Kid Fest isn’t your average alum dinner at the Log. It’s a celebration of life, perseverance, and the good old days. 

Assistant Director for Williamstown Elementary Outreach Sarah Brill ’95, who also works at the Log, was immediately intrigued by the event after waiting the group’s table in early October. “At the end of the night, I asked the man who was running it what the group was, because it was a group of alums of mixed ages,” she said in an interview with the Record. “He said that he had started this email group.”

Vibrant, kind, and all-male, the alum group that had taken over the Log’s event space for the evening was celebrating its third Kid Fest, named after one of the group’s members who had survived colon cancer. The email group in question goes back decades, with stories that reach half a century into the past. It is fondly known as “Hollywood’s chain.”

For Ken Hollingsworth ’79 — “Hollywood” or simply “Woody” to his friends — staying in touch is serious business. He’s a retired English teacher, coach, and former football co-captain at the College, and he certainly has a talent for connection. 

“He was one of those outgoing, talented guys that you were just drawn to,” said Greg McAleenan ’79, Hollingsworth’s co-captain and one of his closest friends at the College. “Just a special guy — you realized right away, ‘Oh, this is going to be a fun four years.’” 

The email thread that eventually became “Hollywood’s chain” began in 2005 with a few simple birthday emails. Copied on each message were 10 to 15 of Hollingsworth’s closest friends from the football team and Dodd House, his home for three of his four years at the College.

“I’d say, ‘Hey, happy birthday! I hope you’re doing well.’ And then those other 10 or 15 people on there would write back,” Hollingsworth said in an interview with the Record. “And then invariably, it would be, ‘I remember the time that we snuck into Mission Park after hours…’ It turned into tomfoolery comments.”

The chain flourished as a way for old friends to share memories of their glory days as students. One by one, more people were added to the chain as Hollingsworth expanded its reach through the ever-overlapping social circles of the class of 1979. 

Two decades later, the email chain is unrecognizable from the original. “It started with about 12 guys on it,” McAleenan said. “It’s now up to 200-plus.” Members include alums from the classes of 1979 to 1985 — an impressive six-year span. “It’s been remarkable, nothing short of that, as it grew in encompassing classes,” he added.

The chain is no longer only a place to celebrate birthdays. “I’ve watched it grow, as we’ve aged, to everything from just wishing people a happy birthday to networking and medical referrals, [an] opportunity to reach out,” McAleenan said. 

The chain’s first major transition from lighthearted messages to serious community effort came when McAleenan’s father, an alum of the College from the class of 1952, was diagnosed with a severe heart condition. “[It] was going to require some very tricky heart surgery, and they weren’t sure if they could do it in Grand Rapids, [Mich.], so they had recommended the Cleveland Clinic,” McAleenan said.

“[Up] to that point, the chain had pretty much been birthdays and a few other kinds of sports stories and the like,” he continued. “I asked Hollywood, ‘Is it okay if I go out and ask people if anybody knows anybody?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it for your dad.’”

After McAleenan sent the email, messages of goodwill and sympathy were quick to rush in, Hollingsworth recalled. Just hours later, a miracle occurred. “He gets an email that night from another classmate, class of ’79,” Hollingsworth said. “He said, ‘My wife is on the Board of Trustees at Williams, and she’s in a meeting right now [with] the Chief of Surgery from the Cleveland Clinic.’” 

That meeting resulted in a phone call from the CEO of the Clinic at the time, Toby Cosgrove ’62, with a promise of help. McAleenan still remembers the voicemail he received from Cosgrove, which said, “Anything and everything we can do, we’re here.”

Within 24 hours, McAleenan’s father was on the operating table, according to Hollingsworth. “He had his surgery — probably prolonged his life by four or five years,” he said. 

The incredible power of connection, and its lifesaving power in the case of McAleenan’s father, became a central tenet of the group’s ethos. “That’s the symbolic story of what this chain is all about,” Hollingsworth said. “It’s fun, it’s guys wishing each other the best of luck. But when people need help, they ask for it.”

