 and get started. So my name, as I've said, I'm John Copans. I work for the Council on Rural Development. I think most of you heard the introduction from Paul and Joshua Hanford in the opening session. But just to reiterate, this recovery visit is really sponsored by the governor's local support and community action team. And we at VCRD are sort of just the facilitators of this conversation. And really what this is is a listening session. It's also an opportunity for you to connect with each other and hear from each other about what you're experiencing and to be brainstorming together about how we respond. I think it goes without saying we are in a time without real precedent. You know, I'm in my mid-40s and this certainly compares to no other time that I've lived through. And we in Vermont are, I would say, blessed with communities that are cohesive where we have an inclination to look after one another. And the opportunity to do that. We have sort of the structure of our communities often gives us that opportunity. And I think, to some degree, as we think about the topic for tonight's breakout session around community and isolation and how we think about that, I think thinking about sort of Orange County and what you have as assets and challenges in that area is what this conversation is about. Before we do that, as Paul mentioned in the opening session, we do have a couple of visiting team members. And we're going to hear from one of those visiting team members. We'll call them a keynote speaker up top. But I want to be sure and just recognize those visiting team members who are on this. We've got Beth Awady. Beth, you want to just sort of, I guess, wave to folks. And then we've also got Steve Costello on as well. And then I also want to acknowledge Sarah Rae, who is here. She is our scribe for this evening. And so just know that Sarah's sole responsibility here is to be taking detailed notes on this conversation. That's a lot of how we're gathering feedback that we are going to share with the governor's task force. And so while I'm facilitating, Sarah will be busy furiously typing away or writing away as she's taking notes on this conversation. So I am going to, let me just quickly run through the agenda, and then I'm going to turn it over to Steve to say a few words. So the structure of this conversation is that we're going to hear from Steve. And then we are going to talk a little bit about what do you all want for our community around this topic of building community unity and tackling isolation. Then we will talk about what is holding us back from achieving this. Are there promising practices, strategies or programs in the town or region that are being deployed to tackle this? And what are your ideas for additional action that are still needed at the state level to address these challenges? I would say at the state and local and regional level, let's say all three, in terms of addressing these challenges or working towards equitable economic recovery and renewal. And then finally, at the very end, we're going to hear from the visiting team to share some reflections because their primary function here is to listen to you all and then they will share some feedback and some reflections and ideas. So let me just pause there and just sort of look out at the group. I want to be sure, you know, I know I can just get going here. Does anyone have any questions for me before we get started? All right. Seeing none, I am going to call to the proverbial microphone, the irrepressible Steve Costello from over in Rutland who's going to share some perspective. And Steve, maybe if you could introduce yourself a little bit to folks, Steve, that'd be great. Sure. So for starters, you may be having a little deja vu. My brother is Paul and I know exactly what I will look like seven years from now because I've looked exactly like him my entire life and my family calls me little Paul. Anyway, thanks for having me, John. It's great to see you again and welcome to everybody from Orange County. I'm excited to be able to help hopefully a little bit today. Just for a background, I'm a vice president at Green Mount Power focused on customer care and community development, primarily in Rutland County. And in that role have been involved in a lot of different projects and programs over the last several years. All aimed at trying to do kind of exactly what this discussion tonight is all about, to bring people together and to try to create a better future for the community at large. And in this case, we're talking all of Rutland County. I guess I'll start with something that's really related to COVID-19 and that has had a huge impact and helping bring people together. And that is a campaign that myself and a couple others started a few years back and it's called I Love Rutland. Sounds very simple. We basically decided we were going to start trumpeting the positive things that are happening in Rutland County. And if you know anything about Rutland County and Rutland City over the last 10 years, it's taken its lumps. Like a lot of rural parts of Vermont, it doesn't have the economic drivers that say Chittenden County has. And we've had to work hard for everything that we've gotten positive in Rutland County over the years, especially in the last 10 years or so. But a small group of us started this thing called I Love Rutland. It quickly blossomed into something that others wanted to be part of. And it's not just all, hey, everything is great. We try to focus on what some of our challenges are. We help try to bring people together in a positive way. And I'll talk about the COVID one as a perfect example. So when COVID-19 hit, we really quickly realized in this tiny little group that there was going to be a lot of challenges getting people to wash hands, getting people to social distance, all the things that we now know that play such a key role. And it was very clear to us that that was going to be a challenge not only in Rutland, but in Vermont and across the country. And we thought of a cool way to try to bring people together over that topic. And so we reached out to a local business person, asked him if he'd be willing to give us some money. And we went from an idea to announcing a sign campaign. And it sounds so simple and almost goofy, but we produced a thousand-yard lawn signs, like you might see in a political campaign, that said very simply, we had seven or eight different themes. Wash your hands, use wipe surfaces, stay six cows, or six feet, or stay one cow apart. If you've heard that, it started in Rutland. All kinds of little sayings like that, thanks to frontline workers, et cetera. And every sign had that at the top, some special message at the top. The governor's stay home, stay safe message behind that. And then the I love Rutland logo behind it. And we thought at first, this would be a kind of cool way to hopefully draw down, keep the COVID instances low in Rutland County and maybe bring some people together. We had no idea. We made the signs available in one day and literally like one hour, all 1000 signs were gone. So within a week, we ordered another thousand. They were gone in two hours. A week later, we had another thousand and those were all gone in two or three hours. And it wasn't about the signs after a little while, it was about being part