Four Freedoms Forums
21st Century Teens: Resources for Challenging Times
March 29,  5:30 p.m.

A realistic look at the challenges that teens face, both at home and in the virtual world, and a look at how families and communities can support their ongoing health and well-being. Free.

Four Freedoms Forums are free and open to the public.

Free and open to the public. Reception will follow. RSVP’s encouraged.

Featured Speakers:

Joseph Buffis is the Chief of the Lee Police Department in Lee, Massachusetts. He has served with the Lee Police for 32 years: 15 on patrol, 17 as a Sergeant, and now as Chief. Buffis taught Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) for five years in the Lee public schools, and is currently reviving the program.

Sarah Gillooly is the Program Director of Girls Inc. in the Berkshires. She has extensive experience implementing science and sexuality-based programs with teens throughout Berkshire County, and is a Planned Parenthood certified sexuality educator. Ms. Gilloolly is also the agency’s camp director, serving 60 girls a week each summer at Camps Stevenson-Witawentin ,located on Onota Lake, Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Paul McNeil is the Program Director for the Railroad Street Youth Project’s Drop-In Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He also manages RSYP’s Youth Operational Board, United Nations’ youth delegation, the Mentoring program, the “411 in the 413 Youth Conference,” Youth Substance Support groups, and collaboration with the South Berkshire Community Coalition. Previously, Mr. McNeil worked with the Becket-Chimney Corners YMCA, coordinating the City-to-Woods Youth Leadership Development Program, which engages young people from underserved urban areas of the northeast in two to three day retreats to the woods of the Berkshires for teambuilding, personal leadership development, and positive social skill growth.

David Berle Carman, 14, is an avid ski racer, biker, and athlete. Other hobbies include board games, music, watching movies, writing, operating a backhoe, unicycling, and doing work analyzing the new food law. He is an eight grade student at Monument Valley Middle School in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

Thomas Berle Carman, 14, is an avid ski racer. He plays flute in the Massachusetts Junior Western District concert band. Carman has traveled to Spain and Mexico, and is invested in learning Spanish. He loves to read and play music, and is part of the school band and jazz band. He is an eight grade student at Monument Valley Middle School in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

Thursday April 26, 5:30 p.m.

Join us for a community conversation about the nation’s most pressing topics, including: growing up as a teen in today’s world; and a look at the economy and growing wealth disparity in the world today.

About the Four Freedoms Forums:

This series of Town Hall conversations inspired by Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms paintings will explore aspects of our democracy in a rapidly changing and increasingly global world. Noted commentators will offer observations and inspire community discourse, with a reception to follow. Free.