Seven Days, January 18, 2023

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DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT

Vermont Rep. Seth Bongartz (D-Manchester) says he has introduced a bill that would make it easier to build homes in downtowns, and additional, similar proposals are expected to drop this week.

Bongartz said his goal is to clear the way for low- and moderate-income housing in downtown areas and to steer development away from farmland and forests.

“If we don’t make it easier to build in downtowns, we’re just going to end up with sprawl and houses in the wrong place,” Bongartz said. He noted that Vermont has been working for more than two decades on smartgrowth principles and programs with the goal of reducing the reliance on cars and preserving open spaces. “Not doing this, in my view, would just be kind of sad.”

His bill would require towns to allow duplexes to be built anywhere that a single-family home is allowed — and fourplexes in areas connected to water and sewer. Many towns now limit construction to one unit of housing per lot, with lot sizes varying widely.

Bongartz’s bill would also set the parking space requirement for any unit of housing at just one, to ease permitting in smaller spaces. Many towns require that each unit have two spaces.

Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (D-Chittenden-Southeast), chair of the Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Committee, planned to cosponsor a similar bill.

e Vermont legislature has directed millions of state and federal dollars to the housing crisis over the past several years, and affordable housing organizations have built hundreds of new apartments. But high prices and a dearth of options are still contributing to homelessness and deterring job seekers from taking positions in the state.

e Vermont Housing Finance Agency estimates that the state needs 40,000 new units of housing by 2030, Bongartz said. Developers are building about 2,700 homes

per year, many of them seasonal, he added, instead of the 5,000 to 6,000 needed to keep up with demand.

Rep. Katherine Sims (D-Craftsbury) also plans to introduce a housing bill this week. She’d like to exempt projects in more of the state-designated downtown areas from review under Act 250, Vermont’s land-use planning law. at would lessen the power of a community appeal process that often halts development or reduces the size of projects considerably.

“We want to prevent [housing proposals] from being appealed forever or shrunk to a size that the numbers don’t pan out,” Sims said.

Read Anne Wallace Allen’s full story and keep up with developments at sevendaysvt.com.

MONUMENTAL EFFORT

One of the tallest structures in Vermont, the Bennington Battle Monument, is due for an extensive renovation over the next few years.

e 306-foot-tall obelisk was completed in 1891 to commemorate the 1777 Battle of Bennington, which was fought across the state line in Walloomsac, N.Y., and resulted in a pivotal victory for colonial forces during the Revolutionary War. British troops were seeking to capture provisions stored at the Bennington military supply depot, where the monument now stands.

e tower draws thousands of visitors each year, and many more are expected as the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of

PLAYING ON

The Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine has scheduled a performance in Lyndon Center on January 29. Out of darkness…

That’s how many inches of snow

Burlington has averaged over the past several years, making it No. 8 on a list of snowiest U.S. cities, according to the website Angi.

TOPFIVE

MOST POPULAR ITEMS ON SEVENDAYSVT.COM

NAME CHANGE

After years of controversy, the Rutland School Board adopted “Rutland” as the high school’s mascot. A win for safe and boring.

DANCE OFF

A Milton Middle School dance was canceled after a threatening text message prompted a lockdown during the event. Unsettling.

1. “Another Hotel Developer Buys Former YMCA Building in Burlington” by Courtney Lamdin. Giri Hotel Management, a Quincy, Mass.-based group, purchased the property at 266 College Street early last month.

2. “Allegations of Racism Scuttle Vermont Girls’ Basketball Games” by Alison Novak. Two schools postponed girls’ basketball games against Champlain Valley Union High after a CVU player posted a TikTok video containing the N-word.

3. “Burlington Allows Parish to Demolish Historic Cathedral” by Courtney Lamdin. e Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception can be torn down, city officials decided.

4. “Facing a Shortage of Zamboni Drivers, Rink Managers Are Skating on in Ice” by Ken Picard. Ice rink managers are struggling this winter to find qualified drivers.

5. “Sugarbush Resort to Build Worker Housing Near Mountain” by Anne Wallace Allen. e ski area plans a four-story apartment building and three single-family homes for its employees.

DIGGING DEEP

A former copper mine in Vershire, now a Superfund site, will host an archaeological dig this summer, WCAX-TV reported. Wear protection!

Independence approaches in 2026, generating heightened interest in Revolutionary War history. Last year, engineers and conservators rappelled down the sides of the limestone tower to examine its stone and mortar. ough they determined the building is structurally sound, moisture has corroded an elevator, a metal staircase, lighting and electrical equipment, said Jamie Duggan, director of preservation for the historic sites owned by the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation.

