Page 43 - BusinessWest September 4, 2023

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Caritas
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she currently serves as vice president of the congre- gation and is actively involved with the redevelopment of the former Brightside property, already home to Hillside of Providence, a low-income elderly-housing facility, where residents are part of the PACE (Pro- gram of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly) initiative.
There are several ‘cottages’ left to be redeveloped, she said, adding that their condition is deteriorating and, thus, their fate is uncertain.
“We’re in the process of selecting an architect,
and hopefully we’ll be redeveloping those buildings because the walls and the roofs are fine; hopefully, we can salvage them and recondition them.”
While looking ahead, Sr. Caritas (that name trans- lates to ‘charity’) looked back on her career and her contributions. And while noting that most everything has changed within the broad spectrum of healthcare, the most basic things haven’t. She referred to her first love, nursing, to get this point across.
“When I was at Mercy, I always used to remind people that they’re more important for who they are than what they do,” she said. “Nursing comes from the word ‘nurture,’ and you have to remember that. Even though all kinds of things have changed, the basic belief, and basic sense of being, is all about that — a nurse is not someone who does something to you; a nurse becomes part of you and becomes part of your recovery process and assists you in things you can’t possibly do for yourself.”
And while she talked specifically about nursing, she said this mindset applies to everyone who works in healthcare, a message she has tried to impart to others throughout her career.
Looking back on that career, she noted that, while she has given much, she has received much in return, especially the opportunity to work with others to change lives and improve quality of life. She said she’s grateful for being given the opportunity to use her time and talents in ways that benefit others —
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even now, at 100 years old.
“God has been good to me in terms of intellectual
energy, and my memory is still pretty good,” she told BusinessWest. “There’s some things I forget, but ... I’m blessed.”
People in this region — and well beyond, for that matter — can say the same, for her tireless use of that intellectual energy, and all her other gifts, in many consequential ways.
Make a Wish
When asked how she would get around now that she’s no longer licensed to drive, Sr. Caritas said she’ll probably rely on Uber.
She joked that area business leader, philanthro- pist, and good friend Harold Grinspoon — a bit of a legend himself — sent her a check for $500 so she
Indeed, Black Birch has settled into a groove, if you will, with its recently concluded summer concert series routinely drawing more than 200 visitors; the tasting room seeing business year-round; the facility hosting a wide array of events, from birthday parties to wedding-rehearsal parties; and the sheep generat- ing various forms of business while also grazing the spaces between the rows of vines and providing fertil- izer for the vineyard.
And what used to a two- or three-season business is now a year-round venture.
“Things have changed over the past two or three years,” Modestow said. “We’ve gone from winters being dead to winters actually being quite steady.”
Kersberger agreed, noting that the vineyard and winery now draw visitors from up and down the I-91 corridor and beyond, including Connecticut, Vermont, New York, and all across Western Mass., while also welcoming students from UMass and the other Five Colleges institutions — who are more into wine those of a generation or two ago — as well as their parents and friends.
“A huge portion of our customers are from this area,” Kersberger said. “We have a lot of repeat cus- tomers, and those customers bring new customers, and it grows from there; there’s a lot of word-of-mouth advertising.”
Bottom Line
Sr. Caritas, seen here at a press conference while she was president of Mercy Hospital, has long been hailed as a leader and a doer.
Photo by Springfield Newspapers
could start her own account, a check she quickly tried to divert to Providence Ministries. (He told her to keep the one he sent and wrote another one of the same amount to the ministry). “All I have to do now is learn how to Uber.”
If she ever does need a ride, there are probably ... oh, only a few thousand people in that broad ‘friend’ category she could call and ask for a lift. And they would all be willing to help.
That’s the kind of respect — and, yes, love — she’s earned over a century of caring.
Indeed, while Sr. Caritas celebrates a milestone birthday, the region is celebrating her — and what has truly been a wonderful life.
She’ll have to sit in the passenger’s seat now, but she will always be a driving force for progress in this region. BW
Getting back to the business plan and the broad goal of producing only wines with those black ‘estate’ labels, Modestow said the extreme weather of 2023 has certainly set those plans back.
On one fateful night in May, the temperature dropped to 25 degrees, killing 80% of the crop at Black Birch.
The full impact of this setback won’t be known for some time, he said, but given the growing demand for Black Birch wines, the damages will certainly increase both dependence on grapes grown else- where and reliance on what remains in inventory from previous years.
Meanwhile, after those banner years of 2021 and 2022, when growth was “off the charts,” Kersberger said, projections are for steady, if not as spectacular, growth moving forward.
In short, those at Black Birch will do more rolling with the punches — and the weather.
That has been standard operating procedure since the first vines were planted back in May 2017, and this mindset has enabled a business — and a passion — to take root and bear fruit, both literally and figura- tively. BW
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Black Birch
berger would make wine and winemaking a full-time pursuit.
They were gradually gaining some traction, and
a following, for their wines, when the pandemic put them on a faster, more vibrant track. As noted earlier, it didn’t happen overnight; the first few months of
the pandemic were quite scary indeed as both Black Birch and the dental practice shut down, leaving no revenue coming in.
But as area residents starting looking for things they could do, the Black Birch team saw opportuni- ties as they moved many functions outside and kicked off their summer music series with artists who were looking for, and desperate for, places to play their music.
“We were able to open up, pivot what we were doing, and make everything work,” Kersberger recalled. “We worked our butts off, our staff worked their butts off ... we had too many people coming in, and we had to turn some away.”
Those who did manage to get down that long driveway apparently enjoyed their experience, she went on, noting that there have been large numbers of repeat customers coming to Black Birch, enough to make 2021 and 2022 “banner years” for the operation.
“People have been coming back,” she said. “Maybe not as often, but they’re coming back; we really got our name out there.”
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