 Good afternoon. My name is Arnold Isidore Thomas, and I am pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Jericho, Vermont, and a member of the Con Hogan Award Committee. On behalf of the committee, I welcome you to this seventh annual Con Hogan Award ceremony, which recognizes and celebrates the efforts of Vermonters who embody creative, entrepreneurial, community-minded leadership in making our state a more welcoming, safe, and productive environment for all residents. I also want to thank Mika Haley, who provided the music for our program today, entitled Sambi Sara. It is now my pleasure to introduce the Con Hogan Award Committee, which oversees this program. They will wave as I acknowledge them. They are Will Belanger of the Vermont Community Loan Fund, Paul Silo of Public Assets Institute, Steve Dale, former Human Services Manager, Scott Johnson, Consultant for Dulce Vermont, Ellen Kaler of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, Jane Kimball of Vermont Community Foundation, Dr. Etan Nezraitan Longo of the Fair and Partial Policing Program of the Vermont State Police, Jericho Parms of Vermont College of Foreign Fine Arts, Diana Wally of the Wyndham Southeast Supervisory Union, and myself. Allow me also the privilege of recognizing award recipients from previous years. They are Ellen Kaler of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, Michael Monte of the Champlain Housing Trust, Holly Morehouse of the Vermont After School Program, James Baker, currently Commissioner of Corrections, Jan Demers, currently the statewide coordinator of the Community Action Agencies of Vermont and the Vermont Health Department. Con Hogan was an important leader and guiding light in Vermont, who sadly passed away in August of 2018. For those who didn't know Con, we are fortunate to have members of his family to reflect on the extraordinary person he was. We'll start with Jeanette, Con's wife, and then his brother, Michael. Greetings to all of you. I have to say that every year when this ceremony comes around, I know that Con would continue to be so humbled by all of the folks that have participated in this and continue to work toward all of the kinds of things that he worked for here in Vermont. I especially want to thank all of the committee members, and especially now that you've had that introduction, these are all pretty high powered people from throughout the state, all over the state really. And I totally thank them for putting all the time and the effort into having this award continue and also congratulate them for having chosen so many really, excuse me, appropriate candidates for this award. This year, as I read about the Lydia's Farm and then heard her speak at our Zoom luncheon that we had a few weeks ago, I recognize that there were several other probably more personal reasons than the actual work ethic and all the wonderful things she has done in her career, an amazing career. And that has to be a little more personal, as I said, many of you know that Con and I along with the partner, business partner, started a horse farm back in 1976. And the original name was East Hill Farm Family Writing Center. So it's a farm that has continued to welcome lots of people as Lydia's Farm does. And one of the special things personal for me, Lydia said that she worked with a lot of children in the 4-H program, which was something big in my heart as well. So not only was I very, very pleased with meeting Lydia and hearing about all the work she's done in so many different areas, but I thought this year there was a little bit more of a personal kind of touch to it, which I know Con would have been thrilled about. So once again, I thank the committee for all the work they have done, and congratulate Lydia for receiving such a wonderful award. Thanks. Thank you, Jeanette. Michael, would you wish to share some words? Thank you very much. This is really an honor to be able to speak today briefly regarding my brother and this award. I do really want to thank the foundation for inviting me and giving us this wonderful opportunity. I want to offer my congratulations to Dr. Clemens as this year's recipient of the Con Hogan Award. When I was asked to speak, I began to do some research and reading about her background and her accomplishments and contributions to the Vermont community. And in particular about the Clemens Family Farm and its history, it's very, very impressive and a real asset for the state of Vermont and its people. This farm's existence today undoubtedly is a tribute to Dr. Clemens' parents and to the Clemens family for its preservation as a special cultural and arts center with its many multicultural opportunities. The farm and the Clemens family together represent an important part of Vermont's history, but just as importantly, they represent an important part of Vermont's future. The Con Hogan Award could not be given to a more deserving recipient, in my view. Dr. Clemens exemplifies Vermont's values and aspirations for a better society, which Con lived by in every aspect of his life. Despite Con having spent most of his professional life in human services, Con had a great entrepreneurial spirit. At the