of something, being part of a group who was trying to do something positive. So my big takeaway, if there's anything here today that I can offer, it is don't be afraid of asking for permission to do something. Don't be afraid of all the, what are the challenges going to be? Just put the stake in the ground, decide you're going to do something and do it. I'll touch on one other topic that we've really used in Rutland County that I think has been enormously helpful in addressing the exact topic of tonight's of this subgroup. And that is using the art, using art and the arts as something to bring people together in a really public, simple way. So over the last six or seven years, a partner of mine, Mark Foley, has been commissioning murals around Rutland. And I think they're almost 20 now and they vary from a simple painting of whales on a wall to one of Batman smashing his way through a wall. So when you look at it from the outside, it literally looks like you're coming out of the wall and grabbing a griffin out of the ear as he's doing it. It's four stories high and it's really spectacular. We just put up the most recent one of a young black girl staring out from the wall and a sunflower in front of her and petals from the sunflower flying off in the breeze with words like cherish, love, respect. Very simple messaging, not driving it down anyone's throat, but a very simple messaging that virtually anyone is going to have a positive reaction to. We've also started a sculpture campaign in Rutland over the last three years and so far we've commissioned 10 marble sculptures. They're carved by professional sculptors right here in West Rutland at the Carving Studio and Sculpture Center. And they are being focused around our downtown creating the Rutland Sculpture Trail, which she started out with one, quickly had two. By the end of this summer we'll have about 10 and we're working on funding for two or three more. Again, it's a very small group that's doing that. There's no board of directors. There's no permission sought. We pretty much held a press conference announced we were starting the Rutland Sculpture Trail. We had money for the first one and no idea how we'd fund them after that and people have come out of the woodwork again to be part of something bigger than themselves. We thought fundraising would be very, very difficult and it's been remarkably easy. Once we showed the quality of what we're trying to do and the experience that we're trying to create for the community, people have been incredibly generous. And in fact, just a week or so ago, I had a gentleman call me and ask about a sculpture trail and what it would entail to do a sculpture of a certain person who was very well known in Rutland County but probably not up there. And we talked and 10 minutes later he was writing a check for $40,000 to fund a sculpture. I think I'll stop there, John, and leave it with this final message. Don't be afraid to take on something way bigger than you think that you can handle. Get a group of people together. It doesn't have to be 100. It can be two or three and start with something. Just put that stake in the ground out there of what you want to accomplish and you will be amazed if your energy and positivity is there, how you will draw people to do what you are hoping to do yourself. Awesome. Hey, thanks, Steve. Most definitely inspirational. And I have to say, VPR did a great story today about the new mural. I shared a link to that. And just listening to people's reaction the first time they're looking at that mural and literally breaking down in tears as they sort of appreciate the power of it. That was quite a VPR story. It was. I actually got Terri I'd reading it this morning, John. That's really something. Thank you. Yeah. Well, thank you. All right. So now it's time to turn it over to you all. And as I said, we're going to start this conversation with this question of what do you or we want for our community in this area of building community, unity and tackling isolation? And as I sort of turn this over to you, you know, there's three words we've been using as we think about these conversations. Response, recovery and renewal. And I think it's helpful as we think as we have this conversation to think about all of those. For a while now, we've been in response mode. People have immediate needs and urgent needs and cascading needs that we need to be responsive to. But then there is a shifting and it's a shifting that happens for different people at different times towards recovery. And then ultimately thinking towards renewal. And how do we make our communities in our state even stronger than it was before we entered into the pandemic? So just be thinking about all of that, I think, as you think about where do you want your community to go? And what do you want for your community in this area? So I will pause there and look for some hands. I see somebody typing into chat, how are people living with addiction being met with services to address isolation during the pandemic? Yeah, it's a great, great question. And let me just say that'll prompt me to say, you know, in addition to taking notes on what you share with us, please feel free to type things into chat. We will capture everything that's typed into chat as well. I'll do my best to read the chat as we go. But also just know we're recording that as well. I see Kristen's got a hand up. Go ahead, Kristen. Yeah, hi, I'm Kristen Briggs with Claire Martin Center. So as many of you may be aware, we serve Orange County and then the top of a county below us as well. And so I had seen the question come up from Kristi Ann, if I'm saying that correct, about the living with addiction being met with services. So I, one of the things as an agency that we have had to kind of adapt more so to during COVID is that while before we certainly rely on people being accepting of our services, right? So either reaching out on their own in some way to get services from us or referrals from different PCP offices or other sources, residential level of care treatment, things like that. During COVID, really, it has been a lot of individuals having to reach out for support because they're not otherwise going to these other services. Maybe they were in the past. So it has definitely created barriers for treatment for things like substance use because if people are staying home and there aren't for both mental health and substance use, I should say, but if people are having kind of what I would refer to as quiet crises. So there aren't as many people around them noticing the struggle that they're going through or it's somehow otherwise kept more under wraps during times like this. So other people aren't reaching out to our agency out of concern for folks as much as they would have if they were spending time more in the community. And also, there's not other entities kind of involved with treatment to the same degree that there would be normally like somebody going to even their PCP or something as simple as that. So we have done a lot of outreach to community partners to make sure that we are letting people know that we are here and operating and that we are accepting referrals, that we are seeing clients. We're taking on new clients, doing intakes, continuing treatment with existing clients. We're doing a hybrid model