundred communications manager for the town and we've got three very special guests and I'm going to try not to butcher any names but just yell at me. We've got the Executive Director of Amherst Business Improvement District Gabrielle Gould. Thank you. Welcome. And we've got the Executive Director of the Amherst area Chamber of Commerce, Claudia Pasemani. And we've got the Director of Placemaking for the Mill District. Yes, I've been trying to practice this one. Hannah Wreck Shaffen. That was perfect. It's the coffee. Welcome everybody. And I want to remind everybody in the room who's joined us live to feel free to join the conversation will pull you in the room. If you're joined via zoom directly please raise your hand and we'll pull you in or press star nine if you've joined via phone. You're also welcome to put questions for our guests or Paul or myself in the Q&A function at any point and we will read those out loud. To start us off I will ask our special guests to introduce themselves and give a little bit of information about their organization and what they're up to right now. So I'll just pull from my top left is Hannah. So thank you so much Brianna and Paul for the invitation. This is really awesome. So I'm the Director of Placemaking for the Mill District in North Amherst. They work for WD Coles. And I don't even really know where to start with how much is going on. But my position with the Mill District in placemaking is to tie in arts and culture and everything that's really cool about North Amherst and Amherst and the valley into the development that's happening in North Amherst. And that is an awesome job in and of itself and so pre pandemic. My position was very much about gatherings. It was about commercial space looking ahead to opening local arts gallery engaging families and the pandemic has really shifted all of that to figuring out what placemaking and bringing people together means if we can't be in the same physical space so we really turned our focus to being more external putting up a lot of public art. We recently installed a story walk in North Amherst that can be enjoyed outside at Mill River Recreation Area that was in partnership with the town. We're currently hosting some holiday events that are very small in person and then we live stream them on Facebook so that people still feel like they have something they can tune into and be together. And then we also started a weekly interview show that is completely virtual so that we're still able to connect with stakeholders business owners partners of ours in the Mill District. And go a lot deeper into conversation with people because I think that this pandemic offered us a sort of COVID silver lining opportunity to step back and have some really real conversations about what we're doing in North Amherst and in Amherst and in the community and how we do things in a way that is more inclusive more broad more honest more transparent and so that's what we're working on every day and just constantly pivoting as I know everyone everyone is at this point so I'm excited to be here to talk about it. Great thank you Hannah and I love I love how you made mention of you know placemaking being your, your thing and how do we bring people together when we're telling them to stay apart so that's, that's a big theme so I'm very interested to hear more about what you guys are up to. So under Hannah is Claudia so Claudia you're up next. Good morning, I'm from the Amherst area chamber and I'd say that, you know during this time what the chamber has really been about has been a total reinvestment in our business community in our community. Every action every partnership with many of you here in the room today, you know whether it's been a partnership on grants and Amherst, whether it's been programming that we've done. And grants that we've applied for and received all of those have ended up being a reinvestment we've ordered, you know posters and banners from local businesses. Each one was a reinvestment back into our community. So whether we were giving a grant or receiving one. It's really been a beautiful thing to see, you know, our most recent partnership with the vid doing our dinner delights you know, connecting restaurants to, you know, keeping them working, keeping them vibrant so anything that we've done has been a blessing in our community and we're really, I'm really proud to be part of our team and I get to shout out to my board since I'm here to thank them because it's just been such a journey. You know, for all of us the word pivot we're sick of it, but I spoke to a restaurant one of the restaurants this week and just, it felt it just has constantly been fluid you know we just felt like and even us as a team and I know, I have said this, we think we've got it handled something comes up, you know, and we've got it handled and we can breathe and like okay we're good and all of a sudden something else comes along and it's another title wave of, you know, issues and challenges and so it's been really interesting. So we have a few really exciting things we have the new Amherst area gift card right now that people have been really excited about and I'm thrilled because it really does support our businesses so please if you're a business person or you're watching we still want everyone more to sign up. We have a lot signed up we have an Amherst area dot com backslash gift card backslash page that is beautiful, and you can see all those who signed up as far, and it makes a beautiful gift people have been buying gifts for their labs for their teams. You know, it's just a someone just told me last night she's going to be coming in and ordering a whole group for her team for the holidays. And in the absence of being together, you know, this is the perfect gift option so it gives back to the community and again another reinvestment in our community. We also just re, we just received a pastor funding of supplemental budget funding and this is going to allow us to engage in some grant making in our area of businesses that we've been able to cover Amherst through this beautiful partnership with the bid that allowed us to do it. But this will allow us to engage in highly budget on in our other area towns, and we are looking at some organizations to help us partner that we can match those grants because they're not going to be huge. But we want to spread the love and try again, again just to help. And we think this winter time is a critical time to keep those businesses, you know, so this might be help somehow extra help they need so we're really excited that we can begin this and thrilled that the delegation here in Western Mass Senator Hummerford, you know representative Dom. They've just been tremendous support to anything that we've all done. And I can't thank them enough. There was a third one but I'll get back to it because I can't remember it right. But honestly we're constantly, I feel like every day is something new. And, but yeah, we keep moving. Thanks for being here. Thanks for letting us share. Thank you, Claudia. Gabrielle. So Gabrielle gold executive