NAPS Gets Grant Purchase Mask & Gloves & Drury Receives Gifts

North Adams Public Schools has purchased thousands of masks and gloves with a $7,000 grant from the Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association.

The association, which is the city's insurance provider, gave North Adams a risk management grant last fall to cover COVID-19-related costs and to help prevent losses because of property damage.

Schools Business Administrator Carrie Burnett announced the grant at a school committee meeting Tuesday.

Burnett told The Eagle that $5,000 went toward a bulk purchase of personal protective equipment, which included 4,000 child- and adult-size masks, 15 cases of N95 masks and 10,000 gloves of various sizes.

The remainder of the grant went to a thermographic camera that the district will use to increase energy efficiency by finding problem spots in old school buildings.

Also, Drury High School has received two memorial gifts that will benefit students in English and science courses.

The School Committee on Tuesday accepted a gift of $1,885 in memory of former Drury High School teacher Francis Merrigan, who died Nov. 2, and a $40,000 trust from estate of John and Joyce Brooks.

In their letter to the committee, Merrigan's family said their father would be happy to see the funds donated in his memory benefit the high school's cinema and screenwriting course, which could use some upgraded film production technology.

Mayor Thomas Bernard, chairman of the committee, said he had been contacted by attorney John DeRosa on behalf of the Brooks estate to inform the city of the couple's generous gift.

The Brookses, who had both died in February last year, were Drury graduates who had long been involved in the community, including the Fall Foliage Parade, of which Jack Brooks was a parade marshal in 2017. Brooks also worked at the former Sprague Electric Co. for many years and then as a quality assurance specialist in Naval Ordnance for General Dynamics from 1989 until his retirement in 1995.