of some in-person services for people who are really in need of that level, taking precautions with COVID. And we are also doing phone sessions with anybody who's willing to do that and Zoom sessions. So we try to get the messaging out there for those things being available using our Facebook page for Claire Martin Center and for Central Vermont Substance Abuse Services, which is CVSAS in Berlin, and then also on just our regular websites. And of course, services that aren't mandated, folks need to be willing to engage in that, but we're really trying to continue working with folks, even if there's not a successful connection. We're really trying to stay connected and keep encouraging people to keep connecting with us. But I would say that some of the other barriers have been just connectivity. So people who maybe operate on phone minutes, trying to figure out how to support getting people those minutes through some of the resources we've been able to get as an agency, internet access is a struggle as we all know. But it definitely has been a struggle and it's us trying to learn different ways to and adapt to different ways of reaching out and continuing to reach out that maybe looked a little different before COVID. Or a lot different. Yeah. Alice. Hi, thanks. You know, I think Kristen's description of the ability of organizations to reach out and work with folks is the same kind of thing that we're hearing in other parts of Southern in Windsor County and across the river in New Hampshire as well. I think that there are some opportunities at this time that with a caveat. I have heard from some places that there are people just like there are students that have thrived in the remote learning world, believe it or not. There are people who are thriving in the telehealth world, particularly when it comes to addiction treatment and mental health services. And, you know, the anxiety of leaving the home, the feeling of stigma, which we hope eventually to work through with people. But sometimes being able to do those services from their home has actually made their journey a little easier. And so when, and this is the caveat, when good connectivity is available for people. And I know from the work that I've done over the last few months that many of the Vermont communities, smaller towns, still don't have great internet access. Although I will say many of our New Hampshire towns are even worse. You know, if they don't have that connectivity, then they are more isolated. But when they do, in addition to the telehealth options that a number of our community mental health and treatment providers have really worked hard to put together quickly. I also have seen a lot of activity around recovery groups available online. It's not the same as getting together in a room with people who are sharing your journey. But it's better than nothing. And again, I think there are some people for whom this approach actually is helping them. So I'm hoping that as we move forward and get back to being able to see people in person, that we don't let this telehealth option for folks go away. And we do double down on the issue around broadband or internet access folks. Great. Those are great points. Absolutely. Other, as folks think about this question of community, unity and what do you want? Ashlyn, go for it. Or are you just raising your hand and support or to speak? I'm not sure. I think that's actually like a clapping symbol, but I gotta go with it. Because I do have a comment. So just kind of along these lines of telehealth and communication. So my name is Ashlyn Buchan. I'm the program and grants coordinator at Little Rivers Healthcare. We're a healthcare facility in Bradford, Wells River and East Corinth. One thing that we're working on right now that we actually have been planning to do before, but now it seems even more relevant during COVID. So we're working with teens, but we're also partnering with local organizations. We partner with Claire Martin Center, the local libraries, and the mentoring project, the upper valley mentoring project, and the teen hub, which is a new teen center. They just opened up their timing was like right on COVID, but they actually have opened their doors and it's a new teen center in Bradford. And one thing that we've really, so about a year ago, I was going through the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which is an annual survey that students take in the oxbow Supervisory Union, no, East Orange Supervisory Union. And one thing that we noticed for the teens in our area was they're statistically significantly higher in a lot of categories, but one in particular is that they don't feel that they matter to people in their community. And when we notice that statistically high, like being statistically higher in that category, that just leaves teens at risk for a lot of, a lot of different issues, whether it's substance abuse or depression, mental health issues, you know, the kind of the list then goes from there. And we felt like that was really a root of a lot of issues that are coming up. And now with COVID and even greater disconnection to friends at school or safe, you know, safety has been an issue. And also just an adult figure who they may have connected with in schools or in other exterior extracurricular activities or whatever. So what we suggested was we did a on a virtual teen speak out where teens from our entire region could come together and just talk to each other about what was going on. This originally came out with, I think, I'm not sure if it was Claire Martin Center talking with our group or maybe the libraries, but a couple leaders were saying, you know, they wanted to make sure teens had access to all these resources, but they felt that they had to give. And what I brought forward was maybe we don't want to offer resources right now. We just want to like, listen, and we want to give teens an opportunity to say what resources they actually want, because our idea of a resource might not be beneficial to them. So anyways, they came together. It was a tiny group to start, but we're hoping we're going to try to kick it off again. But we what was great about it being virtual was actually we had teens from all over when we were going to do it in person. It was only going to be oxbow, but we ended up having teens from some teams came from Bethel and but also fairly and oxbow and that for an academy, which separate academy is not actually part of the OESU, but doesn't matter. Anyways, and the other part that was cool was some of the teens were clients at Claire Martin Center. And some of the teens were just had just heard about the student this program from school. And what was cool about that is often in these teen groups, there's not like a good mixture of teens from all different sorts of backgrounds or, you know, whatever. And this was an opportunity where they all just kind of like showed up to this virtual space. And we're like, oh, you're here, like now we get to hear your take on life and like how it's been. And one of the big things was some of the teens had cars, some of the teens didn't. And that was a huge impact on them during COVID-19. And why not? So anyways, going all the way back around to Steve Zello, who was talking about the artwork in Rutland, which is really cool. And thank you to