director the downtown Amherst bid and the downtown Amherst Foundation. There, I'm not going to repeat a lot of what Hannah and Claudia have already said, I think that the collaborations and the commitment to working together has been probably the most important and you know, a very active thing that has gone on over the past 11 months and I feel like you know how we all think 19 or I think 1980 was 20 years ago, I keep thinking Kobe it has been like four months and I'm like no it's, it's like March is coming like I'm not over last March and March is only three months away so the ability for the collaboration and the work we have been able to do with the town and and that is from the top down. Everything we've been able to do with you and Dave and Lynn and the council and then it's the DPW has just been invaluable to making everything we've done happen. You know Rob Mora. It's just been it's really been a collaboration and I was wrapping up a grant that we are co-writing with the town for some. It's basically a grant it's not going to be a money grant from the state but it's going to be a consulting and an expert view of our downtown and our town in general and what we need. And in this grant, you know one of the things that I was able to write about is what we've been able to accomplish as a whole. And I don't think we would be where we are today. And I'm not saying Amherst is in a great position right now because it's not our businesses are in trouble our community is in trouble. This is December dinner delights. This is a program that we're doing with the town. They were able to get us some cares act funds we were able to match those funds through the downtown Amherst Foundation. And basically what we're doing is we're buying meals from restaurants 100 meals two times a week for the month of December, and giving them to families with the help of family outreach of Amherst, who have been adversely affected by COVID. And the fact of the matter is that those 100 meals are gone within 15 minutes. So we're not in a good place, but I can't imagine the place Amherst would be, had it not been for the bid, the mill, the town, the daff and the chamber, all coming together and really just going everybody out of their way. You know, I'll jokingly anecdotally say that Claudia and I were on a meeting a couple of weeks ago and we asked about something and they said, Well, we don't know because we're on Workshare and we don't really do a lot. And Claudia and I were like, wait, I'm putting in like 7080 hours. What's Workshare. I want to share. So the passion and the commitment to this community and then the community's commitment back to us is amazing. The December dinner delights is not something that we've really broadcast a lot and we haven't really gone after fundraising for it to keep it going. But yesterday I got three calls of people who read about it and they wanted to be able to give and again it's $25 or $50 or $250 and it all adds up and that's this community constantly giving back. And I think that that's been a really important thing and that's why Amherst is where it is in the COVID pandemic today. I think it's really important to highlight the collaboration, the work that we're all doing individually is important and impactful, but when all put together it's really the only way, way forward. I'll quickly ask Paul to you know just for his take from the from the town side of things if you could talk a little bit about the collaborations or or what the town has done or hopes to do for local business. Yes. Thanks, Brianna. These guys all touched on a lot of really positive things that are happening. And then Gabriel did say in that this is we're going into a dark time though, and so I don't want to. We've done a lot of good work we have so much more work to do and we have to be ready for the spring, whether that spring comes in real spring or with a vaccine. And so, I think that we have we have to keep working at this. And no one anticipated. This time, this type of thing when you took your jobs. And, you know, I'm counselor president Griezmer said when they were running for office no one asked them well how would you perform during the pandemic. Like, it wasn't even on anybody's radar screen so I give credit to everybody for just the speed with which everybody has has changed I won't use pivoted Claudia. This is the creation of the downtown Amherst Foundation there's so many things that we want to talk about the downtown Amherst Foundation was set up for one thing, but the board of the foundation said no we can't be focused on this we now have to reposition ourselves to work on saving our businesses, and just the speed with which those decisions were made and implemented is just remarkable. And so there's a lot of things I think, you know, from a perspective I'd like to know more and more detail about the, the Amherst area card. And what does that do talk a little bit more about that. And what would tell us more about the downtown Amherst Foundation, because I think people would are interested in hearing about those things. Sure. You know, as you know, a lot of our chambers host gift cards in the area. There's the Northampton area in Northampton gift card, Franklin County, I talked at length at the Franklin County with the Franklin County folks. So we established the same gift card program. And basically, when you're buying a gift card from us the money comes to us but then when you spend it at a business that money's going to go to them so you are investing in those businesses. And you're going to be sending them that cash. So that's cash in their pocket. So I just want to make that clear that this is a really good thing for them. So, if, you know, again, it's been a great gift that I've seen so far people have been asking us, and you can order it online you can't, it's difficult to order multiple online, but please just give me a call send us an email, and we'll take it over the phone and we've been doing that so we either send it back to you, and you give them out and distribute them, or we've actually mailed individually individual gift cards to the recipient so it's a physical card that you get that card. Yep, it actually has shoot I don't have it with me but it's an actual physical card it's beautiful and the card in the back has a QR code which we're all getting used to that's our new some new language that we're getting used to. And you can actually check your balance with the QR code. And some of the businesses will be able to, depending on how they choose to process it could possibly accept it online there is a card number on it. And you, ideally, you should be able to put that card number in that was a question that was asked of me this week. So we're really trying to get that as fine tuned as possible but you can order them online, and then you receive them either directly to you or to your recipient you send us their address, or to multiple. So the multiple one again gets tricky and you have to let us know. So if you have someone who you don't know you're buying them a gift you don't know. Do they like