 All right. So good afternoon. Welcome everybody to our Amherst Community Chat for April 1st. Today we've got some of our Amherst ambassadors joining us and we'll introduce everybody in just a moment. Before we do that, I'd like to give your town manager, Paul Balkaman, a chance to give any general updates he has. Thanks Brianna. Yeah. So this is the start of our budget season. Today was the deadline for the school department and the library to submit their budgets to me, which they have done. There will be a hearing public forum on the regional school budget on Monday, and then the library and elementary school budgets will be incorporated into the budget that I present to the town council on May 1st. So that this launches off a pretty robust period of the next three months really of during April, May and June of having the town council review the budget proposals. Deciding what the priorities of the town because we all know that your budget is as a statement of your priorities. And it'll be really interesting things we're really interesting times a lot of new initiatives that people are trying to do to push forward with not much money. And so we're we're still suffering from the pandemic deflation of our a lot of our funds that normally come in so we're we're struggling on the revenue side with a lot of demand so it's a it's a it'll be a really fun time to be thinking about things. So that's what we're going to be headed next few weeks. Budget time budget season. And for those folks who are interested in staying up to date with that you can visit us online amherstime.gov slash budget. From there you can see the current previous and upcoming budget and any information that's available right now for those documents so first we're going to introduce cat Taylor and Joe. I've been with us a couple of times for updates on the program off and on cat is the coordinator of the Amherst ambassador program and so I'm going to invite cat to introduce herself first and then we'll go around the room. Thank you. My as you said my name is cat I use she her her pronouns I am the coven 19 ambassador coordinator it's a mouthful. And I've been running this program since it started in September. And yeah, my background is in gender studies in Spanish my undergrad and my master's is in social justice education. And when I'm not working I competitively power lift and hang out with my dog. Thank you cat and I'm going to go to Taylor next because she's in my, my top top left screen here so Taylor. Hey, I'm Taylor Martin Graham I use she her hers pronouns I am on the ambassador team I work in the social media and outreach department area. And I am studying at UMass for my bachelor's degree in international business and environmental law. When I'm not studying like crazy, I am either in my garden, or working on my latest craft project or hanging out my cat. And yeah, that's me. Awesome Taylor thanks for being here today. And Joe. I use he him his pronouns. I have a master's degree in history. I've been with this program since September. I help cat with a lot of the programmatic things and I kind of have my, my hands on the pots here so I'm eager to talk about everything this program does. Thank you all for your, your intros and just before we launch into some questions that we have prepared for for this team. I just want to put it out there that the ambassadors are just have been so great positive team to have on board and they roll up their sleeves and are willing to help with almost anything we've, we've ever asked of them so I want to just acknowledge that and say thank you for that. Over this last difficult year. So we early on we've we've had cat on to talk about the program and I think one thing we wanted to discuss is the evolution of the program and what's changed since when you first started and have that mission critical. What does that look like now. And that's for anybody to answer so cat go ahead and Yeah, so I'll start a little bit and I think, you know, Taylor's working bringing that on kind of shows some of the steps and how we've expanded and then Joe you can talk maybe a little bit about the vaccine clinics and the hotline but really you know at its core when we when we started this program, there was the mask mandate in downtown Amherst and really, you know, as many folks know, sort of creating a culture of care and compliance through education I think over sort of enforcement. So you kind of catch more flies with sugar than with one that then with vinegar I think is the same right. So we really started out as really just handing out masks and being a mass distribution program and walking sort of the downtown area and letting folks know like hey you forgot your mask or do you know that you're in the mask mandate zone and kind of reemphasizing that that And then really over time one of the things that we structured the way that we built up the program and the way that we sort of communicate and staff the program is to be highly flexible. And so what we then saw was, you know, we do outreach which is sort of face to face interactions with residents so we did some out in October was a big push for both our permanent residents as well as our student residents in the town talking about sort of Halloween safety and things like that. We also do smaller outreach weekly in different targeted neighborhoods, but as the sort of the year went on, you know, coming like back into November we saw that we were then shifted to work at the polling sites and sort of insured social distancing just kind of handed out masks there let people know about some of the changes that were in place because of COVID at the polling sites such as hand sanitizer and things like that. And then community testing launched in December with a grant that UMass had received. And so starting December 16 we then were