Camp registration is open, people. It may seem like Summer is a distant and possibly unattainable dream, but the Earth really does revolve around the Sun every year and the proof is that returning families can lock down their Camp Howe weeks at this very moment. New families only have to wait for January.

Nora Hill has been spending her summers at Howe since she was 11 and is the current Assistant Director, so she can tell you what it’s like at the camp better than anyone. Spoiler: it’s super fun. With counselors from all over the world, working as a team, empowering kids to explore, do and learn, this is really a special place, worthy of planning your summer around.

You can register for Camp Howe at CampHowe.com and you can stay up on the camp news by following them on Facebook (/camphowe) and @camp_howe on Instagram.

You’ve made your little human. They’re healthy and thriving. The snow has started falling. Your house seems to be getting smaller and smaller. Where can go?

For the past 33 years, the Northampton Parents Center has been a free resource where parents can bring their kids for toys, trains, kitchens, snack, music, slides, tunnels, trikes. How is this even possible? What fleet of magical angels keeps this place in our lives? Turns out it’s really nothing more than a group of Smith students on work study, a crew of parent volunteers and super human Director Swansea Benham Bleicher.

You can find the Northampton Parents Center at NorthamptonParentsCenter.org and on the lower level of Edwards Chuch, the door is around back in the alley across from Fly By Night.

How did 29 N. Maple St in Florence go from being a derelict dry cleaners to a children’s book store and art space? A fateful walk and a trip to an honest-to-god book store boot camp were two of Lexi Walters Wright’s stops on the rainbow road of small business inception.

We just had an election. You saw the lawn signs. The people standing at the corner downtown or exactly 150 feet outside every polling place, braving cold weather and slight drizzle to support their candidate of choice. And guess what, the candidates were your neighbors. The people ahead of you in line at State Street or Pie Bar. People like Alex Jarrett.

Alex came to Northampton at 22, looking for the right spot to put down roots. The roots took. After co-founding a Northampton institution, Pedal People Cooperative, Alex Jarrett remembered that city government is run by regular people such as himself. And he set about conquering his own shyness to run for office.

You have to start somewhere.

In this vivid introduction, Jacob Ditkovski explains what a podcast is, what Northampton is and, eventually, what Northampton Podcast is.