this restaurant or that restaurant. You buy this one they go to either one. That's right. And that's the beauty of it that I you know I don't want to choose. You know, and Gabriel can talk about the pledge. We've had a lot of folks coming in saying, Oh you know, it requires you to take, you know, please take the downtown pledge. One of the gifts are $500 gift card and to 250 gift cards. And, you know, they said, Well, do we have to go to 10 restaurants and I said, We all have our favorites, I would like to go. But here's what you tell me what you like and I'll tell you to try something else. And they've always been incredible conversation. And I was on a call. I think Gabrielle and I want to call this week and we were asked, you know, what have we seen from our patrons that has been positive during this and I would say that people have been patient. And so, you know, not one person deflected and said no I'm not doing 10 restaurants or, you know, that's ridiculous and people said you know you're right, I need to go to 10 I, you know, I'm going to go to my favorite anyway. Right, I'm going to go back to it but this is this is the time if you're going to try something new this is the time to spread the love and we've got global dining so you know the gift card and we're really trying to sign on you don't see a restaurant on there right now. Please let us know and we have been contacting people individually restaurants we've talked to at length. It takes a while to get them set up but just know that if your restaurant's not on there your restaurant oh schwa call me. Because we certainly, they probably are in progress or we've spoken with them but it's a good, good, you know just ask body at Amherst area. Yeah, and I'll second that I was thinking about gift cards this morning and about how they give the gift of taking care of yourself. And I love that concept because you know, I think it's it is gift giving season whether it's Hanukkah or the holidays coming up with Christmas. So gift cards to our downtown businesses and if you do it through the area chamber or through the individual businesses. I really do see that as the thing that it gives you it gives you the excuse to go and buy yourself something it gives you the excuse to go and get your salon treatment whatever it is. So I do think those are really important and yesterday we were in the office and a man came in who had won the chambers bingo. So, so long ago, and I said oh do you know about the pledge and he said yeah it's just you know how am I going to get to 10 restaurants before December 31. And I said well gift cards. And he said, oh my gosh, I could do everybody's stockings of downtown Amherst gift cards of restaurants and salons and stuff and win $500 and I'm like, yeah, run with it. So the pledge has been really great and Claudia thank you for bringing that up. So the pledge is before December 31. You can get a pledge card it's on our website at Amherstdowntown.com. If they're in our office there at every restaurant and shop in downtown and salon. And what we're doing is we're encouraging people to attempt to get to and patronize 10 different restaurants, five different retail experiences, and three restaurants, bars, rents, gas, elements hot tub and spa, three experiences or needs that we have in downtown. And we're getting a lot of them back in which is great so you know there are big prizes at the end, but it's a really great way to, again just take that pledge to support local. And, you know, I read an article the other day about how buying small and buying local is a privilege and it is. And so we do understand that there are people who they would love to be able to shop at our local downtown stores but they're there are less expensive options and the holidays are hard enough already so we do understand that what we're asking is a lot and it's a contribution and it's a commitment, and that not everybody can do it but we are just so grateful for the people who can. And another thing that I've heard that people are doing is they're buying gift cards and they're donating them to family outreach they're donating them to the survival center. So a single parent who's working all day and whose kids are homeschooling all day and at six o'clock is like oh great now I also get to make dinner. Might have that gift card and say no you know what we're getting take out and it's exciting and that's a good thing so those are options as well so if you have the means, those are great options to do. So that's the foundation the foundation and yeah the foundation was started it was a arts and culture foundation. We got our IRS forms the day that Governor Baker put us all in shelter in place and Claudia and I were sitting in the office locking it down and taking all of our files and and it was it was a late night conversation I believe with Claudia and I just going what do we do how do we how do we save these businesses. And the executive board of the foundation agreed immediately to change the scope we were able to raise well over $350,000 and give that in grants to 65 different Amherst wide businesses so this is not just downtown this is all over Amherst. We were able to provide PPE to businesses which is not only cost prohibitive and and difficult but it's, it's often very difficult to get. You know I had businesses that can't they can't order a box of gloves they have to order 100. And that's, you know, that's hard for some small businesses we were able to do that. We were able to front the December dinner delights. We're looking at continuing that hopefully if there's more cares act money in January February and March, and matching that from what the town can do. And, you know, my goal is to return it to an arts and culture builder. Our intention is to come to the Council with a plan for a permanent structure on the self common that will become a performing arts shell that I believe can be utilized nine months out of the year. And I think that we would like to do the fundraising for and donate to the town of Amherst with a maintenance fund, so that it can be maintained for many years to come and also we'd like to raise enough funds to program it for the first two years, sort of in that you build it they will come and we can show what it's capable of and then it can hopefully take its own life from there. So the foundation has become incredibly multifaceted. We're talking to our auditors the other day about how it's going to have to have different funds and how that's going to work, because again as Claudia and Hannah now there's still so much work to be done. And Paul I think you said it bass our darkest time is ahead. We see the numbers every day we see the governor bakers rolling things back. It's a really important time to get out and support our businesses and support our families and it's, it's going to be a long dark winter but I do believe we can come out of this. I do believe there will be a new and like revitalize entrepreneurial wave of people who did everything they were supposed to do, and are out of jobs and don't have health insurance and they're talented