at the Mullen Center and greeting folks with community testing and what's been cool about that is we're at almost 25,000 interactions that we've been with community testing folks since that time which is really exciting. And then sort of as time went on and then once we had a vaccine, now multiple vaccines, we then shifted our focus and kind of helped be at some of those sites to greet folks, help sort of with like outside sort of line management, and then also work with the COVID line, which we had been staffing since the fall but has kind of taken on a new role which I'm going to let Joe speak to that because he often staffs that line, but you want to talk a little bit about that. Yeah, absolutely. So the hotline, again, has kind of changed since the fall. We've seen that since the start of, you know, January ish, a lot more vaccine calls have been coming in so people calling asking you know how to get an appointment, where appointments will be just general questions on how they can get started on the process. This is actually another ambassador staff the hotline on the weekends from nine to five on Saturday and we have somebody else 12 to three on Sunday, where we answer these questions live, also return any messages that might have been left during the week. So you try to get back to everybody and connect them to the resources that can best help them. This is kind of a change in the fall when it was a lot more questions about testing, contact tracing, you know, guidelines with reopening as we're still in the early stages of reopening. It definitely has shifted more towards vaccine calls now. But I think the spirit of the hotline is that we're more of a triage center for support so no matter what kind of question gets thrown at us. We're there with the resources to kind of point you in the right direction. I just want to mention that we're not just a concern line. Sometimes people, you know, cause the code with concern line. We're here to answer questions. We're here to hear your feedback. Doesn't always have to be a negative thing if you want to call us if you just generally have some questions and want more information on something we're here and happy to help you. So really the core of our work is it's a lot of relationship building and just, I think, particularly in the pandemic right when folks are feeling isolated having a number that you can call and speak to a real person in live time, or get a call back is is just really reassuring and Taylor I want to tag you in to talk a little bit also about the virtual side of our work that we do. So a big step in our programs evolution was obviously joining social media. So I work on the Instagram which I'll give you guys later but our Instagram really is focused on not just keeping up with like the state but also our town and our community specifically. And so what I work on a lot is, you know, just not just keeping up with like everything, all the new information, but also fielding some of that so similar to what Joe does is I we will put out information about what's new, the new phases a new scene clinics will put the dates and the times out for our town. And then we also get a bunch of questions and our dms, and we'll often put in our stories like people give the chance for people to ask us questions in our stories. And we can actually post a lot of the answers there as well. So we kind of try to jump ahead of, of, you know the calls that we're getting so if we know that a new phase and rollout is coming, we'll talk and post about that to kind of field some of those questions before they get back to the, to the line the COVID concern plan. So that people aren't just, you know, talking about that with them, but our Instagram is a really great way for people to kind of ask those questions to if they might not feel like calling all the time. And it's very open to a different, and a much wider range of people, especially for those who maybe have disabilities or anxieties about calling they can always come to us on our Instagram as well. And it's a little bit more. So people are able to kind of see the information rather than just hear it so it just takes on a different type of person. So we're really excited to have our Instagram be launched, and we are loving all of the feedback that we get on it too. And Taylor how can people find you on Instagram. Yeah, so if you want to go ahead and search for us an Instagram or online at at Amherst ambassador, all lowercase all one word that's it at Amherst ambassador and you can find us there. Can you talk about who you have a frequent special guest in your posts. Can you say a little bit about, of course, that. Yeah, so our posts we try to make it to a wide range of people. So your audience is actually so about 51% is between the ages of 25 and 44. So that's a pretty wide range so we try to hit a little bit of everyone and every Wednesday we do Winston Wednesdays so a lot of you guys have met Winston the comfort dog and so every week we share him in some way. It's always a joy because he's just the cutest thing so how can you not want to see that too. We love having him on our team and with us so whether it's on video or just the cutest little pictures of him sleeping all his little wrinkles. So definitely check us out because we always have the best content for him on our page on Wednesdays and then you know some secret surprises every now and again on our stories. So we do that and then definitely look out for our posts we try to do a lot of outreach with our community so in our stories. So people often will send us you know different information or different businesses and Amherst will reach out to us and we love updating the community on what different businesses and community members are doing. So it's not just COVID stuff it's also about reaching out to our community