same time, he had an exemplary sense of a social responsibility, a sense of fairness and equity, even before those concepts arose in our most current national consciousness. I think Dr. Clemens and her family's organization are a testament to those values which all Vermonters and indeed all Americans need to incorporate in their relationships with their fellow human beings. I know Con would agree that Dr. Clemens' work provides a golden opportunity going forward for Vermonters to demonstrate to themselves and to the nation that their state, with a lot of hard work, can build on its reputation for understanding, open-mindedness and fairness and equity. As Jeannette just spoke of the farming ties with their yeast cell farm, I can add that Con's farming DNA goes back further. It actually goes back to his grandparents, who had a farm which was located only a few miles from where we grew up. Our parents made sure that the Hogan farm played a role in our growing up experience, even into adulthood. The Clemens family farm now plays much the same role for the larger Vermont community. I think it can be said that everyone's family roots grow out of the same earth. For sure Dr. Clemens and her efforts remind us of that fact and will continue to do so. Con was at his best and happiest when he saw things being accomplished. Giving this award to Dr. Clemens would make him very happy indeed. So again, thank you very much for this opportunity and my congratulations and best wishes to Dr. Clemens. Thank you. Thank you Michael. I am delighted to now invite Jan Dimmers, state-wide coordinator of the Community Action Agencies of Vermont and our 2019 award recipient to share her thoughts on this occasion. Jan? Thank you. Con Hogan, in the preface of his book, met along the way, said it was this constant exposure to people across Vermont, all beliefs, backgrounds and political persuasions that shaped my overall view of admiration and appreciation of the people where we live. And over time, one can't help to accumulate stories about them. Be they farmers whose family moved here during the depression or an industrial governor who held the good people of Vermont in the highest esteem. Lydia Clemens is one of those good people who we celebrate today. Blessings, Lydia. The Con Hogan Award allowed me to give the CVOEO New American Financial Empowerment program a boost. This program started in 2018 to help new Americans gain accurate information about handling finances in the United States and access that information from people that they trust. One component of the program is financial house parties. Financial house parties involve a group of four to five new Americans who speak the same language. The house parties participants take turns hosting dinners at their homes where they are joined by a community ambassador, a community member who speaks their language and is trained and employed by CVOEO in financial education. The host of that week's house party chooses the topic to be discussed that night. Topics that have included banking in the United States, building credit scores, budgeting, micro business development, buying a house or car and more. And you can't believe the number of people, new Americans, that their dream is to buy a home. Project manager, Asma Abuniab and the team of community ambassadors created and interpreted audio files about unemployment and stimulus checks and EIDL and PPP loans for small businesses. And they were available in Arabic, French, My My, Nepali, Somali and Spanish and Swahili. These good people started a hotline with an 800 number as another way to be present to new Americans. And they continue to be present as they prepare for Afghani people to enter our state. I am most grateful through this award to contribute to their good work. For my part, I am still meeting and working with the good people of Vermont through crisis, pandemic and enjoy. Lydia, we are honored to hear and join in your story. Thank you. Thank you so much, Jen. This year's recipient of the Khan Hogan Award is one who has impressed me as a person who tends to avoid the spotlight, stops the spotlight of publicity, preferring instead to motivate and mentor others from her wealth of learning and experience. Dr. Lydia Clemens, a medical anthropologist working extensively for UNICEF and the World Health Organization, has inspired and emboldened others because she herself was inspired and emboldened by the dream of her father and mother to develop their farm in ways that promote farming and agriculture for black people and other people of color, as well as to promote a cultural center for diverse artistic and educational expressions of African Americans. My fellow Vermonters, it is my immense privilege to introduce to you my friend and my source of much inspiration, the executive director and president of the Clemens Family Farm, Dr. Lydia Clemens. Thank you, Reverend Thomas. Before I begin, I ask that we all just take a moment to breathe, to ground ourselves, to acknowledge all that we as individuals, as families, as a community, as a state, and as a nation have gone through over these past 18 months, and to remember and honor the many, many people who