 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise V's and generous donations from viewers like you. Hello and welcome to the Amherst Weekly Report. I'm Claire Healy and these are the stories out of Amherst, Massachusetts from this past week. The University of Massachusetts Amherst will be working with the town of Amherst to provide asymptomatic testing for first responders at the University's Public Health Promotion Center at the Mullen Center. Around 100 firefighters, inspectors, and police officers will be getting tested weekly through this initiative, and the town will reimburse the University for any expenses incurred. This move follows a significant rise in cases in the Amherst area over the past two weeks. The town of Amherst sent a press release on Wednesday, October 7th, announcing that Amherst has been designated red by the State Department of Public Health, meaning that the town is at higher risk for COVID-19 infections. Amherst has exceeded the state's daily incidence threshold rate of eight cases per 100,000 people. As of October 7th, Amherst's incidence rate is 16.76. To leave the red zone designation, a community has to be below the aforementioned threshold for at least three weeks. In the press release, Acting Public Health Director Jennifer Brown said, I ask all community members to remain vigilant in following public health protocols and best practices for the safety of all. Updated case counts and resources for Amherst can be found at www.amherstcovid19.org. Citing this rise in cases, Superintendent Michael Morris postponed reopening the Amherst Regional Public Schools for Phase 1 of in-person classes. The initial plan was to let preschoolers, kindergartners, first graders, and special population students at all grade levels return to in-person classes on Thursday, October 1st. The superintendent made this announcement the day before schools were set to reopen and said that per protocol, the reopening date had to be pushed back 14 days because of the recent spike in COVID-19 cases. As such, Phase 1 will start again October 15th, as long as the number of COVID-19 cases and the rate of infection return to agreed-upon levels. Due to COVID-19, the Amherst area has seen a rise in food insecurity as a result of the pandemic, according to a report released by the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts. The report, titled COVID-19 and Food Insecurity in Western Massachusetts, shows a significant rise in food insecure residents, average monthly individuals served, and a rising demand for food. According to the report, between March and September of this year, the Food Bank's distribution has increased more than any other 7-month period in the organization's 38-year history. In this period, the Food Bank distributed 2.2 million more pounds of food than during the same month in 2019. We spoke with Executive Director of the Food Bank, Andrew Morehouse, about his experience working with food insecurity this past summer, and his insight into what food insecurity could look like going forward. We, pre-COVID, were providing food to approximately 90,000 individuals every month. In Amherst last year, pre-COVID, we were providing food assistance to about 5,900 individuals every month. The months marched through September, we actually provided food to an average of 7,500 individuals every month in the town of Amherst, so that's an increase of 28%. We've since seen that number decline gradually, but we fear that it could spike again now that the federal extended unemployment benefit ceased as of September 30th. If unemployment persists and with no additional federal stimulus, we could wind up in a situation where we see a subsequent spike, particularly if there are parallel spikes in COVID infections that shut down businesses again. So with the spike in food insecurity, our work has become highly more visible, and for that, we've received a tremendous outpouring of community support, far more so than we ever have in our 38-year history. So we're extremely grateful for that, and we are making sure that we put those investments to good work. Morehouse noted that any residents experiencing food insecurity are more than welcome at the food bank and can find resources at the Get Help button on the website, which is www.foodbankma.org. Anyone looking to donate can do so as well on the website. The Amherst Survival Center has hired a new food pantry manager. Jen Supernaut, who started as a volunteer in the winter of 2018, said she fell in love with their survival center. I love interacting with the community. So our support staff, our volunteers, all the shoppers who come in, I love that piece. And then the second piece would be part of what I get to do is reach out to other organizations and partner with them. And so I'd give you an example of maybe we're partnering with a support agency who is trying to get groceries to their clients. Or maybe we're partnering with an affordable housing complex who is working to try and make sure that their residents have groceries. Or maybe working with a local senior center to make sure that all of the people in their community are being served. And there's a piece, or even our farmers who come and they're like, I have all these extra carrots today. Can