Meet Diverse Holliston
Diverse Holliston is a volunteer organization in Holliston that aims to promote greater inclusion, equity, and accessibility for all groups who have historically and continue to be excluded. Our aim is to create sustainable change through building relationships that will help us address systemic policies and practices that do not serve all current or future residents of our town.
“It’s not a movement if everybody’s sitting. It’s a support group.” Jane Ginsburg, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Daughter, On The Basis of Sex, (biographical drama film based on life/early cases of RBG, 2018).
- Diverse Holliston is working to make our community more equitable and inclusive for all.
- Diverse Holliston is continually looking for opportunities to partner and collaborate to build and renew relationships focused on greater awareness and learning regarding issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
- Diverse Holliston seeks honest and real conversation, vulnerability, and trust building, so that we may learn how each one of us is both harmed by systems of inequity and have a responsibility to work toward change.
- Diverse Holliston engages the town’s leadership and its citizens to create the policies and practices that can best provide the access and resources necessary for all of Holliston’s residents to thrive.
Several members of our group are involved in change-making work with both the governmental and school systems in Holliston. We have several Diverse Holliston members who are a part of the Envisioning Future Holliston Committee, helping to create a vision for the town that centers diversity and inclusion as important values. We continue to work in many ways with the Holliston Public School system to support their safe and supportive schools initiatives.
Diverse Holliston meets once a month for a “Community Lab” where we practice having these hard conversations with one another on race, gender, sexual orientation, religious differences, disability status, etc. We welcome all new folks to these conversations. We are always seeking more volunteers to help us build out the capacities for sustainable and meaningful change in Holliston. We are currently seeking folks to help us on the following committees:
Public Education
HolliPride
Registering as a non-profit
Holliston 300th anniversary
Envisioning Future Holliston
If you are interested in joining our email list to receive ongoing updates, please contact the The Diverse Holliston Strategic Planning Committee at barb.fritts@gmail.com.
4 Comments
This is great progress, but it’s only a small step. If we want more BIPOC in the community then we need to invest in more public housing. We have golf courses and other utilized land that could and should be converted into high density affordable housing.
As a proud member of Holliston’s LatinX Community, I’m happy to see that this is happening! Diversity is our strength here in Holliston.
This is a nice effort but I would rather see resources allocated to improving the quality of public education in Holliston and offering more AP-level classes for high school students.
Hi Andrew,
I am really interested to find out if you have had positive responses to your proposal of affordable housing. Also, could you be more specific as to the other utilized land, where are the locations. Of course, most people are familiar with the location of the Pinecrest Golf Course, but I am only aware of that one. I didn’t know that there are others in Town, and where are they located? Another question: Have you received any feedback from residents about using the Golf courses for housing? As our residents get older, it becomes more difficult to afford the property taxes on a fixed income.
I have had this exact discussion with other Seniors in Holliston who are concerned about being able to stay in their own homes, and afford the taxes, as they get older, and the lack of affordable Retirement or Over 55 housing.
We explored the available over 55 options in Town and each unit is way too expensive for my Husband and I. Also: our Town is also designated as Agricultural/ Farm/Produce & Livestock, how do residents feel about losing some of that open land for housing?
I would be very interested in your reply. We have lived in Holliston since 1985, raised our 3 Daughters here, and are now retired. I am originally from East Boston and Chelsea and we wanted to get away from the noise and pollution caused by so much congested traffic and the high cost of housing when we lived there.
Thank You