AMHERST — Kwanzaa’s first day will be celebrated during a gathering at the Bangs Community Center on Monday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The Human Rights Commission is sponsoring the event for the day known as Umoja, or Unity, that kicks off the seven-day celebration concluding on Jan. 1.
The day will feature music, African dance and drumming, children’s activities and lunch, said Jennifer Moyston, the assistant director for the town’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion department.
Kwanzaa derives from the Swahili phrase matunda ya Kwanzaa meaning “first fruits of the harvest.” and was founded in 1966 by Maulana Karenga to honor family, culture and community through celebration, reflection, affirmation and connection.
A Christmas meal will be served to the community at Not Bread Alone, a program of the Center for Human Development, from the First Congregational Church on Main Street, on Sunday.
The dinner takes place around 1 p.m., with the community welcome prior to that.
A project that could put new metal siding, with a deep red color, on portions of the North Fire Station on East Pleasant Street is being approved by the Design Review Board, pending similar endorsement from the town’s Historical Commission.
Facilities Supervisor Jeremiah LaPlante told the board at a recent meeting that the idea is to add curb appeal and draw more attention to one of the town’s two fire stations.
“From what we’re hearing, the building isn’t very well known. In a way, it’s not very well seen from the street side,” LaPlante said.
Board member Thom Long wondered whether there might be people who would be concerned about losing the character of the building that opened in 1975.
“It’s a Brutalist building from a period,” Long said. Long also noted that the building is in proximity to the University of Massachusetts campus, which also has a number of buildings in the Brutalist style.
The board also approved signs, with some modifications, for a new restaurant, Royal Chicken and Kabob, at 1A Boltwood Walk, and a new business, Cambridge Biotherapies, at 7 North Pleasant St.
Amherst residents have until the end of 2022 to put forward capital requests, at a cost of $50,000 or less, that will benefit the larger community.
Should the requests pass muster with department heads, they will then go on to the Joint Capital Planning Committee for review over the winter. The final part of the process is being included in the town’s Capital Improvement Plan next spring.
An online form for making requests is on the town website.
The Town Council this week approved Town Manager Paul Bockelman’s appointments to several town boards and committees.
Among those joining committees will be Premila Nair of High Street to the Board of Health, LaVern Kelly of Greenwich Road, Tyler Matsuo of Barrett Hill Drive and Rani Parker of North Prospect Street to the Human Rights Commission, Sara Ewell of Blue Hills Road to the Recreation Commission, Stephen George of Dana Street to the Board of Registrars and Tate Coleman of North East Street and Joseph Fattorusso of McClellan Street to the Transportation Advisory Committee.
A UMass professor was recently awarded a five-year, $1.8 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to advance research into neuronal proteins and the mysteries of long-term memory. “The cells in the brain stay around for a long time, so we can understand at the cellular level how memories could last for decades,” Margaret Stratton, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, said in a statement. “But the components within those cells are recycled all the time – proteins specifically are degraded and remade on the order of seconds to hours, maybe weeks, but certainly not years.”
The grant comes under the MIRA program, or maximizing investigators’ research award program, which is designed to enhance scientific productivity among talented and promising scientists, increasing the odds of important breakthroughs.