Since the members of the chain are all men and largely former varsity athletes, team mentality is vital — especially when times get tough. Hollingsworth recounted that in the face of some friends’ cancer diagnoses, he has encouraged them to share their situation with the group. “Most of us, most of our guys, played sports,” he said. “Your teammates have got to be those guys that pick you up when you’re down. You’re going to need support. You’re going to need love, you’re going to need the ‘rah-rah’ from the guys.”

Vulnerability, whether about mental or physical health, career transitions, or anything else, is embraced in most of the emails. “What’s just so comforting is people have become very used to being able to just go to their computer and say, ‘I’m really struggling with this. Can anyone help me?’” Hollingsworth said. “I think the whole idea is to say ‘I’m vulnerable.’”

This vulnerability is a big part of Hollingsworth’s justification for keeping the group all-male. “Because lots of guys are talking about their own personal health and their own physical issues, most felt more comfortable in writing or speaking only to guys,” he wrote in an email to the Record. “Having guys make themselves more vulnerable is an important trait on the chain, and many would simply not do so with women on the chain.”

There aren’t many ground rules on Hollywood’s email thread, but a few heated incidents have given rise to one: no politics. “If you tell me that you’re a Republican, and I tell you that I’m a Democrat, well, that immediately means there’s going to be a battle,” Hollingsworth said. “There have been a few guys that are very politically oriented, and they’ll say something, and it gets kind of fiery. And so one of our unwritten rules is no more politics.” 

Sometimes the group’s kindness and support takes a joking form, as when their dear friend Greg “Kid” Collins ’79 was diagnosed with cancer. “Being as sympathetic as we all are, I started a pool on when he might lose his hair due to radiation and chemo, and we all put $100 into the bet,” McAleenan said. “He would get half of it, and the other half would go to a cancer charity. Well, he never lost his hair, so the cancer charity got it all.”

McAleenan was sure to add that he wouldn’t repeat the bet in another situation. “I mean, it’s reading the tea leaves to know your friends well enough to know, ‘Will he respond well to something like that?’” he said. “Being a bald guy, now, I was kind of hoping, but it didn’t happen.”

Collins’ remarkable recovery from cancer inspired members of the chain to create Kid Fest. “What we decided was, you know what, let’s have a get-together for Kid and celebrate the fact that he just knocked cancer on its butt,” Hollingsworth said. “So we had 85 people gathered in Williamstown in October of [2021].” After a home football game and golf at the Taconic Golf Club, all 85 attending members gathered for dinner at the Log. “​​It was the first annual Kid Fest,” Hollingsworth added. “After it was over, we decided we’d probably do it every other year.” 

Kid Fest is also a way for friends to see each other and take a walk down memory lane — even if they weren’t close while attending the College. “Guys that never knew each other in their entire time at Williams have strong friendships, and it’s amazing to see,” Hollingsworth said. 

McAleenan said that after the first Kid Fest, Collins wanted to pass the torch. “We call it Kid Fest, but it’s about everybody who’s going through a health journey, or their spouse, perhaps, and it’s expanded beyond that,” he explained. This October, the third Kid Fest — where Brill first met Hollingsworth — featured heartfelt stories from alums who had lost their homes in the Palisades Fire in January. 

“Three guys on our chain were so deeply impacted by [the fires], but they all got all kinds of support,” Hollingsworth told the Record. “They’ve said to me how much this support meant to them in terms of mentally trying to get through a horrible, horrible time.” He said that around 50 people on the chain have offered to host affected members in their homes, send money, or help in some other way. 

“That’s the magic of Williams, and Hollywood has energized that magic in the form of the chain so that people can tap into it,” McAleenan said. “It can be as light-hearted as you can imagine, and it can be as serious as life and death, and everything in between.”

As the members of the group age and ail, some have also passed away. “We’ve lost a number of people,” McAleenan said. “One of the wonderful things that Hollywood does is, every year on their birthday, even though we’ve lost them, we recognize their birthday, and people tell their stories.”

Telling people’s stories, and keeping them connected, is the group’s true specialty. “I’m best friends with guys that live in Seattle, Michigan, California, and it’s like we’re all together, even though we’re thousands and thousands of miles apart,” Hollingsworth said. “That’s what the chain does. It kind of eliminates distance, and we all feel like we’re really strongly connected with each other wherever we are.”