you use them? And I go and grab our chef, Phillip, and he says, those are beautiful. I'll put them in today's salad. That piece of the greater community coming together and supporting what the mission of this organization does lights me up. Even though we have some really long days right now, it gives me the energy to get up and do it again the next day. Before the Amherst Survival Center, she worked for 20 years in the group travel trade. Supernaut says her time filling that role prepared her well to deal with the logistics of being food pantry manager, especially in the time of COVID-19. As food pantry manager Supernaut handles the logistics of delivering groceries to people out in the community and to those who come in, sourcing food and offering customer service to shoppers, among other roles. Often people find themselves here at the Amherst Survival Center when they've never been to a place like this before and making sure that they understand the core of the survival center is that this is a community. And the philosophy is that if the community comes together and we support one another, we can help source to make sure everybody is fed and that people have access to health care and to goods from our community store when that was open. It's temporarily closed because of COVID and all the many other resources that we provide here for folks. After a short break, the town of Amherst has relaunched their weekly community chats on Thursdays at noon. On Thursday, October 8th, the town held a community chat with Amherst Acting Health Director Jennifer Brown and Senior Services Director Mary Beth Ogowitz. Town Manager Paul Backelman and Communications Manager Breonna Sunrid host the community chats. Past chats can be found on either the town's YouTube page or Amherst Media's YouTube website. Several weeks ago, we reported on a video from the UMass basketball team showing solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. The video was produced and directed by UMass sophomore guard Colton Mitchell. We spoke with Mitchell about his inspiration to create the film and the process of doing so with his team. When I saw the video, it was just like, like you really can't believe something like that would happen. And just really put me in shock. I know I put some of my teammates in shock. Our coach, Texas, that night was like, listen, we're not going to work out for a couple of days. We need to talk meetings and all that sort of stuff, which I think we did need because not talking through something like that is just, I really think it's like inhuman, like you can't, you can't turn your eye at something when it happens over and over again. So the motivation really just came, I guess, entrant, like intrinsic, like it was inside of me. I couldn't not speak with the following I had, because I knew I would be heard beforehand. Before YouTube, I had 4,000 followers on Instagram. No type of nothing. No one really knew who I was. Three months ago I started my YouTube. Now I have 20,000 on Instagram, 50,000 on TikTok, and 20 plus on YouTube. Like I'm going to be heard. So I had already made up my mind beforehand, me and Trey Mitchell, we're going to make this video, we're going to make it happen. Cool. So we had a meeting and Coach Bergeron and Coach McCall were just like, listen, we want you to do something for us. We want you to put out a video. We know you have skill, talent, camera. It doesn't make it happen. I was like, I was already going to do it, so that's great. Let's do it. Set that in motion. They did everything I asked, and it came to life really well. I couldn't be happier with how it came out. The fastest way from point A to point B is the straight line. And it's high. It's so easy to turn a blind eye or to stay quiet. But like why? Like we've been doing it for decades. We always talk about change and what we're doing to make America better. Truthfully, I haven't seen any type of change or a change in direction. Ever since I've been around on this earth. There's always been my minorities. There's always been lower class citizens or something I learned about class. Actually, they talk about how the American dream is possible. If you just work hard and you do what you love, that's not true. People are set to be on a great path, and other people are set to fail. I feel like the minorities in America from birth are set to fail. I have three best friends growing up. Yeah, three best friends growing up. Drug dealer. I was the only one of us that made it out of the city. I really believe that's because I wasn't considered to be a minority. And I believe that they were set up to fail. And I think it's time we changed that area. I want people to be on board with that and do the same. Finally, election day is coming up fast. Early in-person voting will be happening from October 17th to October 30th. Check your town clerk's office for voting times. October 24th will be the last day to register to vote in the November 3rd election. October 28th is the final day to request an application to vote by mail. Visit www.vote411.org for more information. That's all for this week. Thank you for tuning in to the Amherst Weekly Report from Amherst Media. I'm Claire Healy, and we'll see you again at the same time next week.