whoever put that link. They have decided that they want to do a project for the community in light of COVID-19. And those teens are working towards creating a mural, a community mural. But what we really want to see is, and what our ultimate goal is, how to continue to engage teens in our community, I think that is something that especially in rural Vermont, we are losing population. We want teens to be heard. We want them to feel like they definitely matter. But what does that look like? And how is that actually implemented and engaging for teens? So that's kind of, I wanted to bring that to this group and hopefully hear what you guys think because I don't, I'm definitely open to hearing. That's it. That's great. Thank you, Ashlene. I'm speaking of teens. I'm about to be accosted by some near teens. So pardon me if there's any interruptions in the background here, as we all juggle our family and work life. So our next prompt for this, we're on to the next one here. And that is around sort of, what are the barriers that are holding us back from achieving some of these things? And I guess what I'll do is say to you, some that I've already heard you articulate, connectivity, clearly a persistent, persistent across all of this conversation. If a teenager didn't have connectivity, how would they participate with telehealth or recovery groups? Connectivity is a big one. And then, Kristen, I heard you talk about sort of that, the sort of cross referral, like when someone walks in somewhere for some services, often there is some connectivity, sort of connections that happen. And some of that because some of that in-person work isn't happening in the same way. That's perhaps a barrier. What are some other barriers that are holding Orange County back in terms of this community unity? Yeah, this one just came to mind with something Ashlene was saying and with what you just brought back from earlier. So I was thinking there's kind of shifting barriers. This speaks to what Alice was saying as well. Before we had a barrier that was transportation. So people either had a car but couldn't get it running or didn't have the gas to get to and from treatment, needed to be set up with Medicaid rides if they had Medicaid, whatever the situation is, and now transportation for a lot of people might not be the barrier as long as they have the connectivity. But if they don't have either and also run off of minutes or something like that, they have all the barriers right now. They don't have the transportation or the connectivity needed. And so how do we create a barrier to the way of doing things pre-COVID is that we had such specific ways of connecting people to resources like phone cards or gas cards or things like that but never really something that was maybe a monthly subscription to an internet provider or things that maybe could be an area of focus sustainably moving forward if this legislative movement to get telehealth to stay is successful, which it sounds like a lot of us are hoping is the case. And the other thing that I was going to say as I say this very slowly so I try to remember it because it just came out of my brain, shoot. Kristen, we can definitely loop back with you. Yes, I'll have to loop back. I lost it, sorry. You know what, I'll state an obvious one. I had the opportunity to go down to Winterfest at Fars Hill this winter. And like as I think about sort of community unity and tackling isolation, I think about one of the things I think about is events and just like, you know, here in Montpelier there's those gatherings where you just know you're going to see people and that makes you feel like you're part of a community. Even school drop-off, right, those routines even go into the grocery store. And so I don't know if others have reflections about sort of that, the nature, obviously we're not gathering in big groups. We're not, a lot of those events have fallen by the wayside. We're not dropping kids off at school. So I don't know, are there, when we think about some of the barriers, maybe I'm just stating the obvious one, but are there other things that people think about as we think about the nature of this crisis? So one of the things that I've been doing over the last few months for my own organization as part of Upper Valley Strong, which I noticed many of the people on this call live in towns that are covered by Upper Valley Strong, we've been reaching out a team of us to nearly every town in the region to talk to somebody, whether it's somebody within municipal government or somebody who's a part of a mutual aid group, to find out what's going on. And one of the reasons is to figure out what we, through Upper Valley Strong, can do to support them. But the other is just to gather a lot of information about what positive things are happening, how our communities meeting the needs of their residents. And so I'm happy to answer any questions about that, but I don't want to spend my time on that one. But one of the things that I've been amazed by is the number of towns who can identify that they had a groundswell of folks step up to volunteer doing everything from grocery shopping for folks, feeding chickens, doing almost anything that needed to get done. I do think that now that is they're starting to lose a lot of those volunteers. But some communities created neighborhood captain programs where they divided their community up into sectors, and then they found somebody who would be like the lead person for that area. And it's more challenging in more rural communities, clearly. But what I'm finding now is that communities who didn't do that are asking me about it, like, oh, I hear that so and so did this. So as we move forward and we facilitate some groups, particularly folks working on supporting older adults in their communities, we're thinking about how can we learn more about how these kinds of organizations, this informal structure, like a phone tree or something in a community is structured, and share that information with the towns in our region so that others can think about setting it up ahead of time and creating a structure for that. And so I think that there are lots of opportunities, and we're going to be learning from all of the towns that we're communicating with about the barriers, obviously, that they're facing, but also the wonderful things that they're learning about themselves that they want to make sure they can preserve going forward. Yeah, that's great. That's that's an excellent reflection. Michael. I'm Michael Saka from Tundridge. One thing that, you know, we've we reacted immediately, and there was a lot of online communications and still are obviously this, but it seems like people that I know in my circles and all have pulled back some from some of that involvement. And it's and it's looking like here in Tundridge on our road, we organize kind of a very local support group, I guess, which everybody on the road, which is probably 25 houses or so, maybe 20, is in touch with each other. And, you know, even if there's not a lot of, you know, sometimes people are picking up things for others. But even that, you know, people, the contact is not really desirable. But just knowing that that we're in touch with each other with email change and also telephone, I think has helped. And that that size neighborhood or road