passed during this time, to find and send her hope for today and for the future. Thank you. I want to start by thanking the Conhogan Award Committee for your work in reviewing nominations. I am humbled and grateful for this award, for this wonderful honor that you've given me. I wish I had had the opportunity to know and work with Conhogan. Ever since the public announcement of the 2021 Conhogan Award was made, many friends and collaborators around the state have reached out to me to tell me about Con, what an inspiration he was, how very loved he was, how much impact he had on their lives and their work. Of course, learning this has made me feel even more humble to receive such an honor. In receiving this award, I must acknowledge the work of so many Black women in Vermont, who are my inspiration every single day in leadership, community building, and mobilizing for good. I want to say their names out loud, the names of these brilliant Black women. Mrs. Lydia Clemens Sr., my mom, for her grace, endurance, innovation, and brilliance. Leslie McCrory Wells, who probably most of you don't know, I actually grew up with here in Charlotte. Throughout our childhood, we grew up and played right here on this farm. We attended school together, and she was one of my role models. I would look to her for cues on how to be, how to act, how to manage being one of the only Black students in our school. She was a wonderful role model in the 1960s and 70s for me, and she's still an amazing role model for me today. Hi, Amoris, Tabitha Paul Moore, and Mia Schultz for their courage, their strength, their ability to consistently speak truth to power, and to so many others, including Amber Arnold, Omega Jade, Lydia Diamond, Kia Ray Hanron, Amasika, Rosalyn Whitaker Heck, Emily Bernard, Christine Longmore Hughes, Olivia Penya, Natanya Van Der Lund, Jennifer Herrera Kondry, Harmony Edisomone, Irene Webster, and Ruth Machoma, for their creativity and their ability to continuously dare, to dare to be different, to dare to be successful, to dare to shine as Black women in Vermont. I'm speaking to you virtually through cyberspace, and I'm imagining all of these phenomenal Black Vermont women standing near me. I owe a lot to them, and I thank them. So my talk today is in two parts. The first part is going to share a bit about me, my life, because I know that most of you probably don't know that much about me. As Reverend Thomas noted in his opening comments, I generally prefer to stay behind the scenes in the work that I do, and I have never, ever in my entire life enjoyed being in front of a camera. The second part of my talk is going to focus more on the work I'm doing right now to carry out my parents' legacy and their dreams for this farm, for our people and for our community. My parents moved from Cleveland, Ohio to Charlotte, Vermont in 1962, and they bought an old farm in Charlotte for $35,000, an astronomical amount of money for a young African-American couple just starting their careers as a doctor and as a nurse. Buying a farm in Vermont was a bold move for my parents. The farm buildings were about 160 years old at the time, and they were in disrepair. And the 148-acre property represented a massive amount of work. So why would a young doctor and nurse want to buy and invest it in this farm is that they wanted their children, black children, to have a sense of place, a sense of belonging in a very white Vermont. My four siblings and I grew up as farmers, as scholars, as artists, and the children of a couple who worked in the healthcare system. During my childhood, agriculture, art, science, and my identity as an African-American were seamlessly woven together through my life on the farm. I drove a tractor. I stacked hay bales in the barn. I shoveled pig poo out of the stall. I fed the chickens. I harvested corn and string beans and tomatoes. I wrote a pony. And I also wrote short stories in poetry, including a poem about DNA. I played viola in the Vermont Youth Orchestra. I sewed, I embroidered, and I macromade. I was in a drama troupe for girls in the 4-H Club. I wrote essays on Mock, Kondria, and Metta Mock lived there, euthanized them, and then dissect them and draw the most beautiful intricate illustrations of what they saw. The heart in the circulatory system, the lungs and the pulmonary system, the muscles, and through a microscope, the beautiful details of cell structures. All of this beautifully, beautifully drawn on the lined paper of those black and white science notebooks that students still use to this day in their chemistry, bio, and lab classes. My father's drawing skills were a regular part of his own work as a pediatric pathologist, studying tissue samples in his laboratory at the University of Vermont Medical Center. He also used his drawing skills to help all five kids create beautiful linoleum block prints. Farm, art, science were also integrated into African American history and identity on our farm. My parents taught us five kids about the history and cultures of our people, because we weren't learning about these things in school. So weekends after chores included reading really cool comic books that detailed the lives of