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Date: 9/28/2021
EASTHAMPTON – Andrew Goulet, a well-known figure in the Easthampton community as a musician and family and children’s entertainer for over 15 years, now has a new role as the coordinated family and community engagement early educator for the Easthampton Family Center.
The Collaborative for Educational Services is a nonprofit organization based in Northampton that serves counties in Western Massachusetts. Goulet said that one of the main things they do in the early childhood community is fund playgroups.
“They really do a lot, but one of the main ways that we interface with the community is through these playgroups. And a lot of people don’t realize it, but the Easthampton Family Center is sort of the local extension of the Collaborative for Educational Services and these playgroups operate under public grant money,” he said.
Goulet has a personal connection to the Easthampton Family Center. He and his wife had their first child in 2015 when they were both working full-time. After a few years, he began to stay home with his daughter full-time. He said that this was how he originally found the Easthampton Family Center.
“The Easthampton Family Center was such a great resource because here was this place where you could just drop in and there were crafts, toys, books, tricycles, other kids and coffee for the parents and it was an open, free playtime,” said Goulet.
He said the Family Center and, by extension, the Collaborative for Educational Services was an enormous help in giving him a sense of community and new friends.
“For me, it was so enormous. I had found this whole other community that I never even realized existed. And before that I had been feeling sort of alone and isolated. I was having a great time with my daughter and everything was going well, but I sort of wondered without school and without daycare how do you connect with other parents,” he said.
Goulet said that one of his goals in this new role is to make residents aware of both the Collaborative for Educational Services and the Family Center.
“The collaborative offers so many resources to parents and oftentimes people just see the playgroups and they don’t know about the other stuff,” he said.
In this position, Goulet said that he will be primarily helping facilitate and run the playgroups. He will also be participating in community outreach by meeting community members, making them aware of playgroups, introducing himself, building relationships and running community events.
“Really, the Collaborative’s goal is to connect with community organizations and family-oriented organizations that do good work in the community and support them and see how they can support us,” said Goulet.
Goulet said he is most excited for the opportunity to get to know more people in the community and connect with new parents and families. He hopes to expand the reach of the
Collaborative for Educational Services and the Easthampton Family Center and also help kids get back together and work on social skills lost with COVID-19.
“I think what I really want to do is bring some joy back to families and the community and get people back together to have fun,” he said.
More information on the Easthampton Family Center and the Collaborative for Education Services can be found at https://www.easthamptonfamilycenter.org/ and https://www.collaborative.org.