sized organization may be one way to both stay in touch and also have one's own space, I guess. So that's that's one sort of observation and maybe suggestion. And I'm the president of an organization called the Alliance for Vermont Communities in this area. And we've really had a challenge in staying engaged, because we'd like to get together, of course, everyone does and meet face to face. And that's been a challenge again, because, you know, the Zoom meetings only go so far. And they're good and they're valuable. But still, you know, we're not going to have that that person to person contact, which really is important for spontaneous discussion, really discussion on Zoom is not the same. And, you know, we're we're looking in our region to about food systems, and what's coming next, how we can ricochet off of what's going on here, and try to create and really build the local food systems. And that that and gardening obviously has taken off. And that's a way to also stay engaged with people by offering workshops and that kind of thing. The last thing I want to say, and this may or may not fit into this category, but I'm starting to think about what's going to happen when the weather changes in, say, October. Right now, we have the luxury of being outside and meeting socially that way. But that will probably end at some point in the next couple of months. And of course, everything's unknown. But but I'm wondering how how we're going to adapt yet again, to need it to be inside and probably really isolated. Thanks. It's a great question. I see Catherine Kitter's hand and then Steve Costello. So Catherine, go for it. We have a situation in Newberry. In West Newberry, we happen to have a directory from the church that listed everybody in town. So when this started, we had a list already of to go to. And we had volunteers. I mean, within a week, we were set up and we were calling every single person in West Newberry once a week to check on them because we had that list. We also had a little organization that was taking care of people who are in need, maybe temporarily. And it was all very private. So we had even though we didn't know who they were, we had the vulnerable people in town identified. And it worked really well. Then Newberry was behind us. It's not really spicy. Hang on. Let me. There we go. Go for it, Catherine. Keep going. But without that contact list, we weren't able to take it to the degree that we did in West Newberry. So we had people calling. You know, I called maybe 10 people every week. And we developed a relationship with them and we're able to meet their needs in a way that was different than if, you know, just saying, what can I do to help? You know, they were coming to us with things that they needed. And it worked really well. So, you know, we have a small community. We don't even know where West Newberry ends. And I think that was part of our problems that were not geographical areas or are very fuzzy with these towns with different parts of them. But being small and being so connected that way, it really has helped. And I think it's all calmed down now. But if, you know, in the wintertime, we'll be back back at it calling each other and keeping track of people. But it started with that list. That's great. Thank you. Yeah. And, you know, as often happens in this meetings, you all have naturally transitioned to the next agenda item, which is, are there promising practices, strategies or programs that have been sort of deployed in the town and in the region? And we're hearing some great ones here. This is great. Steve, you had a hand up. Sure. I just wanted to highlight a comment I posted on the thing. Several of you have talked about one way or another, the digital world and, you know, little groups, Facebook groups or what have you. I can't strongly enough as much as Facebook drives me nuts with what it allows and doesn't allow on posts and the like. You can create a real community very quickly through Facebook or front perch forum and really connect people, whether it's a street, as one gentleman was talking about, or a much broader community. And I posted an example, which is kind of almost mind boggling. There's a few groups in Rutland. There's a I Love Rutland Facebook group. And there's a Rutland positive spotlight page to somebody's point about just positivity. Those two pages both have a no criticism rule. And if anyone violates that rule or starts getting negative, they immediately get warned. And if they do it again, they're gone. And those both of those groups have several thousand people in them. I think the Rutland positive spotlight page is only a couple years old and it's up to about 5,000. But the link that I shared and that John will share later with the whole group started as a Facebook page called Rutland lights up the world. And it literally was at the beginning of the COVID thing when people were a little depressed and it was still winter and everyone was being told to stay home. And people simply were posting pictures of lights. Some people are putting up their Christmas lights again. Some people started putting up stars. And before you knew it, over 20,000 people had joined that group. And it had to get renamed help Vermont light up the world. And today there are over 25,000 members of that group with no advertising, just totally a group by itself. Not that in a small town in Orange County wants 25,000 people to deal with on a regular basis. But it just shows you how quickly you can build real sense of community if you manage it well. And it can be very helpful. I also want to offer, I think it's Ashlene, if John, you can go on the GMP Facebook page or I'm sorry, the green mount power website and find my email address or John maybe can share it with folks later. I got some ideas for you on the mural thing that you could take that a lot further with the kids and if you're interested. Great. Thanks, Steve. Mike, I see a hand up. Yeah, thanks, John. At the beginning of this, you had mentioned the response recovery and renewal and just the response of being that addressing immediate needs. And there's just, I think, a tremendous showing of support and community as we went into this whole pandemic shutdown process. At Stagecoach, we suspended a number of our routes because of them serving senior populations that primarily served senior center programs. So as those programs closed down, those routes really weren't needed. As a result, we had a lot of drivers with spare time that we wanted to keep everyone employed and working and really offered our services out to ever granted flexibility by agency of transportation. Sort of looking for ways to deliver meals. Could we get involved with meals on wheels programs or help out with people, deliveries from grocery stores, whatever was needed. And time after time as we're reaching out to these groups and someone else had mentioned as well, there's such huge outpouring of volunteer support that in many cases those additional services weren't really needed. We've since been able to work with a couple of food shelves and school meal programs. So we have been able to fill some of that. But just that idea of the community coming together, identifying needs and responding whether that's on an organizational level or just individuals looking to help really show strength