and they're going wait a second, I've got an idea. This is be the place that they bring that idea and a lot of that comes down to what we're doing moving forward, and the North Common redo is part of that the performing art shell is part of that building the mill district huge part of that I mean, just provisions alone has created so much in this area, it's really amazing. So you can see what one shift can do what one new business can do, and I think we are going to be primed. Once the vaccine is available to really come out and prove that Amherst is the place to be to open a business and to live. I want to build on that Gabrielle one of the initiatives of the chamber because again, we need to be ready because we know that some dark times are ahead but also how do we get out of this. And also how do we get, you know, with the cultural, excuse me, focusing on the cultural economy and the creative economy is going to be certainly a piece that we're going to be focusing on but also harnessing our tourism and our tourism capital and the chamber is in a unique connection with our other chambers with with the North Hampton Chamber the East Hampton Chamber and also now the South Hadley and Grammy chambers, our four chambers are part of a very special HH the RGC, which is a regional tourism council, and we have finally reignited our board there, and we are going to work together again toward rejuvenating and re, you know, rethinking how we're going to look at spring and come out of this together with a really united, kind of campaign but and really bring Western mass back to the forefront, and hopefully bigger than ever and bigger than before. We were all talking about destination Amherst before this we were all collaborating on something very different, which was really fortunate that we had already begun to collaborate but you know we had to sort of put a somewhat some stall on that right but you know this is not a time to relent this is the time to keep pressing forward. So, we want to take this time to say okay wait a minute how we're going to look and feel out coming out of this so the creative piece, getting that the death back on track to really support, you know we want to bring people downtown we want to give people a million other reasons to come. We feel like we already have a million, but we want to give you that million and one reason to come on downtown and to gather when we all can think about gathering again. So, I feel like that's that we're all in the moment, but we're also very forward thinking. So, that has been a difficult dance sometimes because again it is so we're also right now still working with people with grants. CDBG funding is still open regional grants for Amherst and the Hadley regional grant that affects the Amherst area businesses. So we will work with you if you have questions I just got texted last night. I'll be working with someone this afternoon on their grant. So, you know we're still in the moment and we're still working with you and we're here for you but we're also thinking big picture too, which is, is exciting. I want to take a quick second to say that Don in the room says they love the buy the card idea and donating it and count them in. I saw that I don't so glad you're here. So, and also take a quick chance for the folks who are joining us live we'd love to the room would love to hear from you if you wanted to pop in with your question or your comment your statement feel free to raise your hand via zoom. If you're on the phone press star nine or be like dawn and put something in the Q amp a. I have a question for Hannah because we're talking a lot about the business community and Amherst and often we talk about downtown and I would just love to hear a little bit about how, how you guys are built building and enhancing the village center and North Amherst in the middle district. Yeah. Oh, thank you for that question. I apologize that there's some noise in my house that I wasn't anticipating I hope that's not too loud. I think one of the things and Gabrielle touched on it right out of the gate about collaboration is that the way that Amherst is set up is very unique. So we have a really strong downtown. And then we have to village centers and the ability to be part of building North Amherst up in a way that really creates this infinity loop with downtown and with South Amherst. One of the most exciting things because it, it cuts down on a feeling of isolation and constantly being able to keep kind of lifting our heads up and looking at the big picture. But one thing that we really draw on in North Amherst is that there's a history there. We're not starting from scratch there is a lot to build upon. And we have a really wonderful slogan that kind of keeps me going which is building community one story at a time. And this idea that if we keep kind of peeling back the layers on North Amherst, and looking at, you know, who's living there what the makeup is what the history is what the needs are what is our place in the ecosystem. We get to really pay attention to those things and leverage them to keep looking ahead in a way that's really authentic and I think that that is so crucial. You know, we get a lot of attention for North Square, which is the phase of development that's underway right now with beautiful new buildings 130 apartments 22,000 square feet of commercial space and all of that is so exciting. And now that those buildings are there, we get to constantly be digging into the sort of nitty gritty opinions of what needs to be in that space. So, you know, we do a lot of connecting with the community to find out what people want to see in there, making sure that we're paying a lot of attention to lifting up and supporting the local businesses that are already there and bringing more in that fit into the fabric in a way that doesn't feel disruptive it feels like we are growing North Amherst in a way that is not being ignorant of what people want. I think that that in community building and in place making and in any kind of economic development. We can plug into listening and really making sure that we're going after things that fit and that feel really good and feel fun provisions is a great example and I'm so glad that we put their name out there because they are one of the newest businesses to come into our Amherst ecosystem and we're so excited to have them. And one of the reasons that we were really thrilled that they came is because they're a known entity there's something that people can connect with. They are offering something really beautiful really curated and something that means a lot to them. And so, for me, when we look at businesses and we look at the work that everyone is doing to support our local businesses. We are communicating with business owners were communicating with stakeholders were communicating with shoppers and making sure that we are fitting into the image that people have of the place that they want to live and being really proactive in going out and seeking that. So I think I'm sorry about this noise that really loud. Somebody's doing a