From newspaper reports, Duggan added, it’s clear that the structure has needed close attention for years.

“It was built in the 1890s, and by 1910, people were already noticing it was damp,” he said.

e state plans to repair the elevator, lighting and interior stairs. e work could cost as much as $12 million, Duggan said, noting that consultants

tweet of the week

are still putting together the details and that the number could change. He expects the work to start next year and hopes it will be completed by the 2026 anniversary.

e monument’s elevator and metal stairs take visitors to an observation deck about 208 feet up; other stairs and ladders continue to the very top, where aviation lights are replaced each year.

State officials recently learned that the monument is likely the second-tallest unreinforced masonry structure in the U.S., after the Washington Monument. at 555-foot tower reopened in 2014 after a three-year, $11 million restoration.

“[ e Bennington Battle Monument is] rather unique and not like the typical building in its maintenance needs,” Duggan said. “It’s going to take a monumental effort just to scaffold this.”

ANNE WALLACE ALLEN

TALKING SCHVITZ.

publisher & editor-in-chief Paula Routly deputy publisher Cathy Resmer

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NEWS & POLITICS

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ED LEADERSHIP CRISIS?

[Re “Mellencamp to Return to Role as Principal of Burlington High School,” January 3, online]: The abrupt departure of Burlington High School principal Lauren McBride poses concerning questions about the district’s support of building administrators. A principal sets the policies for the school they serve. In helping to support families, staff and students, these essential leaders are responsible for the success of the school. Since taking the helm on July 1, 2020, superintendent Tom Flanagan has lost four building administrators, each leaving during the school year to accept roles away from Burlington. No other district in our state seems to be experiencing such a crisis.

The loss of principals Noel Green, Kevin Robinson and Lashawn WhitmoreSells means that Vermont’s largest city, and one of its most diverse, lacks any principals of color. The district’s web page states: “We seek to recruit, develop, and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool.” Why has the district not been able to achieve that objective?

Superintendent Flanagan stated in a community update: “I want to create an environment where leaders … feel supported and valued.” Principal McBride’s exit seems to show that he is not able to achieve that goal.

Burlington has voted to support its students and families by backing the building of a new high school. Great schools are more than just brick and mortar. They require dynamic leaders. The hemorrhaging of these individuals from Burlington should raise questions and concerns about the effectiveness of district leadership.

Gavin Wallace ESSEX JUNCTION

WHITE MAN’S VIEW

In [Feedback: “Term Is ‘Insulting,’” December 28] Daniel Hecht says of the term BIPOC: “In attempting to merge the very diverse histories of ‘people of color,’ it best serves the white man’s interest in rendering them generic, a blurry concept rather than real human beings.”

As a white man who has no interest in rendering anyone a blurry concept, but rather to see others as real human beings, I respectfully ask that the same consideration be extended to me.

Scott Koeze SOUTH BURLINGTON

COMMENT CLARIFICATION

The online article [“Burlington Planning Commission Endorses Rezoning UVM’s Trinity Campus,” December 20] states: “Loomis Street resident Todd Schlossberg said he thinks the council should push for UVM to agree to only house juniors and seniors in the new dorms.”

This is not correct. In my public comments during the December 20 planning commission meeting, I specifically suggested that, as a condition of the City of Burlington agreeing to the proposed zoning amendments, the city should push for a memorandum of agreement with UVM that the university would allocate 50 percent of the new proposed units for third- and fourth-year undergrad students.

I pointed to the fact that the two most recent incoming classes, of 2025 and 2026, have had record-size enrollments of about 3,000 first-year students, as opposed to the average incoming first-year class sizes of about 2,500 to 2,600 over the past decade. As a result, in three years, our neighborhoods will face an influx of close to an additional 1,000 third- and fourth-year students seeking off-campus rental housing, which will further stress our already overburdened rental housing stock and drive up rental prices, harming working people seeking affordable rental housing.

Given the university’s strong desire to have the Trinity Campus rezoned to allow for increased lot density and building heights, as well as decreased setbacks, I suggested that the City of Burlington use its leverage and take advantage of this unique opportunity to give UVM an incentive to create and dedicate more campus-owned housing for third- and fourth-year undergrad students.

Todd Schlossberg BURLINGTON

TIME’S UP FOR CATHEDRAL?

I attended the meeting of the Development Review Board of Burlington to witness the proceedings in regard to the possible demolition of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception [“Burlington Allows Parish to Demolish Historic Cathedral,” January 11, online]. I went with my partner and another friend, Demetri Sarantitis, the architect who at one time worked for the Barnes firm and who designed the bell tower on the property.

