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19
Apr
Poultney 2020: Celebrating A Year of Progress
One year into its revitalization effort, Poultney 2020 organizers are preparing for a community celebration on May 3 that will showcase several projects designed to enrich the cultural, social and recreationalofferings in the town.
“Green Up and Celebrate Poultney 2020” will take place from 2 to 5 p.m. at several venues in downtown Poultney.
According to Matt Mayberry, one of the organizers of Poultney 2020 and faculty member at Green Mountain College, the goal on May 3 is to bring the college-town communities together, have fun, and experience the new cultural and recreational resources that are available in Poultney.
“We really hope the entire community will come out and see what the teams have been able to accomplish in just a year through their hard work. It will also be a nice way for folks to celebrate their clean-up work on GreenUp Day,” said Mayberry.
Scheduled activities include a 4-mile fun-run/walk tour of the Poultney Rail & River Trail; a Riparian Ramble along the Poultney River; a Woodland Wonders scavenger hunt; art displays, poetry readings and dance workshops at Stone Valley Arts; music by Phil Lamy’s Green Brothers Band with Boiled Lettuce; a craft display by the Poultney Area Artists’ Guild and a Shakespeare performance with madrigal singing by Green Mountain College students, all at the new Bentley Community Center. There will also be free food prepared by the students at the LiHigh School’s new culinary program, a slate carving demonstration and slate painting workshop for children, and an information session about a planned community park.
All events are free and open to the public.
Poultney 2020 was conceived late in 2012 when students at Green Mountain College began exploring ideas for bringing the college and town communities together in new ways. This led to a partnership between the college and the Poultney Downtown Revitalization Committee (PDRC) to create a process that would support community-led initiatives that add to the quality of life in town. During the winter of 2013, the effort began to take shape when community focus groups made up of residents, PDRC members, and GMC students and staff, held a series of meetings to identify Poultney’s strengths and brainstorm initiatives in five focus areas: the arts, food, sustainability, place, and good and services.
Poultney 2020 officially kicked off on April 24 last year when nearly 200 people attended a day-long Community Meeting designed to “take revitalization to the next level.” During that day, participants heard from an invited panel of Vermont community leaders, enjoyed a free catered lunch, shared ideas with the focus groups, and then voted on four priority projects: a community arts center, a pocket park for Main St., an outdoor parksandrecreation system, and a locavore restaurant.
During the past year, volunteer groups made up of over 50 local residents, GMC students and staff haveworkedtogether tobring to life several significantnew cultural and recreational resources for the town:
Stone Valley Arts.Stone Valley Arts (SVA), Poultney’s new community arts center, was officially launched as a non-profit organization last fall and is currently applying for 501(c)3 status. The organization’s mission is to enhance and expand the cultural life of the community and the surrounding region. SVA offers “a range of programs, including classes, workshops, presentations, and events in the visual, performing and literary arts for all ages and levels of experience,” according to co-leader Burnham Holmes. SVA is currently located on the third floor of the Journal Press building (Main Street and Depot Street), where it has been hosting a wide variety of activities, including drawing sessions with live models, tango classes, art exhibits, flute carving workshops, martial arts classes, youth dance workshops, and music classes.
Community Park. The goal of this team is to create a public park in downtown Poultney that will serve as a community gathering place for both children and adults, and provide a backdrop for various activities such as outdoor music, art and theater. The group has identified a potential site for the park and has created an early conceptual design, with features that include public art, a gazebo, an historical slate wall, and picnic tables. The group is now focused on raising funds for the purchase and development of the park.
Parks and Recreation System. This team has been focused on creating a connected network of parks and trails that promote a variety of outdoor activities. The near-term goal is to develop the Rail & River Trail into a 4-mile system of pathways where residents and visitors can walk, hike or bike together. Currently the group is developing signage and kiosks for trail sections along the Poultney River, a section of the Delaware and Hudson Rail Trail, and in the woods behind the Stonebridge Inn.