Frederick Douglass or Harriet Tubman or life in Africa before black people were enslaved and brought to this country in chains. My parents also made a point to invite every black person they met to come visit the farm and spend time with our family and our neighbors. Black artists and scholars were frequently at the farm, and one very important imprinting moment for me was when a group of black medical students from Africa who were attending UVM spent the weekend at the farm. I had never in my young life, and I was probably about seven or eight years old at the time, seen black people in their twenties before. Everyone I knew who was black was in our family or extended family. They were either kids my age or adults who are my parents age. No young adults. They're confidence, they're poise, they're carefree in natures the way they walked and they talked and they laughed on the farm with their afros and their bell broadens. They were beautiful, they were confident, and they made me realize that I could be like them one day. It was powerful and it was magical to see an older version of my seven or eight year old self, me the way I could be maybe in my twenties. Wow. So there was never any question that the Clemens children would attend college. My parents took out a second mortgage on this farm to help pay our tuitions, and the money that came in from selling the hay that we grew also helped cover the cost of college. When I was in high school, there was no internet or cell phone technology to help students research colleges. I don't remember having any support from a guidance counselor back then to help me figure all of that out. What I do remember were massive books in the school library that listed in alphabetical order every single college planning was sitting at the kitchen table one day with a map of the United States and asking my parents, so what universities do you know in California? California. You see, I wanted to get as far away from the farm and my life in Charlotte as I possibly could. Like many young people at that stage of life, I wanted to be independent and to define myself. And so off I went to California, to Stanford University. And at the time I applied, I had no idea of Stanford's reputation or what a big deal it was to be not only admitted to Stanford, but admitted with a scholarship. All I knew was that Stanford was in California. And so I entered as a pre-med student with dreams of becoming a doctor like my father. But as I went through the four years of pre-medical studies, I realized that medicine really wasn't for me. I wanted something different. And so to the high concern of my entire family, I joined the Peace Corps after college and went to Zaire, what is now called the Democratic Republic of Congo. And it was there as a public health volunteer in the equatorial rainforests of the Congo that I discovered my love for public health, for art, and for culture. It was where I rediscovered my love for living and working in rural communities. And it was where my love and pride for my people, people of African descent, grew much deeper. Over the next 35 years, I lived and worked in more than 25 countries in Africa. 25. And I became fluent in French and Lingala, and I picked up a bit of Swahili and Bombora too. I returned to the U.S. to pick up a master's degree in public health in Michigan, and later a Ph.D. in medical anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania. And then I managed programs whose annual budgets could be as large as 25, 30, 40 million dollars a year as I worked in various countries in Africa. I think that all of this, my childhood in Vermont, my career in Africa, all of this was designed to prepare me for the work that I'm doing now. Eight years ago, my parents asked me to come back to Vermont, to participate in family discussions about the future of their farm. None of the family members were farming anymore. The farm was being free leased to local farmers. In other words, local farmers were farming the land without paying anything to my parents. My parents didn't want to lose the farm. And throughout my childhood, they had made hard decisions to hang on to the land in spite of increasing financial pressures, increasing property taxes, other types of pressures to sell all or some of it. But they never did. They never sold a single acre because they knew how rare it is for black people to own property like this because they wanted to make sure that this beautiful property stayed in the family, stayed in the hands of our people, black people. So what to do? So now I've shared some background about me. I want to talk about the work I'm doing now as president of Clemens Family Farm, a 501c3 nonprofit organization. This work is, of course, inspired by the vision and efforts of my parents over the past 60 years. This work is, in fact, part of my parents' legacy. So I'm going to share some slides with you right now and show you a bit more about the farm. I'm going to tell you about how Clemens Family Farm is mobilizing the power of arts, culture, and place for social change. So eight years ago when I came back to start the conversation with my parents about how do we preserve