in the community. And as we look forward, we know there's certainly going to be continued concerns around COVID-19 and health concerns. We also imagine that economic impacts are going to be here for a long time to come. We hope that that community spirit and that willingness to help out other people continues as we get through this and come out the other side. Yeah, I think that's an important question of how do we sustain that spirit and keep those people who step forward to volunteer? How do you keep them sort of engaged and so that they stay involved in the important work? We have a few more minutes to just hear from you all about what are some promising practices or strategies or programs that you've seen in this arena. And I would say don't limit yourself. It doesn't have to be something you were involved with. It doesn't even have to be something you saw in the town or region. Maybe it's just something you've observed somewhere that you thought, huh, that was a creative response. Because of the work I do, I was on a neighborhood email list for a little neighborhood in Middlebury, Vermont. And they did that thing where you put teddy bears in the window for little kids to walk around and look at just as a fun thing to get kids motivated. And not only did they basically, the whole neighborhood seemed to have some kind of stuffed animal in the window, but then somebody was so motivated that they even created a map for the parents so that they knew where everything was. So just those kinds of sort of people just rallying together to do even goofy things that just put a smile on neighbors' faces, I think. Other things that you all have observed or participated in, the birthday parades. There's a good one. And some graduation. I don't know if folks have any high school graduates or middle school graduates, any reflections there, but I've seen a lot of different approaches to making that a moment of unity. So seeing none, maybe we'll move on to this final prompt before we turn it back over to our visiting team for some reflection. But what ideas do you have for additional action, whether that's at your town level, the regional level, or the state level, to really address the challenges that the community is facing and the state is facing, and how do we shift towards recovery and renewal? And I'll just share back a few that I've already heard from you all, that narrative around Newberry and West Newberry and just that advantage of having a preexisting list for West Newberry. So how do we think about those lists? And I know a lot of different community organizations have been sort of grappling with that question of like, well, if we want to proactively outreach to our neighbors, what do we do? Where do we even start? And another idea or practice is that working at the neighborhood scale, really thinking about the people you know on your street and how are you in touch with them and building that sense of community where people know that they're taken care of. So other ideas from you all. Census, actually they're not. Census, I can answer that question, right? Census only shares a certain aggregate level of data, right? That's by definition, when they get you to answer those questions, they commit to a certain level of privacy there. So, Ashlene, did I see a hand? Yeah, I don't want to, I hope that this is still on topic but when you're talking about the lists in Newberry, one thing that I've heard a lot about is connecting people to resources and one of the things that was a little bit surprising was in our region, the free food that was becoming available hasn't been as highly utilized as we thought it would be considering the need that we assumed. And I think that we actually had data showing the amount of families who were potentially food insecure and individuals. And so there were a lot of food drops and food availability now and before but it hasn't been as sought after as we thought. So one of the things that I've been connected with with a couple of different groups in East Grant and Tunbridge and here and I'm really strong and things like that is everyone says oh we need a resource, we need to make sure that everyone knows where the things are and everything. And my concern is not so much a concern, I think absolutely there needs to be a resource, people need to know where things are but the my concern is that we've created too many resources and I wonder if people just at this point aren't quite sure where to look like every organization has a resource guide and they're not always up to date and they're not always complete. And so that's one thing in a team that I run out of Little Rivers called the Upper Valley Unified Community Collaborative we worked on making a resource guide but again the same problem potentially came up. So that was something I'm not sure is like do we need more resources or do we need to make a resource that's truly efficient and people know about that one resource. Yeah that's a great point. It does, yes it gets very chaotic especially in Vermont where we have town level organization, we have regions but they're not consistent regions right? You look at school districts, you look at all sorts of overlaps and it can be really hard for an individual to sort of navigate that chaos and figure out what they need. Kristen I see you've got a hand up. Yeah I was just going to further that COVID has allowed this to and this was already an issue I think actually and you might have been pointing out and we would probably all agree but with COVID it was it's like become a huge focus because a lot of resources started up that weren't already in existence adding to that spread out of resources. And so the working communities challenge which I know that we have representation in all of these different four breakouts tonight I'm here from Claire Martin Center but also happen to be part of that group so it's not representative of all of Orange County it pulls from other counties as well but that's something that we've talked about in trying to get engagement for that group you know the people that we were the entities or places that we were reaching out to before COVID to try and get involvement and then once COVID hit you know not even knowing all of these kind of mutual aid groups that have come up and what are we I don't want to say wasting time but maybe what are different groups spending a lot of energy or focus on that is happening elsewhere where we're separately creating all of these different wheels and and so it's it's confusing for people to not know where to look or not know what resource might apply to them and not others who might be close neighbors you know but just happen to be a different town line. But also how much energy are we using creating wheels separate from each other versus having maybe more things like this that are involving larger groups of people and idea sharing where some of those things could happen. 