Meet Pat

Pat’s Amherst Story

I moved to Amherst with my partner, Carol, and our son, Jesse, 30 years ago for two very important reasons: the quality of the Amherst Public Schools and our desire to live in a diverse and collaborative community. 

We moved into the Pomeroy Lane Cooperative along with 24 other families. All of us were ordinary people embarking on an extraordinary adventure. Our little community was intentionally diverse. We were households labeled low-income, Section 8, and market rate. We were Asian American, Latinx, African American, and European American. We were gay and straight. We were at varying degrees of understanding about issues of social, economic, and environmental justice. 

Along the way we changed. The assumptions we held about each were blown apart and we started to see the strength and creativity inherent in our community. We learned to see and acknowledge our differences and to find ways to collaboratively solve the problems that arose.

This experience, this community, showed me what Amherst could be. It provided lessons I have carried forward into my work as a teacher, an activist, a member of Town Meeting, and now as I seek to be re-elected to the Town Council.

– Pat

Pat’s Experience

Pat’s background is in education. After graduating Smith College’s Ada Comstock Program (BA ’96, M. Ed ’97), she became a classroom teacher and mathematics coach in Western Massachusetts and Boston for 15 years. In Boston, Pat developed the Boston Public Schools Parent Leadership team, whose collaborative work between parents and teachers was presented at NAACP, NCSM, and other professional conferences. Pat also worked as a facilitator for the Summer Math for Teachers Program at Mt. Holyoke College and was a Teaching and Learning Consultant for Collaborative for Educational Services.

Pat has also engaged in her love for the arts and dance. She is a former dancer, choreographer, and Director of Clearing, an improvisational dance company.

Pat in the Community

Pat has been a longtime activist, active in immigrant solidarity and environmental and racial justice work. This work has ranged from sitting with Lucio Perez in sanctuary to working with several nonprofits with social justice missions. Pat volunteers with the Amherst Survival Center and with the Amherst Mobile Market, two organizations fighting food insecurity in Amherst. Pat was voted in as a member of the Amherst Mobile Market Planning Group. She is also a member of the Hampshire County Food Policy Council. Pat’s work with these organizations has given her invaluable perspective as she works on the Council to address the needs of Amherst’s low-income and unhoused communities.

Pat also volunteers with the Alternatives to Violence Project, “an association of community, school and prison-based groups offering experiential workshops in personal growth, community development and creative conflict management”.

Pat previously served as a member of Town Meeting. She worked collaboratively with community leaders and the Amherst Police Department to successfully pass the Amherst Sanctuary Community Bylaw. Under the shadow of the Trump administration, this bylaw ensured that Amherst Police, employees, and funds would not be used to help deport immigrant families in Amherst.