this farm? Should we preserve this farm? What should we do with this farm? I started doing some research and it was there that I found the statistics that I'm going to share with you right now and that are all over our website. In the early 1920s, when these beautiful people, these are my parents, were infants, African Americans nationwide, owned or controlled roughly 44 million acres. Today, African Americans own a combined total of just 3.5 million acres. That's less than half of 1% of all farms in the nation, 0.4% of all farms in the United States, owned by Black people. To show some graphics, again, here's the big piece of the farmland pie of the United States. In 1920, that green slice there is what African Americans owned, about 44 million out of approximately 950 million acres. And according to the 2012 agriculture census, that slice has gone down to a sliver, 3.5 million acres. And when you compare Black land ownership to White land ownership, while Black farmers and Black land owners lost 93% of their land assets over the past century, White farmers and White land owners lost 3%. Hence the mission of our farm is a three-part mission focused on carrying on my parents' bold legacy of investing in beautiful farmland and using that farmland as a space to promote African American history, art and culture and to build a community. This three-part mission is preserving the farm itself, empowering a growing network of Vermont's Black artists and culture bearers, and building a loving multicultural community around African American heritage. And again, those are my wonderful parents on the day of their wedding in 1952. Let me talk a bit more about our first part of our mission, preserve. As I had mentioned before, the farm has many historic buildings on the property. You're looking at an old blacksmith shop that was originally built in the late 1700s and restored by my dad with his own hands to become the site for the first African art mail order import business in the country, Authentica African Art Imports, founded by my mother and run out of that old blacksmith shop. And you can see my mom in the 1980s very chic in her midi skirt with one of her imported Kenyan Kenya bags, sisal bags. Another building here is the beautiful barn house, which is currently our main cultural hub. And the math on the farm is the one plus one plus one, taking two old barns and putting them together into this beautiful building today where we celebrate African American art, history, culture, and community through engagements led by Vermont's Black artists. Another barn on the property, a historic barn late 1700s is the old dairy barn. We call it the big barn, which is on your left. And you'll be wondering why is this beautiful modern building on the right juxtaposed against this old historic building. This building on the right is the Smithsonian National Museum of African American history and culture. And the architect who designed that building, she was one of three lead architects is this woman in the center, Zena Howard, who is standing in fact on the lower level of our historic big barn. And she and a group of 40 black artists and Vermont architects gathered together a few years ago to start the visioning process for the future of the big barn as a visual and performing art center again, celebrating African American and African diaspora, visual and performing arts. During her three day stay on the farm, Zena Howard also took the time to mentor some of the young girls in the community about architecture. And it was just, you know, one of those many joyous opportunities that this farm offers to Vermont by attracting high profile black scholars and artists to the farm who are wanting to do their part to try to support this farm and the work that we're doing. A photo of some of the phenomenal contractors who helped us restore the fieldstone wall in that same big barn. These are the historic fieldstones. And this is the lower level of the visual art studio and gallery space in the big barn. And this is the outside of the big barn still going through a slowly but surely upgrading and renovation process. You'll see there the newly poured cement floor funded in part by Vermont Arts Council. Also an important part of our preservation work is of course agriculture and farming, making great use of these prime agricultural soils that exist on the farm. Investing in hoop houses for culinary heritage gardens, celebrating again African diaspora culinary heritage. And these hoop house gardens will be of course managed by our culinary artists who are part of our artist network. And again celebrating the land and our artists. Here's an aerial performance by one of our collaborating artists during this Juneteenth of this year. Another community program celebrating the wild irises that grow on the farm. The wild iris program was led by two of our collaborating artists, a musician and a visual artist who engaged with nature and their art and our community typical of the kinds of programming that we do on the farm. You've seen me speak or heard me speak a bit about artists. You've seen a few of our artists and this is just a few more of our artists. We have now a