2-1-1 I agree is a great place to start and is catching up to a lot of the resources that have been identified but it is pointing out separate also separate resources so it's just yeah it's good that there's a lot happening though as I would say as well. You know one of the things sorry go ahead Alice. I was going to say one of the things that I have found is the value of the connections so the phone calls that I make when I'm talking to people in the towns you know it's so so there's getting resource lists so to speak to the to the residents who need to use those but sometimes it's making sure that the referral networks like you guys like Ashlene and Kristen and others know what's out there or know where to go to find out what makes sense and so I think that being able to make these connections there are there are now people in a number of towns who say huh if I if I'm stymied here if I don't know what to do let me just send email Alice an email real quick and see if she can help me sort through this and so having those connections with somebody where you feel like it's not just looking on the web to find something it's going some to a person who can help you work that out I think that that that is definitely something we need to do more of you know resource lists are time sensitive things and so making sure we know what's going on and how things are changing and are communicating I think is helpful I will say Ashlene that there are other parts of our region where the food is just being taken up by a lot of people so it really depends community to community there was something else I was going to say but I can't think of it right now just raise your hand again don't be shy others others have some reflections or ideas you know I saw that you know as you mentioned in the chat 211 which is a great resource but then Christian's question about how to get connected with mutual aid groups and one of the interesting challenges just like Michael was describing on his road is you know our best level of organization is the local one like we've talked about in a lot of instances but in many ways those really local levels of organization are not obvious out to the outward community of other resource providers right they're not mapped they're not on some resource lists they're just kind of much more organic and local and so there's almost like a translation or connection it challenge there between how do you take the bigger systems like 211 and bring it down to that local level Steve Castello go for it yeah I just wanted to reflect on something that seems like an overarching theme of this conversation whether it's you know on the addiction front or with Ashley you know the high school kids or Michael on his his road and many others Alice as well and that is you know I think it sums up by from what Ashlyn Ashlene said that the kids felt that they didn't matter that no one really thought they mattered that's what this is all about whether it's on your road or in your community or the town or the county people want to matter they want to be along and be part of something and I think if you think of it that way as you start thinking further beyond today about what you can do in your community to build the sense of unity how can you help others feel that they matter and you know that's a huge philosophical question probably but it also is a really practical one and I'll just throw out one idea that until now I never thought of it as something we could use in Rutland with people who are already here but we have a program in Rutland called The Rutland Red Carpet that is designed to help people who are thinking about coming here feel connected and what we do is when we get some you know we have a marketing campaign to draw people to move here and when we get somebody who's interested we assign them what we call a concierge and the concierge's responsibility is to treat that person like they would their best friend from college if they were thinking about moving here meaning introduce them to people help them make job connections help them figure out where's a good place to live for them introduce them to the schools etc and it doesn't it seems like that it's a lot of work it really isn't I I'm literally juggling three or four families that I've been a concierge for right now and one of the simplest things that we've done with some of those families when they've come for a visit is throw a little informal meet and greet and that's hard right now but you can do it um literally um you know in the past we've invited 10 or 15 people to meet a couple or a family at you know the local brewery or the park or wherever and before they leave they have a sense of community that they never could have gotten on their own you could do the exact same thing with people who are feeling unconnected within your own communities yeah not only to recruit people but to to retrain and retain and connect people absolutely that's a you you witnessed it folks and a new version of the red carpet program right here other other ideas we've got a little more time before I'm going to turn it back over to the visiting team but are there other ideas Ashlene go for it um yeah just to um yeah just to kind of connect with Alice and what Steve is talking about is that um one thing we one group we started working with was an organization called Willing Hands which some some folks might be aware of they're down in Norwich they're a food they're a gleaning program but they make sure that any food left over from local farmers and producers doesn't go to waste and so they transport that food to local organizations and so we have right now we have a drop-off coming every it's 150 pounds of produce every Wednesday to one clinic in Bradford but I I just got a grant this morning that I'm really excited about we're gonna in we're gonna purchase refrigerators and freezers to address what Alice was talking about is that people our communities around us seem to be utilizing food and so we had to regroup and ask ourselves as a community why are we not seeing the utilization that we're like we know it's there and we see it around us but we're not sure what are we missing is it transportation is it is it people not getting the resources or not knowing where it's coming from so this is kind of a twofold piece is right now we're working on getting the infrastructure which is the refrigerators and freezers in our more rural clinics which it would be Wells River and East Grin and then what we're going to do is try to implement like a slingshot deal where willing hands will come up from Norwich and deliver food to our Bradford clinic and then we're looking for a volunteer team which there is a volunteer team out of Bradford right now to start bringing that food up to our other clinic and so we'll we have willing hands has more food to give right now and as long as we have the capacity then they can deliver that and then we can slingshot it around the state and so we're hoping to do that and one idea that kind of came out of this whole team thing and this is another piece of it is one thing that I can help teens well what we're speculating I feel like we need to have a much deeper conversation but one thing we were just talking about as a team as a team was teens maybe can work like not not that we're saying all the teams need to work but being engaged in a in an actual handoff where yeah right now with COVID we can't do full one-on-one but if a team knows they're delivering food to another family or you know they're benefiting someone else's life even though that sounds a little like aren't we supposed to make the teams feel like they matter that might actually make them feel like they matter when they're really