and making this like a really wonderful and safe place. So definitely follow us for Winston content but also for community content and COVID health and safety content. Yeah, the color yellow. Everything is yellow. Yes. Which is a very happy color. It is immediately. You're scrolling through Instagram all day. It's very it pops you know. We took the photo of Winston in the shirt when we did because I don't know if he would fit in one now. So we've had Joe and I have well sometimes Taylor's remote so we'll sometimes do the video and sort of send it over to her and we did when community testing launched I just remember we kind of picked him up on the desk and kind of like used his pause to navigate to show that it was pretty easy to sign up for community testing and now he's kind of the size of a bear. So last week when Joe and I were in the office we both got startled because he snores. It sounds like he's pretty fun to work with. We're going to have to get him a spandex or some kind of new shirt that will keep up with the growth. Well thank you Taylor for that description I think that's great we'll make sure to include a link to your Instagram page which we did initially when we post up this video for everybody so they can find it. So that's one way that you can keep up with the ambassadors virtually so one thing is where can people expect to see you kind of in the wild and on the streets what does that look like. Joe do you want to answer that one. I can take this one. So, you know, initially, the ambassadors were the program was created to hand out masks and we call the mask zone downtown, which runs from the border view mass down to College Street where Amherst colleges from Lincoln Avenue in the west to triangle So that's the sort of area that you can kind of see ambassadors out and about walking around, you know, interacting with town residents, distributing masks, answering questions, etc. But we have branched out from there. So you'll also see us at the Mullen Center, helping with community testing guiding people as to where they need to go answering questions about the basic process. Just as a sort of reminder, there is community testing that's ongoing Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays, Tuesday, 75 Wednesdays, 830 to five Thursdays, 830 to seven. So you'll see us there during business hours. And then additionally we do assist at vaccine clinics as they come up again, helping with line management answering questions about the process kind of getting people into the building what to expect and distributing masks as they do come in. The last ways you can run into us around town. But yeah, I just wanted to bet you mentioned the testing that's going on at the Mullen Center. A lot of folks are going to be traveling over the next few days, and just want to encourage everyone when they come back, go get a test it's free it's so efficiently run. You're in and out. I mean, my average time was about seven or eight minutes. It's free parking and just like shoot through get you know if you've gone away for the weekend or seen family or anything like that I know we're everybody sort of loosening up a little bit. There is the fear of a resurgence in our community. So we got to keep tracking it so going down getting a quick test would be really important for folks. That's a great point Paul, you know with with holiday travel anticipated it really is I think, from beginning to end and really easy process getting your appointments. Very easy there's always appointment slots there every time I go to schedule my weekly appointment so. And I think Joe are you the map guru on the team. He is actually our map. Yes, I love your maps great job. I wondered, you know, you guys get to actually be out in the community doing something. We talked a little bit about this that maybe Paul and I probably are jealous of we don't get to necessarily, you know, meet and greet and see people out in the real world as much as much so have there been. I want to share like maybe a story of impact, or something that really stuck with you through your work over the last few months whether it was a phone call or an in person at the vaccine clinic just something that really stood out to you that kind of signified the importance of your work. I'm going to go first yeah absolutely. So, I don't know why I keep running to this person in the same place. But there is just the nicest old woman, I see walk by the IS sushi downtown, I run into her maybe once or twice a week. And every time I see her we stop and chat. She just tells us she's really happy to see us out there asks us you know how things have been. Where we'll see it's kind of the same questions that we've been answering here. And just having a conversation with this person, I think it's, it's really a good thing that we have that element of human face to face interaction, you know, mask and six feet away, but being able to be that presence in the community. So I look forward to walking by the IS sushi on my shifts for sure. I love that. Thank you. Kat Kat has some stories I bet. Yeah, so I have two that I can think of one was when we were outside the vaccination clinic for the 75 and up. And we had a couple of like, that was just a really heartwarming kind of experience all around because I think for many folks in that population many had not left their home since last March and so there were cute little moments from sort of you know letting folks know like oh you can step up in line, you know, the line is you know progressing forward and having folks sort of say oh I'm so sorry I just was enjoying the breeze on my face and watching people because I haven't people watched. Or we had some folks. We had one fella who was 94 who looked super sharp and just buried dapper and we had complimented his outfit and he said oh I was so