total of about 230 Black artists who are part of our African American African diaspora artists network artists in Vermont who we work to empower through a variety of activities. Even just networking, such as here with the one of the summits that we held for Black artists on the farm a couple of years back, professional development opportunities, paid opportunities to build community among Black artists and support them in the work that they do with their art. Provide them with small grants and opportunities to just have some respite in grants at the farm where they can do many residencies, offering them again paid opportunities to engage with the local community members, parents and children in this case, who are taking a fantastic drumming lesson from one of our collaborating artists who is a member of our network. Artist Kiarae Hanron leading in arts and social justice session with some student leaders who visited from another town and came to the farm for the day. Another collaborating artist Shanta Lee Gander leading a culinary heritage program with grade school kids who were learning how to cook pies, traditional African American pies and learning about the history and culture behind those pies. Another collaborating artist in a kindergarten class in Williston leading a hip-hop and step dancing session and learning about the history behind step dancing and hip-hop. Visual arts class with a Haitian collaborating artist who lives in Burlington now he is a Vermonter working with kindergartners on Haitian culture, Haitian language, patois in French and painting. The third part of our mission is build community building and again working with our Vermont black artist to lead engagements that foster social cohesion, understanding, dialogue across differences of race and culture in a very warm and welcoming environment where we place art and culture at the center, break down people's anxieties and barriers and actually start to co-create and dialogue together in group settings such as this. Some more examples of the community building arts programs that we hold on the farm that are led again by Vermont's black artists. All of the artists are well compensated for their work with us. Cooking class, Cuban culinary heritage and we made some delicious food that evening. When the pandemic struck we moved many of our on-farm on-site farming programs and art programs to the web and did a lot of virtual community building programs again led by our collaborating artists working to build social cohesion and community across differences of culture, race, ethnicity, religion with art at the center. A couple of programs that I'm very proud of that the Clemens Family Farm is involved in are statewide programs. I'm going to quickly talk about a few of them. One is Windows to a Multicultural World which is a K-12 remote learning program that we piloted earlier this year and that features history curriculum, lesson plans, discussion plans and of course the cream on top is the artist engagements where our trained teaching artists help bring history alive and also use art and creativity as a way for students to process information including hard history and also as a way for them to express their emotions and their thoughts creatively using any variety of arts. This is just a smattering of some of the artists that we have who are teaching artists trained by the farm to work with K-12 students. We currently have about 18 teaching artists in our collective who work with us regularly on K-12 programs. This just shows a map of where that pilot I mentioned was implemented all around the state. A total of 23 black artists, scholars and instructional design experts most of them almost all but two were Vermonters developing the curriculum and the arts engagements and we worked with over 40 teachers and parents and high school students who reviewed the curriculum and engaged with the curriculum and then over 300 K-12 students in 26 schools, public, private and home schools over a six-week period in the early part of this year to test out this remote learning platform and then to based on the feedback back that we received improve it and the pilot went beautifully. Another example of a statewide program is our work with Catamount Arts with a performing arts series in the Northeast Kingdom and here you can see some of the criteria that we used in what was a competitive process to select fine artists and a variety of artists in our Black Artists Network to deliver performing arts engagements in the Northeast Kingdom. Due to the pandemic we have held back the performing arts series until sometime next year. Another example of our program statewide is Black and Bliss Wellness Arts exclusively for Black Vermonters and again led by our collaborating artists focusing on community building this time specifically for Black Vermonters who are just 1.3, 1.4 percent of Vermont's population to help build community. And a final large program that we've just initiated through support from the Vermont Department of Health is our COVID-19 vaccination storytelling project in which we use storytelling and the arts to help people talk about their COVID-19 vaccination experiences