home DIY project. Wait. I'm 30 jealous. Don't worry. That's something about COVID. Right is everyone's just like get up and go these do it. But certainly one of my jobs is to interface with, oh my gosh, with different opinions of what North Amherst should look like. And I know that, you know, going back to my point about honesty and transparency, people have a lot of differing views about what something should look like. And so fielding those opinions, opening up really honest conversations, and making sure that we at the Mill District are being responsive and being true to our values and our knowledge of the history is just absolutely beautiful. And we have a good example that just came in to the Q&A from the room of, you know, talking to people, what do they want to see? And I know you guys do a really good job of that because I'm, you know, a little biased. I'm a North Amherst resident, so I've always shared my ideas too, but so this person in the room wants to know if provisions, if the provisions store in the Mill District could have milk, eggs, and bread available. A common question, and thank you for that question, it is an excellent one. And I will do a little bit of self-promotion and say, if you go to our Facebook page, we've been doing a weekly interview show, and a couple weeks ago we had a chance to sit down with Benson and Kelly, the co-owner and assistant manager of provisions and talk with them about exactly that. So provisions is coming in very much with the model that they have in Northampton currently because that's what they know, and they're going to get that grounded, they're going to set that foundation, and they're going to operate in that way, but they are very interested in hearing from the community and from us on the Mill District team about what the community in North Amherst really wants and needs, and that is definitely something that we have communicated to them already and that they have been very receptive to, and so our hope and their hope is that as they move forward they can expand their offerings to really fit that need, and if not provisions, we are very cognizant of the fact that those items and items that kind of ripple out from that sort of core grocery need are really important, and so we will keep looking for a business that can offer those in the Mill District, so if not provisions it will definitely be another business offering that because it's just absolutely crucial to have in the village center. Hannah, can you share a little bit about how, because I'm a North Amherst resident as well, I'm thrilled about the development and I want to see that community grow and I would love to see more economic development there, and I love that the Lyft and Jake's and provisions is now in gorgeous, it's a gorgeous space, I'm thrilled that they're filling it, so welcome, and Jake's has pivoted a little bit and they're now weekends only, is that right? That's right, so through the winter they're going to be open Saturday and Sunday, we are really, really excited that they are able to keep that location open at all, I know a lot of area businesses are deciding to just sort of call the winter and take the whole thing off, which I think makes a lot of sense for many businesses, and the owners of Jake's, Chris and Alex, they did a really, really deep dive into what they were able to do and got a lot of advice and found that the best thing they could do was just really limit their hours, so they're open for takeout, and I believe they're open for in-restaurant dining on Saturday and Sunday for as long as that is possible, so I think if they have to move to a fully takeout model, they'll do that as well. They did a beautiful job. Yeah, yeah. They really did, and I'd love to add on to that. There are just some things that don't take out great, and they don't make the chefs and the owners feel great about what they do, and I think anybody who is recovering restaurateur here, stupid enough to open several, knows that you go in with a passion and an idea, and I just want to say bravo to all of the businesses. I think about Toybox and how she has spent so much time getting everything she has online, down to the 15 cent Chachkees, they're all online. That is exhausting. I think everybody on this call has probably built a website at some point. It's a lot of work, and then I think about Jake's, and I've gotten takeout breakfast, and it's really good, but I know from their point of view, and I'm only saying this because they've said it publicly on Instagram, they're like, eggs don't package, and you're like, I know, and that's tough. And I do want to say, as we're looking at this winter, and as we start to see businesses who make the decision, like Lone Wolf, to not be open for the winter, their intention right now, and I cannot express how true this is, because they're re-upping their liquor licenses for the 2021 calendar, they are planning on coming back in April, and I do want to make sure that that chicken little sky is falling thing doesn't happen where if a restaurant does decide that they are going to keep their expenses and everything as tight as humanly possible by closing for a couple of months when things are not looking like they can't meet what we want them to be. And sometimes that really is just the restaurant tour and the chef saying, I don't feel great about my food being packaged. There's some food that's meant to be takeout, and there's some food that's just not. So I do want to remind everybody that these restaurants, these businesses, these shops, if we do see them close, it is not, they're gone from good. And our intention, and I think, Hannah, I know you feel this way in the mill. I know that Claudia and I feel this way about Amherst all over the place. Our intention is to get them back open in April. And Paul, you know, you said, we've got to start, you know, getting ready. And I know we have a meeting every Friday with the town. And we are constantly pounding that we cannot, on March 25, go, okay, how are we going to reopen everybody on April 1? Our plans need to be put in place by the end of January for opening our establishments in April and whatever that looks like, whether it's big, beautiful, permanent changes, or a redo of our temporary situation that we were able to pull off. I think we need to do it a little bit cleaner and a little bit better and a little bit more attractive. But we need to get started and getting prepared for that. So as you're buying gift certificates and as you hear things, you know, buying a gift certificate certificate to the lone wolf is not throwing your money away. They're coming back. And that kind of support, I think, has to continue. And I think that we have to look at these businesses and know that any decisions that they're making are going to be for that. I also want to make sure that people are not like, oh, my God, so-and-so is closed. They must have had 15 cases of COVID. They might just be closing because they want to regroup. Again, rebuilding their website, getting an online ordering system. And Tweety and I went through and called