involved in a in someone's health and well-being thanks actually and just putting a little bit of another hat on as you think about refrigerators and freezers be sure to connect with efficiency Vermont and maybe your local electric utility because they'll help you make sure you're getting the most efficient one so I actually will I am just looking at purchasing options right now so that's good to know definitely connect with them and in fact they've got some programs for community nonprofits to help with those sorts of things too efficiency for my and what was the other one well just I'm assuming your green mountain power Steve you would know what but yeah so either or both but I can connect with you otherwise I'll I'll be sure to share share my I don't want to monopolize either but actually just said something I think that's really a great example getting people together to do something good for something for someone else is a huge community driver Rutland you can Google it I won't bore you with all the details but we've used blood drives to create enormous pride in our community and proud to say for six years we've held the national record for the one day largest blood drive in American history and we still have it and I still have the tattoo on my shoulder to prove it but beyond the blood is a huge community builder yeah and that really sort of loops back to this concept of mutual aid and one of the things I observed with these mutual aid organizations is that they their sign-up sheet really was about both do you have something to offer and do you need something and and they did that intentionally right because we're often on both sides of that equation and so it it just reminds us that we're all in this in in in these circumstances together and and that we may be on one side or the other so yeah Alice so I remembered my last thought you know one of the things that I think has been very valuable about this experience if anything is that more many people who never thought that they would need help with anything needed help whether it was just asking a neighbor to go to the grocery store for them because it wasn't safe for them to do that or whether for a variety of reasons they actually did need some food from the food shelf which they've never done before and I think that whereas poverty can sometimes hide in our communities and it's easy for people to think everybody is is just like me nobody has any needs and and then they chafe at the social service organizations that are telling them no we have problems with homelessness and we have problems with poverty and we have problems with with children who don't have enough food to eat um this is a moment when I think we may have a bump in empathy within our communities more people who are willing to say boy yeah you know there are times when when any one of us might be a moment away from really needing to use the social safety nets that are available to us and I think that this is important opportunity to use that energy and to use that moment to help our communities understand the importance of these safety net systems for everybody in our communities other reflections other other thoughts about how uh how your town or your region is going to sort of navigate its way out of this I had a just a thought just going back to what you had said about or was said earlier about response recovery and renewal and um you know just thinking sustainability um really needs to be like there are quick resources somebody just mentioned this actually maybe Alice quick resources that need to be made when something like this comes up of course um and it needs to happen quickly and there might not be time to you know we might not be able to all communicate around that but what can we learn in this uh John I think you said first time in 40 something years where something like this has happened but what can we learn from this so that if something like this or something like Irene happens again what sustainable systems do we have in place where maybe we are already working more as a cooperative it within our different counties and um valleys and all the nooks and crannies of Vermont like what can we keep sustainable so that um we already have a system of in place and in response that specific response can happen quicker recovery potentially could happen quicker but then continuing to strengthen that sustained system that's a great uh a great prompt actually for folks you know if you think back and it's hard to because it feels already like a long time ago but if if you think back to you know February and March when we were kind of it was such a rapidly developing set of circumstances and what uh if if we could go back in time and put some of that sort of infrastructure in place so that we were more adept at the response like what what would that look like so that when we face the next crisis uh we're more ready I don't know does anyone have some thoughts I mean I think the lists is an example sort of the connectivity right that you you've talked about the relationships and how important those are as we as we find resources are there other things that people think about having in place uh to be prepared one thing that comes to my mind just we struggled so much at the start of this with PPE supplies and I think it you know as so many did and I think as we look kind of up the chain from our from our individual communities um how we can get and and tremendous response from our communities I mean it's it's remarkable the way you know how many people are making cloth masks and distributing through upper valley strong and and um donating them to our organization and and you know people everywhere were making masks but uh but to really make sure that up the line at the at the state federal level that um that hopefully we're all preparing for for the future and making sure that we have access to uh to equipment that that might be needed in in emergencies as they come up uh yeah and that makes me think back to what Michael said about food systems and and I know we we all are thinking about that what do we what do we have within our control within our sort of borders whether that's our community or our state um so that um we we can sort of control our own destiny and aren't aren't necessarily dependent on um on a supply chain that we have absolutely no control over and tend to be at the the end of the the line as as as many say I think also just going back to the point of how do we get young vermonters to stay in vermont or how do we entice um youth from outside of vermont to come here because we can build sustainable systems but once the people who care about those systems are uh moving away from the direct work of them and we don't have kind of a new workforce for that you know those those pieces that hold the smaller communities together will fall apart and so I think a part of our sustainability as a state is figuring out how to keep youth here and get youth here yeah and uh I'm just going to read it because I think it's a good point you know from christianne's iPhone there uh food cooperatives and csa seem like potential natural community hubs uh how how can they be strengthened to provide more social outlet to communities and become central to communities and train young people to carry on the work there's a good one