LiHigh Culinary Program. In addition to the Poultney 2020 initiatives, the LiHigh School in Poultney recently launched a new culinary program as part of their therapeutic educational program. The culinary program is housed in the former Station building in Poultney, recently purchased by the school. This month the school is launching a student-run take-out restaurant, led by chef Bill Allen, with an emphasis on local food sourcing. The LiHigh School will be preparing the food for the May 3rd Green-up and Celebrate Poultney 2020 event, with funding provided by Green Mountain College.
The Poultney 2020 Action Teams welcome community members to join them in moving these initiatives forward. For information about Poultney 2020 and the Action Teams, please contact Matt Mayberry at [email protected].
19
Apr
The Sky Blue Boys to Play Old Time Music at the Old Firehouse
On Friday, April 25, at 7:30 p.m. the Sky Blue Boys, Banjo Dan and Willy Lindner, will be on the Old Firehouse Stage in Tinmouth.
The boys have revived the tradition of old-time brothers duos such as The Monroe Brothers and the Louvin Brothers. They have built up a large repertoire of wonderful old ballads, parlor songs, heart songs, and sacred numbers. They have expanded the instrumentation to include a variety of acoustic instruments and added some newer songs including their own compositions.
Playing together for decades, they formed the celebrated Vermont bluegrass band Banjo Dan and the Mid-nite Plowboys in 1972. Its rousing songs celebrated rural Vermont instead of the Southern Appalachians. But never far from their hearts were the sounds they learned to love long ago – the simple moving sounds of the early “brothers duets”.
The Old Firehouse is located at 7 Mountain View Road near its intersection of Vermont Route 140 in Tinmouth Center. Doors open at 7 p.m.; a donation of $10 is encouraged. Tinmouth groups supply tasty refreshments as fund-raisers for their activities.
For more information, contact Jo Reynolds at 446-3457 or [email protected]; or visit Tinmouth Old Firehouse Concerts on Facebook.
19
Apr
Fiber Tour next weekend
Alpacas and rabbits and sheep – oh my! The local landscape will be especially warm and fuzzy on Saturday and Sunday, April 26 and 27, when the 22nd Annual Washington County Fiber Tour takes place at 15 farms around the county.
The free, explore-it-yourself tour takes place rain or shine from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. Guests are welcome to visit farms that raise luxury and exquisite fibers such as wool from Merino and Cormo sheep, fibers from Cashmere and Angora goats, soft fleeces from alpacas and fluffy fiber Angora rabbits. Six of the farms raise Romney sheep, dual-purpose breed known for its silky long wool. The tour also includes five farms that raise friendly alpacas, a breed known for its soft and valuable fleece.
While on the tour, make a reservation for lunch at the Dance Ewe’s sheep dairy farm. Visitors won’t want to miss fun activities such as goat driving at St. Mary’s on the Hill Cashmere, and sheep shearing at Ensign Brook Farm.
Also open for touring is the Battenkill Carding and Spinning Mill on Route 40 in Greenwich, where you can see local fibers being processed. The mill will offer hands-on fiber processing activities for kids.
Some of the farms will offer yarn for sale, as well as finished products such as hats, gloves and scarfs.
For a complete list of participating farms, visit www.washingtoncountyfibertour.com.
19
Apr
Merck Forest and Farmland Center Offers Spring Fun for Families
Join Merck Forest’s staff for an afternoon of farm fun with “Farm Chores.” Family-Fun Farm Chores is a great way to for families to experience part of Merck Forest and Farmland Center’s working landscape. From 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturdays, April 19 through June 14, visitors are welcome to come up to MFFC’s beautiful hilltop farm for the farm chores program. You’ll help water and feed the animals, collect and wash eggs, and move animals to new pasture – all the while learning about life on the farm.
Spring Farm Chores cost $2 per individual. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Sign-up beforehand by calling 802-394-7836, as groups are limited to 20 people.