excited to go out of the house I spent three days picking my outfit out. So those kind of smaller moments to you know we had somebody who had stopped us and she said is this what my tax dollars are paying for like this program and really a lot of people in that population and up sort of hadn't really been in the downtown area because they were staying home because of the pandemic so it was really the first time that they had seen us we kind of had that a couple of those interactions similarly at polling sites. That's cool to see but a very notable last one that I can think of. I had a staff member come in after her shift and she had engaged with some of the folks who identify as homeless in our on one of her shifts and she had come in and she said, you know, growing up, she was from the Boston area and she said growing up parents had kind of taught me to sort of stay away from folks like that and she said they had such rich stories and I spent about 20 minutes just having this really lovely conversation with this person and I said you know what like, if that's what you take from this job that like everybody has a unique story and everybody is worth that time to sit and just get to know people. You know, like, I was like great, then you've done a great job and as you know in my opinion my humble opinion but there's just, there's so much richness in the community of Amherst and so just like you said, you know, we're really lucky and that we get to have those six feet away mass interactions but it's, it just it's exciting to kind of hear folks and it's also cool because our program, our youngest person is 18 and our eldest, our oldest person is 71. So when we got to do the vaccine clinics and things like that when we talk about peer education I think in the, in the context of Amherst it's often talked about as student to student sort of peer education. But I think in the pandemic which is really intergenerational it's been really cool to watch how we've had some of these folks that are non college age, you know, folks on our staff be able to kind of create that that peer based relationship and our team, Steve who's our eldest member on our team, he had said I had this wonderful interaction with this person at the vaccine clinic can I work the next time you know two weeks from now when he gets his shot because he was really, he was really nervous and I just feel like we had a connection and I told him I would be there and so you know we got to make sure to do that and having people show up and say oh you're Joe and Elise I talked to you on the phone like it's it's those sort of small town feels that highlights the privilege of this work in it in a different way I think. I actually have a story to even though I am a remote worker. I. So, a lot of the times we are always looking through the Amherst tags and everything on Instagram. And I come across so often like small businesses self employed people who are making their own things, and who are part of our community and right when it was pretty bad still and people hadn't been out for a long time. We got a lot of people who, you know we're obviously in a tougher place mentally, and we're, you know, struggling to kind of do their thing and feel inspired and so I was looking through pages and I remember once I had seen this artist, local artist who was just really incredible and we featured them on our story. And we got a lot of feedback and they messaged just saying like it just made their day and it was just a really wonderful way to pull people into our community when they were feeling very isolated, and we could actually do that virtually, even though it wasn't, you know, us seeing them in person so not only are we interacting with people in person but we are making meaningful connection online too. That's great and it really does take all different methods and mediums to reach everybody in our community so I think that's, you know, equally as important to be doing that in the virtual space. So we are coming up on our last five or so minutes. I, one thing I think people should be aware of and maybe it's not fully planned but what's next for the ambassadors, where will we see you this summer. Will your, will your reach expand from where you've been and will you be filling any other functions or roles. We are, we're kind of a constantly evolving program to have you hadn't guessed. And so I think for the summer, many of our students choose to sort of leave the area for summer jobs and things like that and so we are going to have sort of a shift in our staff but I think, and this is, you know, obviously up to, to Paul and the chief, who is my direct report as well since we're housed in the police station, but I think what we're looking at is sort of keeping some folks in the walking area and then partnering potentially with the Department of Public Works in the conservation area to kind of look at bringing on some new staff and sort of keeping our folks kind of in the downtown area I think that'll be really important we know, as of today that outdoor dining is coming back to the Amherst area and things like that so kind of a return to the basics is probably what you may see our folks kind of emphasizing particularly as more of our population becomes vaccinated. Hopefully in the fall, you know when we have an influx of undergraduate graduate students back in the area I think again we're going to have that sort of reeducation phase of kind of, you know, reemphasizing that so you'll definitely see us around in the summer. We might be a little bit of a smaller task force if you will but we will still be around and then our intention is to continue to help staff any of the vaccine clinics and things like that as well as the hotline. Great. So we're still in yellow. Yes, and yellow yes, as much as yellow can sometimes be a hard