whether they are fully vaccinated, partially vaccinated or not vaccinated at all. These are some examples of some of the visual arts that accompanied the storytelling by Vermonters as they talked about their vaccination experiences. So in terms of data, we do use data. We've slowed down a bit during the pandemic because our programming has also slowed down a bit but I want to share just a few snippets of some of the data that we found back in 2018 when we did a survey with all of our visitors who came to the farm. It was a paper survey and we asked them to just answer some questions and here's just some of the findings. I'm sharing this selection of findings to show you how powerful the arts can be and how powerful programming led by Black artists can be. About 90 percent of visitors to the Clemens Family Farm reported that as a result of their experience, they want to learn more about people of races and cultures different from their own and they intend to learn more about African-American or African history, art and culture. The majority of visitors agreed with the statement, because I visited the farm, I'm more comfortable talking to people who are different, who are from different races, ethnicities and religions than mine. Imagine that. Majority 52 percent agreed with that. More than a quarter were neutral and six percent disagreed. But again, when you're thinking about a rural farm in Vermont and more than half of your visitors are saying, because of this experience, I feel more comfortable talking to others who are different from me. That's a massive finding. It's really encouraging and something that anyone working in arts and culture can really grab hold of and think about, what can I do to ensure that that happens in my program as well? Nearly two-thirds of the visitors to the farm said that they connected with another black African-American person outside of their family. Sixty-one percent agreed or 26 percent strongly agreed that they connected with someone who is of a race or ethnicity that's different from their own. Specifically for black people, the farm also represents a place to connect with other people of African descent. As a black person, I felt connected with African-American or African arts and culture. Among the just the five percent who felt this statement was applicable to them, all of them strongly agreed or agreed. And then also even among those who were not African American, most two-thirds felt that they were interacting with black African Americans who were setting positive examples for them. So that's the Clemens family farm. Let me stop sharing the screen for a moment and just wrap up with a few words about what I've just shown you. This work is a 60-year labor of love that began with my parents in 1962 and continued with the multicultural community that grew around the farm and are shared love for this place, the people, the arts and the culture of the African diaspora. As a community and as a state, we've had to face up to some hard truths about racism in Vermont. And I believe that we can get through this and find our better selves and ways to connect with each other that are in ways that are real and meaningful by putting art at the center and by protecting, cherishing and celebrating land that's held by black Vermonters and other people of color who have been historically marginalized in land ownership and land stewardship. This is important. It's important not only for black Vermonters, Indigenous people, other people of color. This is important for all Vermonters. It's a matter of equity, yes. And it's also a powerfully enriching and important opportunity for every single Vermonter to benefit from the diversity of land ownership and stewardship in the state and a greater diversity. When white people visit this farm, children and adults alike are experiencing something extremely unique, the experience of being welcomed into black space and the experience of the joy of discovery, discovering a world and a people of diverse cultures and perspectives right here in Vermont. Thank you again for this opportunity and for this honor. It's really been a pleasure speaking with you today and I'll turn it back to you, Reverend Thomas. Thank you, Lydia. And thank you for sharing your thoughts, your experiences and making us aware of the amazing resource and opportunities the Clemens Family Farm provides the rest of the state. Thank you for being here and thank your parents also for starting this dream that you continue. It is my hope that today's program will provide the incentive for you as Vermonters from every region of the state, from every racial and ethnic identity, to consider and discern and affirm the uniquely wonderful gifts you bring to enhance the life of your local community and the state. This award not only enhances the life and celebrate the work of Khan Hogan, but also individuals like you who embody his spirit and love for the common good. Next year's invitation for nominations will go out on May 1st, 2022 with June 23rd at five o'clock p.m. as the due date and time for applications to be returned. Again, thank you for joining us this afternoon and keep up the good work. Goodbye.