Merck Forest and Farmland Center is an education non-profit in the Taconic Mountains of Southern Vermont that strives to teach, demonstrate, and sustain a working landscape. MFFC is located at 3270 Route 315, Rupert, VT 05768. Call 802-394-7836 or visit www.merckforest.org for more information.
19
Apr
Fair Haven man’s experiences helped shape new novel
Charles Laramie understands all too well the blasé attitude with which society views sexual assault.
The Fair Haven resident worked for 16 years at a residential facility for juvenile sex offenders and describes sexual assault and rape as a “silent epidemic.” And while he holds no illusions of eliminating the problem himself, he has penned a new book that he hopes will lead to increased dialogue about the epidemic of sexual assault in society.
Laramie, who is the author of “The Therapist,” will speak on his novel and the role sexual assault plays in society at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 22, at the Fair Haven Free Library.
“There are very few people in the United States who don’t know someone who has been raped or sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. In the United States one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually assaulted by the time their 18,” he said. “But only one in ten people who are sexually assaulted ever come out and say what happened. It’s (sexual assault) a silent epidemic. It’s the pink elephant in the room.”
The protagonist in “The Therapist” is Ryan Johnson, a single father of two children who spent nine years teaching in a residential facility for juvenile sex offenders. He’s left an anonymous message that tougher sentences and making people aware of sexual predators will not change things but together they can. Johnson is given instructions on how to take part in plan devised to balance the scales of justice.
He struggles to make a decision, but when a teenager is raped and murdered by a sexual predator who was released from prison after completing a treatment program, he realizes he can no longer sit by idly.
“It’s a powerful statement on rape and sexual assault and how, as a society, through our silence, we condone these crimes,” Laramie said.
Although the novel is fiction, it draws upon Laramie’s experiences working with juvenile sex offenders. The main character also shares similar experiences with Laramie. In the book, Johnson testifies before the Senate on sexual abuse, something Laramie did after Michael Jacques raped and murdered Brooke Bennett in 2008.
“There are elements of truth in the story. A lot of what’s in it came from my interactions,” he said.
Laramie, who describes himself as a “voracious reader,” and has been writing since he was a teenager, had written a previous novel, “Thoughts on War” in 2005, but wasn’t sure what he had in “The Therapist” until a young student saw the beginning of a manuscript on his desk and asked if she could read it.
“She came to me and said it was good and that I needed to publish it,” Laramie said.
The book forced Laramie to reexamine his experiences working with sexual offenders.
“When you’re with the kids, I think what happens is you become so desensitized and begin to relate with the kids. You begin to identify with them and you shouldn’t do that. The things you hear they have done become blasé. And that’s when you should leave but I didn’t.”
Eventually he did leave and came to understand just how sick the environment in which he worked had become. It was those feelings from which “The Therapist” was borne.
“It (writing “The Therapist) was cathartic,” Laramie said.
Laramie said the current offender management system is ineffective.
“It doesn’t address the problem, it only creates a cycle of reoffenders,” he said. “The system is offender focused. For whatever reason in our society, we blame the victim because it makes us look at something we don’t want to look at it.”
He said society’s reluctance to discuss sexual assault leads to victims’ silence. He discussed how we’ve taken a word like “rape” and turned it into the more politically correct term, “sexually assault.” He also talked about how accusers are often ridiculed or criticized, as was the case when a Florida woman accused Heisman trophy winner Jameis Wiston of sexual assault last fall. Earlier this week, The New York Times released a report questioning the thoroughness of that investigation.
“We need to stop blaming the victim. We need to embrace them and encourage them to come out. The crime is not theirs. Victims of a home burglary are never embarrassed to report the incident.
We like to think we’re an open society when it comes to sex and sexual abuse, but that’s not the case.”
“I hope this starts a dialogue about changing from an offender-focused system to a focus on victims. I’d love to think as a society we can start openly discussing this.”