With the help of a $250,000 donation from Subaru of New England, Vermont plans to hold a statewide flood “Clean Up Day” on Aug. 26.
The event will be modeled after the state’s annual Green Up Day and coordinated by Green Up Vermont, organizers said Tuesday. Volunteers will be deployed to areas hit hard by this summer’s flooding and address needs reported by communities, according to Green Up executive director Kate Alberghini. Local leaders can report their cleanup requests to Green Up’s website.
Gov. Phil Scott announced the volunteer coordination effort at a press conference Tuesday at the 802 Subaru dealership located in Berlin. He was joined by a slew of state and Subaru employees, as well as Ernie Boch Jr., a philanthropist and New England automotive mogul. Boch is president and CEO of Subaru of New England and has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Vermont causes in years past.
Tuesday was no exception. Boch offered Scott a large cardboard check for $250,000 to go toward Vermont’s flood recovery efforts, including the newly launched Clean Up Day.
Already, according to Scott, volunteers and workers have cleared nearly 12 million pounds of flood trash and debris throughout Vermont. Clean Up Day will build on that effort to “help make sure we continue to be the most beautiful state in the nation, and show that we’re open for business and ready to welcome people back to our state,” Scott said.
A portion of Boch’s quarter-million-dollar donation will also be dedicated to a state effort to aid Vermont mobile home owners who lost their homes in the flood. As the state learned after Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, Scott said on Tuesday, individual assistance doled out by the Federal Emergency Management Agency often does not come close to making such Vermonters whole, particularly given the disassembly and disposal costs associated with a totaled mobile home.
Also at Tuesday’s press conference, Boch sprung another surprise on Scott, offering up an additional $100,000 donation for the state to dedicate to art and music education in schools. Boch — a graduate of the Berklee College of Music and former band leader who once opened for the famed 1970s rock band Deep Purple — is a passionate supporter of the arts.
“That was a big surprise to me, $100,000 for the music programs,” Scott said on Tuesday. “We’ll figure out how to disperse all of that money. But it was just as a result of Ernie saying, ‘What can we do to help in the arts and help the learning loss and socialization loss that Vermont kids have experienced due to the pandemic?’ And I said, ‘Well, they’re always underfunded,’ especially the music programs and arts and theater, and so forth.”