every single restaurant and looked up every restaurant in Amherst wide to find out how many have very easy online ordering. Not a lot. So we want to work with them and get them an easy online option. So you're not waiting on the phone for 45 minutes and finally giving up and going somewhere else. So those are things that, you know, I know Posse Boston, the beginning of this, they closed for a week to regroup and get their online ordering right. And that's important. So when we see things like that, let's continue to support them and not run around and speculate on why we think they closed. Great point. That was funny. You were talking about Jake's. We've been doing these cup of Joes for a long time. And our last in-person cup of Joes was at Jake's. And it was in March. And I was with Assistant Town Manager Dave Zomek and the Council President Griezma was there. And maybe eight other people or something like that. Maybe a dozen us drifting in and out. But we were cognizant of COVID. We were distancing. We were trying to stay six feet apart, but we weren't super, you know, like, and we didn't know about masks. And we were just sort of learning about it. And then Dave and I came back to Town Hall and said, we shouldn't be doing this anymore. You know, it was too early. We shouldn't be meeting in person like that with random people. And also we were suggesting that people couldn't hear each other. So we had one-on-one conversation. So it was defeating the purpose. But, you know, that was a long time ago. And now we've done this, right? And this is actually getting to more people in many ways. It doesn't have the participating piece, because we'd like people who are in the room to come in and join and tell us what you're thinking about things, because that's really the value of this. It's not to listen to us, but for us to hear from you. So if you have thoughts about what the downtown is looking like, you know, what businesses you're thinking about, what's the future for them or anything like that, we'd love to answer any questions if we know the answers to them. I think I thank you for saying that, Paul. And I think one of the things that that really brings up for me is, and we would know one in the room would say, you know, that COVID has brought about so many good things. But I do think that one silver lining of it has been this regrouping that everyone has been able to do, whether you're regrouping around your business, you're regrouping around your career path, you're regrouping around your parenting style. I mean, everyone has gotten to sort of take a moment and take a step back. And I'll I'll say that I think humanity really needed that we needed to take a second to look at how we were doing things, how we were supporting things, the choices we were making. And, you know, this this virtual space has been really fascinating to me through COVID, because, you know, in the middle district, and I think kind of in the economic sector, globally, there's been this move towards experiential. And I love that. I think that's so great. And it has this really in person bent to it. And experiential does not necessarily now, to me, mean only in person, it means a level of connecting that is more in depth. We've expanded this idea of experiential retail, you know, experiences, what it means to be a part of our communities. And I think a lot of us in the room spend time talking about inclusivity, accessibility, and things going online, whether it's board meetings, committee meetings, being able to meet someone over Zoom, who maybe lives in another state, I've done a lot of connecting with other creative place making professionals in other states and cities to see what they're doing. This sort of could hybridize into something that makes spaces like this where we're talking and we're getting into the nuts and bolts of something. And then down the road, when we are able to be in person, we're able to kind of flow between the virtual space and the in person space in a much more organic way that makes people more able to come to meetings, more able to identify what needs to be virtual and what needs to be in person, right? The old joke, this meeting could be an email kind of thing. You know, really taking stock of how we connect, how deeply we connect, and where the virtual and the in person meet, I think is something that we're going to come out of COVID with a much more hybridized view of. And I think that that's very powerful and supportive for a lot of people. You're absolutely right, Hannah. I mean, at least from the government perspective and local government, we've seen participation, attendance just increase exponentially. Especially, you know, all of our board, we have a lot of boards and committees in Amherst, and now they're all being recorded. Whereas if you wanted to tune into that in the past, you had to come to the brick and mortar at the right time and take a seat. And so from our perspective, we've seen a huge increase of interest. And I think it really is that being accessible to more people. We've seen that just explode in the last few months. It'll be interesting to see if we go back, you know, go back to that, because the benefit of, we're recording every committee meeting now. So you can go to any, if you want to see the Shade Tree Committee, you can go and watch that Shade Tree Committee meeting. And previously, we didn't do that. It was, if you weren't in the room at that moment in time and you just, you couldn't just scroll through and say, huh, what are they're doing? And it's easy to do with Zoom. It's hard to do in person. And that's, and so going back means we lose this piece of it. So it's going to be interesting to see how what the state legislature allows us to do. We're allowed to meet, the official bodies are allowed to meet virtually because of special acts or orders by the governor. But once the pandemic ends, you know, they haven't, there's not a replacement thing for that. So it's going to be interesting to see if people are going to rebalance saying, no, I want to be able to stay online. I hope that we do. I mean, we're putting out 50 hours of recorded meetings a month, a week, excuse me, a week. So it's just, there's just an amazing amount of information there for those who really want to tune in to, like Paul said, the public Shaitree work or whatever your specific thing is. And I know I want to ask a little bit, as we're talking about these virtual events and things that were kind of institutions in town. It's that it's that time of year where we're going into the holiday season. So I wanted to ask what everyone's normal favorite thing was this time of year in Amherst and how that looked differently this year or will look differently this year. I guess the biggest one for us was the virtual lighting of the merry maple. And I have to say, you know, jumping right off of that, you know, virtual meeting. It was actually a meeting several weeks ago where John Claudia and I were able to get together in the office and really brainstorm. And we put together that entire evening in that brainstorming