item to find in terms of items people have really become. We are known for yellow people will pull over on the side of the road and say you're the mask folks right like can we. And things like that so we're sticking with yellow and you know I think we like the idea of making a positive impact and just making people have a you know a big smile under their mask faces you can tell you can kind of see them smile in their eyes if you will, so we're going to stick with the yellow so always look for the yellow shirts and come and you know, stop us chat with us ask us questions we're definitely here to support and offer resources or just to have a conversation to because sometimes people just need that in their day. And we should also be at the farmers market probably which is going to be opening up fairly soon so you'll see us in, you know, the 17th. The markets are the eighth I think the June eighth I think. So, we're coming up to the end of our time, is there anything that you want people to know that we didn't get to touch on yet or any actions that you want to leave people with that they can do. And it'd be great to have people follow us of course, and even better if they interacted so a lot of times will post call outs basically on our stories or our posts asking for feedback or for people to send us photos. I want to start kind of engaging more with like hometown heroes and people who are just, you know, sitting at home even. So we're going to be taking photos and making all sorts of stories so people just want to watch out for those and get involved it's a great way to to feel connected. Great thank you Taylor. Yeah I would just say, you know, our program. I really love feedback both from my staff as well as the community and the folks I work for and with and so if you ever see sort of a, you know, a need for our program or an assistance with something. Definitely bring that to us I think kind of being innovative and flexible is sort of where we've excelled and it's allowed us to grow this program in a pandemic which feels kind of like an oxymoron almost but you know definitely come and reach out to us and the only other thing I would say is that oftentimes for both student and permanent residents. We do outreach weekly so open your door if we're knocking because usually we're we're not soliciting we're just, you know, wishing to have a good day, maybe dropping off, you know, a little goodie or things like that. We also have created some sorry we missed you notes that we leave in case folks are zooming or not home. But if you see us around just come and say hi to us. Thanks, Kat. And how about you Joe. Yeah, I just really want to say thank everybody for, you know, keeping doing their good work. We realized that, you know, we're out here to make try to make a difference in the town and so many of the members of Amherst town numbers really kind of reciprocate that we see a lot of masks wearing everybody's following guidelines. I realized I think it's kind of tiring after a while that you know, after getting vaccinated you might kind of want to relax a little bit but keeping up that mask wearing staying socially distant, really kind of keeping up with what you've been doing I think is the message I want to just kind of put out there. Everybody's doing a great job. I'm so thankful. I want to get back to normal everybody else wants to get back to normal. So just keep up the good work. That's great, great positive message. Joe, thank you. All right, so we are at our time. Paul, anything, anything observations you'd like to make. Two quick things. One is when we started this program last year, it could have gone in lots of different directions, you know, it wasn't, it was like we know we needed something we didn't want the police to be always called when someone wasn't wearing a mask and that was sort of the impetus for this, but the the crew here and the others who have just developed this in a really creative, socially understanding way of what was needed in the community at the time so I just want to appreciate everybody's efforts in that because it's been very thoughtful and respectful of people. And I think the other takeaway is that presence matters. And I think cat you sort of alluded to, or Joe you alluded to when you just met the person at IA and just at the vaccination clinics or at the testing center. It's nice to see someone who's there to help whose job is to help make sure you're okay, as opposed to just a sign enter here. And I noticed that at the clinics with the elder with the people over 75. That mattered a ton to those individuals because they were unsure and, and it just occurred it just has just has resonated with me that presence matters and I think you understand that because you said we need to know people need to know that we're present, that's why we're wearing yellow shirts and what yellow jackets people are going to know that we're present. So I appreciate that sort of thoughtfulness that you've given to the entire program so it's really, really well done. Ditto to everything Paul just said and as a local government nerd and diehard I would love to see how this program, or something like this would continue when, and I don't want to say when we get back to normal because that is not, I think where we're heading but necessarily but I'd love to see how this model could be creatively applied to regular local government business so maybe more to come on that. Again, I want to thank Joe, Kat, Taylor for your time today and we will put this up on our channel and share it on our social media. So feel free to get back to us with questions or follow up you can email us at info at Amherstimea.gov and we'll get it to the ambassadors if that's ambassador related. So thank you all very much. Thank you guys. We'll see you next week. Thanks Brianna. Thank you.