A dozen people attended a Greenfield rally February 14. They were calling on Biden and congress to do more to help poor people in Afghanistan. It was very cold in Greenfield that day, Patricia Hynes told the Valley Post. She was at the rally and she's on the board of a group that has a web site at www.traprock.org.
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About 80 people were at a rally in Springfield on January 22. The goal was to get congress to pass voting rights legislation, Lydia Wood told the Valley Post. She runs a group that has a web site at https://wmalf.org.
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About 40 people were at rallies in Greenfield and Northampton on January 22. The goal was to ban nuclear weapons. Pat Hynes told the Valley Post about 25 people were at the Greenfield rally. She's on the board of a group that has a web site at https://traprock.org.
About 100 people attended a rally to demand politicians provide good quality homes for homeless people. The rally was in Montague, Massachusetts, which borders Greenfield. It was on December 24. Cate Woolner organized the rally. In her speech at the rally she said, “Welcome and thank you for choosing to spend some of your Christmas Eve here, shining a light on the fact that on any given night, not just Christmas Eve, there are 30 – 40 community members sleeping in cars and tents, couch surfing from friend to friend or in the hospital or other facility with no where to go upon discharge.
At least six people from the Pioneer Valley, and at least one from Brattleboro, were among 655 people arrested for non-violent civil disobedience outside the White House between October 11 and October 15. The protests were to call on Biden to do more about climate change. The six Pioneer Valley residents are Paki Wieland, Priscilla Lynch, Marty Nathan, Sofia Perrotto, Sue Donaldson, and Russ Vernon-Jones.
On October 13 in Amherst about 20 people attended a rally. “We're asking the UMass administration to disband Theta Chi (fraternity) due to the countless stories that have shown their violence towards UMass students,” Anna Morel-Paletta told the Valley Post. She organized the rally. Morel-Paletta said, “Additionally, we're asking for the Survivor's Bill of Rights to be enacted to ensure that UMass starts taking claims of sexual assault seriously. Multiple people have claimed that UMass didn't do anything when they reported an experience of sexual assault.”
In Amherst more than 300 people attended a rally on September 19 demanding that the University of Massachusetts do more to stop sexual assaults. In Amherst 200 or so people attended a rally on September 20 for the same issue.
In Deerfield, Massachusetts, near Greenfield, activists defeated a multi-billion dollar corporation on August 12. The company wanted to pave open space. “I’m relieved that Dollar General has decided not to further attempt to build in Deerfield on the site that has been in discussion for three years. There are so many positive things in the works for Deerfield, it will be a relief not to have this issue pull time and attention to it anymore,” Julie Cavacco told the Valley Post on August 13, 2021. She attended a Deerfield rally against Dollar General in December 2020.
In Greenfield on July 31 there will be a rally to protest cutting down forests in Massachusetts to put up solar panels. The panels can go on roofs of big box stores, warehouses, and other buildings, and on top of parking lots. To see a big photo of seven acres of solar panels over a parking lot in Amherst, click on the small photo of "Lot 44" at:
www.umass.edu/dcm/campus-solar
The Greenfield rally organizers said, “To date, the state has lost 4,000 acres to large ground-mounted solar, much of it pristine forest.”
They have a web site at https://savethepinebarrens.org.
On May 18 in Brattleboro about 50 people attended a rally to call on local, state, and federal politicians to do more to address the series of racist murders and assaults against Asian Americans that have occurred around the USA in the past few months. Emma Allen grew up in the Brattleboro area and is now a student at the University of Vermont. She told the crowd gathered at Plaza park, “This month, we celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage....
In Greenfield, 24 workers formed a union. On April 22, they won their first union contract. “It felt great. It was a huge weight off our backs. Everyone was really happy with the contract,” Jake Waldsmith told the Valley Post in a voice phone interview on May 5. The workers are bus drivers and “monitors” employed by Greenfield public schools. “Monitors help with special education transportation,” Waldsmith said. “For students with behavioral challenges, the monitors keep order on the buses.