session. We were like, oh my gosh, you call so and so. And here's the singer who's amazing and all call tone. You know, it was like, we were like, yes. And then by the end of the day, we had all these people lined up and, you know, Amherst media ready to come in and join us. And but yeah, I mean, and to sort of, you know, be like, oh, we're, Claudia and I are going to go meet moneybrook farms and Santa and bring them up to do, you know, the pre lighting of the merry maple to make sure it all goes well, because can you imagine if we were like virtual merry maple and everything went to pot and like it didn't light and Santa fell down or something. So, so, you know, I think that that kind of thing is, is definitely interesting. You know, we had a great meeting the other day with Barbara of LSE, you know, talking about Winterfest and what does that look like this year. And we've got some really good ideas on what we can do if things are phase three, step one, come first week of February, we have ideas. And if we're in a different phase, we have different ideas. So I think one of the interesting things about all three of us is we're all like, I think every single one of us has spent our careers gathering people and creating events and bringing people together. I mean, I wake up and I'm like, oh my god, I have this incredible idea and my husband looks at me and he's like, that's 300 people in one space. And like so, you know, and you kind of forget that COVID is this, you know, really serious thing. So it is interesting to have all of these ideas. And then we we sort of check ourselves and each other in these meetings saying, oh, okay, well, we can't do that. But how do we recreate it to still be special? So I think all of us are working really hard at creating special things for the holiday period and beyond, you know, I think it's really easy to get really excited about December. December is a great month, but we still have January and February and we still have things that we need to be able to create and bring light and fun and experience to the mill, to the downtown, to Amherst wide. So I'd say that's it. I'd say just this ability to, you know, look at it something, have ideas and then completely recreate it and rethink it for a COVID world. And I for one cannot wait to, you know, to not be doing that. You know, I can't wait to be utilizing the commons for what they're really meant for. I can't wait to see kids all over Kendrick Park on a brand new playground having fun together. That is a world I want to see and I want to see it soon. I agree. I do see Ken's hand in the room. So I'm going to bring Ken in and have him make his comment or question. Ken, are you with us now? If you could unmute and introduce. I'm with you. It's Ken Rosenthal. I live on Sunset Avenue. I want to thank you all for your comments this morning. And yes, you're right. When this pandemic is over and it will be over sometime in the summer, I think I look at the schedule and somebody my age is probably scheduled to get vaccines in April and so I'll be secure in May and there'll be people after me. When it reopens, it would be great for you to find a way to continue to manage Zoom gatherings. Brianna, how many folks are on the line, have been on the line this morning? I'll bet a lot more than used to come to Amherst Coffee or Jake's for a cup of coffee. And we can do this because we're comfortable on our own home. I'm drinking out of my Hampshire College mug and just happy to participate and not have to run into town on a cold morning. So, Paul, it won't be too soon for you folks in government all over the Commonwealth to start working with the powers that be to talk about how you do these things because there's a real advantage to it to getting more people involved. And that's my comment this morning. Thank you. By the way, Brianna, how many people are online, do you think? So, we've had eight attendees cycle in and out and so sometimes we'll have fewer than that. Sometimes we'll have much more than that. I think, you know, usually when we're not this early. Yeah, and I do appreciate your comments Ken, because we've been struggling with that kind of fine balance of being as open as possible, as accessible as possible, and as safe as possible. And I know you've been along for the ride. So, we do appreciate your feedback, especially looking forward. And I might have to spin together a little working group, Paul, of my virtual advisors for the next few months. So, Ken's on the top of that list. Thank you, Ken. One of the other things I wanted to know is that it's not just the people who are here today, because these go up, and I think the Cup of Joes and the community conversations are some of the most popular things that people would might get, you know, how many, a hundred people watching them during the course of the week, right? Yeah, our video, our community chats, and which are more frequent in the Cup of Joes that we've put up are the most popular content on our channel right now, which I said this in a conversation a couple weeks ago to Paul, we've seen exponential growth and in our viewership there. I mean, we had some of the major boards and committees, their recordings there, but we just have so much content now and, you know, people are accessing it, and we can see that, which is exciting. And we also share these things with Amherst Media, who put it out through their channels. And those are a little harder to quantify for me to see, but, you know, they're putting it on their channel 17, so people are watching it from home if that's, you know, something that they normally do. So we're seeing a lot of growth there. Content is king. Or queen. Content is queen. I like that one. Okay, content is queen. I like it. And to Ken's point, I think to add to that, that I think we're seeing definitely a shift overall, because I, you know, as a chamber we represent 75 nonprofits, who are doing some incredible work right now, some of the most, as difficult work or more difficult work than any of us. And I've seen them pivot incredibly well during this time, and they've had to go virtual. So for example, I'm on Big Brothers Big Sisters board and, you know, they did their daffodil. They did the one of the first earliest daff, you know, virtual events out of the gate. And what we found was we had participation from across the globe. I could get my family from Australia or from Italy or from, you know, wherever they are to join in this effort and feel really good about it. And feel like, hey, I'm joining my family that I wouldn't normally see anyway at this time of year. But, and it wasn't just because of COVID, I may not be seeing you in April, but I could join you in this effort. So I think it's going to help us think differently for all of us, you know, how we do events. We were able to deliver our A plus awards virtually. And at first, honestly, early on, we thought, oh, God, no, this, we can't do this. This is not going to go over well. And, you know, as Gabrielle said, it just takes a couple of people sitting around a table and saying, okay, wait a