Editor’s note: This commentary is by Gaye Symington, who is president of the High Meadows Fund (@HighMeadowsFund) at the Vermont Community Foundation.
[I]n mid-August the Northern Border Regional Commission announced $7.2 million of federal grant awards to nine projects across four northern states in the Northeastern U.S.: New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Two of those awards will bring economic and community development initiatives that have been successful in Vermont to other states in the northern border region.
The Vermont Housing and Conservation Board was awarded a grant to advance the agricultural economy by launching the Northeast Agricultural Business Assistance Network throughout the four states. Since 2003 VHCB has been home to the Vermont Farm and Forest Viability Program, providing one-on-one business coaching and support to individual farm, food and forest-based businesses, in partnership with key nonprofits like NOFA-Vermont, the Intervale Center, UVM Extension, Land for Good, and the Center for an Agricultural Economy. The Viability Program has worked with about a quarter of the farms in Vermont. If you took advantage of the recent Open Farm Week or other on-farm events this summer, you probably have visited a farm that has benefited from this consulting. This individually tailored work to identify and build business plans around the market opportunities and challenges facing different farms and food businesses has great potential for the region’s local food economy and rural communities.
Preservation Trust of Vermont (through the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance) received an award to establish the Northern Heritage Economy Program in all four states to help communities undertake community-driven preservation projects with strong economic revitalization potential. For years, Preservation Trust has found creative ways to preserve and give new energy to general stores, community centers, and old marble manufacturing plants. The rejuvenated buildings in turn bring new social and economic activity to their communities. Vermonters have been reminded of, or are learning anew about, the many accomplishments of Preservation Trust through recent accolades to Paul Bruhn, the founder and longtime director of Preservation Trust who died last week.
When I asked Paul to review my description of the award enabling Preservation Trust’s Vermont experience to expand to other northern border states, he suggested I be sure to thank Sen. Patrick Leahy. And, yes, the region’s entire federal delegation deserves credit for securing the funds for the NRBC grant program. But more than funding makes initiatives like this take root and spread their impact.
To bring good ideas forward and then take them to scale requires the initiative and collaboration of nonprofits like Preservation Trust and VHCB, working with local and state government and private businesses, as well as a federal delegation willing to go to bat for funding to bring effective approaches to greater scale once they’ve proven themselves in Vermont.
