Rachel Roberts

Rachel Roberts remembers being a kid in Gill. Her mother would take the family car into Greenfield every Saturday for errands, and the one that she looked forward to the most was a stop at the library. Fast forward to 2008 when she learned that her beloved place needed financial support and she organized a very successful fundraiser, donating it all to the Friends. Then in 2013 when the new building was just a glint in the eye of a few she was one of three people who volunteered to create an advisory group to get things started. Today as the Foundation’s paid Coordinator and still a proud Friend she provides essential leadership to Team Library. We’re pretty sure that she is just getting started.

Ellen Boyer

When our trustees hired Ellen Boyer as head librarian in 2012 they told her of their interest in taking advantage of the Massachusetts Public Library Construction Program, a program that we had already applied for twice. Our new library is a testament to her can-do attitude. She started her career as a reference librarian, and she has also served as a library District Consultant, the librarian for an independent school, and the person responsible for first digitizing the card catalog of a small city library in Vermont. With elegant aplomb she has handed off the leadership of our new home. We are lucky that she continues to serve the library she thinks of as hers as a member of our board.

Joe Ruggeri

Joe Ruggeri can place himself on a 12-page family tree, and many of the generations before him made their home in Greenfield. Growing up he saw a lot of good people that did not have all that they needed, and it seemed to him that helping people get access to information might make everyone’s lives better. “That,” he says, “was a huge motivator for me to help build a bigger library.” So he stepped up to the challenge. A public project this large is dependent on a lot of individual agreements, and a lot of those understandings were made around a table in Joe’s real estate office. He says that “I feel like I represent Greenfield, and Greenfield represents me,” and we are very proud that he represents the Foundation.

Jessica Day

While her parents were building the house in Conway that Jessica Day was raised in they kept a small apartment in Chicopee. The library was close enough that her mom could put her in a stroller three or four times a week, bring her to the library, and read to her. Family legend is that one day when she was three Jessica pronounced that she could read the book her mom was reading aloud, and did so. Today Jess is the Director of Communications at Deerfield Academy. She says that she still loves learning people's stories, and she loves sharing those stories. As one of our jobs as a Foundation is to tell the story of our library she is a welcome addition to our board.

Diana Parsons

Diana Parsons was the Finance Director of the City of Greenfield during the construction phase and the first year of budget planning for the new library. She personally saw how many people worked hard to make it a reality. And she also saw the kind of financial support that would be needed to sustain it as the expanded community center it has become. When her kids were small they had a Saturday routine. They’d all go to the Y, then they’d go to the library and pick out a couple of books, just like she had done with her mom. Today Diana serves Colrain as their town administrator, but she works with us to make sure that others can continue her family’s traditions.

Jeanne Canteen

We joke that Jeanne Canteen represents the corporate world on our board. She had five careers in 30 years, all working for the company now known as Verizon. At one time she oversaw more than 5,000 telephone operators and 300 managers in the state of New York. She also had senior leadership roles in sales, marketing and corporate planning. Along the way she earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. Lucky for us when she and her late husband Richard drew a 4-hour wide circle around Manhattan they chose Greenfield as the perfect place to retire. Today we benefit from her deep leadership skills and experience by relying on her as our president.

Terry Ruggles

Terry Ruggles was born in Greenfield. When they were young he and his wife Vanna explored other places to live, but by the time their first-born started school they knew that his birthplace was where they wanted to call home. He’ll wax poetic about how green and lush our beautiful hamlet is, and how it’s located just close enough to big city culture, but what really inspires him is community. From starting a semi-pro baseball team to serving on multiple nonprofit boards, Terry has been helping to better the community for decades. Though the city has changed a lot since Terry was a boy here, it’s his hope that we always keep our neighbor-supporting-neighbor spirit. It helps that he has never met a stranger.

Jeremy Lajoie

Jeremy Lajoie is from Holyoke, and his wife Erin is from Turners Falls. He says that when their relationship started to get serious the decision to settle in Greenfield was easy. He’s a community banker with the Greenfield Cooperative Bank, and he likes being able to know the people he helps. He calls his approach hands-on, he likes to see the results of what he’s doing. “It’s special,” he says “to walk on a piece of land before a house that we’re financing is built. It’s really nice to know the people who are going to be new neighbors.” He brings the same approach to his work with the Foundation. He’s our treasurer, so we lean on his careful and deliberate style. It’s nice to know the people who support our library.

Karen Larabee

Karen Larabee has fond memories of jumping on her bike with her best friend and pedaling to the library. In third grade they worked together to do a report on butterflies and relied on the library for all of their research. Many years later she read an article in The Recorder that reported that the library was looking for volunteers to deliver books to homebound patrons. She answered the call and before long she was asked to join the board of the Friends. That was 25 years ago, and she has been central to the library's success ever since. Today she is the official liaison between the Friends and the Foundation and her institutional knowledge is almost as priceless as her generous spirit.

Mitch Anthony

Mitch Anthony grew up in Pittsfield but chose to build his career and raise his family in Greenfield. “Community is very important to me,” he says, “and Greenfield is a community that values and invests in community.” He has served as a brand strategist for companies large and small on four continents. He’s also been a trustee at the Conway School of Design and served on the board of the Greenfield Community College Foundation. When he saw that some community members didn’t understand the value of building a new library he knew he had to help. “Apparently libraries have a branding problem”, he says, “and that’s where I come in.”