minute, if we did this, if we did that, we pull these elements together, this could feel really good. And it feels like, Brianna, we started this conversation about holidays. And, you know, the awards felt really good to celebrate. Like we needed something to celebrate right now. And we needed to honor some of the work that's been going on. And certainly our business owners have been doing some of the toughest work and our nonprofits. And the other event that I missed was we normally do our holiday gathering, we do it right downtown Amherst and Amherst works. It's our annual holiday party. And we can't do it, you know, again, same thing, we can't gather, what do we do? So we've really shifted that focus completely. And with People's Bank help, we do have a fundraiser going on to support the food bank. We've asked people in lieu of coming to the party or any other party that you might have paid for this holiday season to donate that for the food bank. Just $25 pays for food for one month. I mean, their ability to, you know, purchase food is enormous. Their impact is enormous. So again, it's all it's been giving us new opportunities and to think a little differently on, you know, we've always thought of the holidays as a time to give back, but this was just another way to say, okay, we're going to do this in lieu of the hugs that we normally. Oh, I'm just going to bring there's another hand in the room. So I'm just going to bring this person in. You don't have a name, but I do see numbers. So I'm going to bring you in the room if you could introduce yourself. Hi, Phyllis Lara from South Amherst. I was at that last coffee at Jake's and it was wonderful, but it was a little tough. And I always follow Ken because I think the two of us are pretty regular. But what I wanted to ask and thank you all for doing this, Hannah, could you maybe publicize the December 20th event that's going to be up there in North Amherst? Yes, I definitely can. So it's on our Facebook page right now. I'll also put it up on next door Amherst. And if there are other places to talk about it, and I'll talk a little bit more about what we're doing. Because I always want to be very careful around the word event right now so that people understand the caution that we're taking and the steps we're taking. But I can absolutely put it out there more in the world. So we have taken a slightly different approach to holidays in the Mill District. And to be crystal clear, we're being incredibly mindful of social distancing, of keeping numbers small, and of hybridizing those events so that the small in person component has a sort of larger virtual component to it. And it all started, we were kind of ready to write off the winter and say, you know, we can't do things at all. And then slowly we started getting this input from different parts of the community about each of the holidays that was coming up and these sort of magical things started happening. So right now, last night, we started the celebration of Hanukkah and that actually began because we had the opportunity to have one of those really big menorahs come to the Mill District that, you know, sits out on the lawn and is lit. And so we're working with Rabbi Kravitzky, who also works with Amherst College and Hampshire College. And each night of Hanukkah, he is coming with the members of his family. And then we also invited, put out a sign up sheet for another family from the community to come so that we have this traditional aspect of Hanukkah celebration and then also a more creative secular aspect represented. And each night we have a socially distanced in person gathering of these two families that were live streaming on Facebook so that everyone can light the lights with us. And I'm working on the sound. So Hanukkah is happening first. We will have a Christmas celebration after that. We're going to have a tree go up on the 19th with a little sign by it that says, come put your ornament on the tree. So people at their leisure with the space that makes them feel comfortable can come and contribute. There's not one time that we have to gather. That's really what we're trying to avoid. And after Christmas, we're going to be celebrating Kwanzaa. We have a beautiful Kenara that Peter just built and that we have some community members who are going to come together and paint. And Dr. Shabazz from UMass and is going to create a nice event around that that we can share virtually, again, with a very small in person gathering. And then as Bill has mentioned, on December 20th, we're having a solstice event that is really about celebrating the Mill District and North Amherst by having a lot of different things going on that people can walk by. Provisions is open. Jake's will be open. We'll have a tent up with a little preview of the general store that we're opening in 2021. So you can come and chat with people. All of this is outside. So we've sort of taken this idea of events and just kind of turned it on its head a little bit. And one thing that I think is sort of my ulterior motive and mission is to look at the winter a little differently. I think in New England, we have this wonderful tradition of hibernation. Everyone retreats even not in COVID. There's sort of a shutdown, not as much happens. Gabrielle mentioned January and February. They're quiet times. They're somewhat isolating times for people. And I think through this period, for instance, we had an event last Sunday, a story walking with the author event on our story walk at Mill River Recreation. You had to reserve a spot. Everybody had to be masked. We were outdoors. And parents who came with their kids were so thrilled to have somewhere to go. They did not care that it was cold. It didn't matter. And I think if we keep finding ways to have these small things happening that people can feel comfortable at and enjoy at a pace that works for them, I think that people will come out more in the wintertime and we can get really creative with how we view the winter as a whole and take a little bit more of an approach to it that we see in either countries whose winters are very long or states whose winters maybe aren't quite as cold and we can brave it a little more because we'll need the connection. I think I touched on everything. I'm going to have to sign off because I'm in my son's classroom. And he needs to get to school at nine. So thank you, Paul, for having us. Brianna, thank you for setting all of this up. And thank you, Hannah and Claudia, for everything you guys are doing. I really appreciate it. I'm going to say goodbye and get my kid on his classroom. Thank you, Gabrielle. That's the perfect prompt because we are at our hour. So thank you, Gabrielle. I want to thank everybody who joined us live, especially our special guests, Hannah, Claudia and Gabrielle. You can visit all three of their websites for any of the things that they've referenced today, gift cards, events. So if you have any follow-up questions, feel free to send them to info at AmherstMA.gov. And we thank you for joining us. Support local all season long. Yes. Thank you. Thank you.