After hearing much comment largely in favor of repurposing the building, the board voted in favor of demolition. The building was designed by one of the best architecture firms in the world. It is a

great pity that this wonderful structure is to be demolished and the undisclosed buyer of the land has, it seems to me, the right to do anything they please. I’m not at all clear as to why that firm’s name was not disclosed.

Jordan Davies HUNTINGTON

WHAT ‘PARISH’?

[Re “Burlington Allows Parish to Demolish Historic Cathedral,” January 11, online]: In an email to Seven Days , consultant John Caulo is quoted as saying, “The Parish is pleased the DRB approved the Demolition Permit request and recognised [sic] the Freedom of Religion aspects of the application.”

My problem is with the use of the word “parish.” A parish is defined as a local church community composed of the members or constituents of a church. Since the cathedral has been closed since 2018, there are no parishioners. Who is Caulo referring to as being so pleased? Was there a vote of “parishioners”?

The reality is that the Catholic diocese, in order to avoid multimilliondollar lawsuits, has distributed its finances among institutions named after the various existing churches in Vermont. The diocese reserves the right to decide how those funds are used at the local level. In fairness to it, however, no one has ever accused the church of being a democracy.

John Devino COLCHESTER

‘NONSECULAR SANCTUARY’

As a business- and homeowner in Burlington, I am writing to voice my disappointment in the decision of the Catholic diocese to demolish the former Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and in the decision by the Development Review Board to approve this application [“Burlington Allows Parish to Demolish Historic Cathedral,” January 11, online.]

Although a church owns the building, it is not a church, and Burlington’s Development Review Board has made a grave error in treating this project as an active church. Calling the empty building with no altar, no tabernacle lamp and no services a church just to demolish and pave the way for some undisclosed redevelopment is antithetical to the entire process of zoning and ordinances.

Regardless of the eminent loss of desperately needed green space in our downtown and the loss of an internationally recognized modernist landscape, the

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FIT TO PRINT

Shaping up for the Wellness Issue

For many of us, the New Year brings a renewed focus on health — which makes sense. The weeks from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve are a nonstop smorgasbord of pies, cookies, cocktails, roasts and general gluttony when even vegetables are drowned in cream of mushroom soup and/or bacon. So it follows that January is a time to shed our vices and pounds in the name of self-improvement.

Hardy souls brave “dry January,” swearing off booze until February. Some folks opt for the diet fad du jour. Others re-up their lapsed gym memberships or resolve to dust off the Peloton they got last Christmas. Still others take a more moderate tack and simply make a point of eating a little more healthily, drinking a little less and exercising a little more.

When it comes to health and fitness, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. As most experts will tell you, the best diet or exercise regimen is the one you’ll actually do.

Following that principle is how Seven Days calendar writer Emily Hamilton discovered POLE DANCING. For various reasons, the self-described “book nerd” had never been able to stick to a workout routine. But she’s recently become obsessed with swinging around poles for both fun and fitness and, she writes in an essay, has finally “found a form of exercise that I enjoyed for its own sake” (page 36).

Beloved PE EDUCATOR ROBYN NEWTON has been encouraging kids at Vergennes Union Elementary School to enjoy exercise for 28 years. She begins her term as Vermont Teacher of the Year this month (page 30). Gym teachers can leave lasting impressions — both good and bad, as Seven Days writers recall in a companion piece on GYM CLASS MEMORIES (page 31).

Of course, wellness is not all about exercise. Sometimes the best way to work up a sweat is to sit back and relax. To do just that, travel writer Jen Rose Smith ventured north of the border to explore MONTRÉAL’S STEAMY HYDROTHERMAL SPA SCENE (page 26).

Viruses are rife this year, and they aren’t always easy to shake: An estimated 45 percent of patients who recover from

COVID-19 experience symptoms that last four months or more. Some Vermonters suffering from long COVID are turning to HYPERBARIC OXYGEN THERAPY, Ken Picard reports (page 34). That includes Montpelier’s Merin Perretta, who called the treatment “a total game changer in my life.”

Other Vermonters swear by herbal medicine, although, as Fiona Lucia Genadio-Allen put it, “A lot of times, it doesn’t taste very good.” Her chef-owned apothecary, WOLFPEACH, alchemizes food and herbal medicine to produce herbal formulas that people will actually enjoy (page 42).

Medicine isn’t the only thing we ingest that affects our wellness. In ERIKA NICHOLSFRAZER’S NEW MEMOIR, Feed Me: A Story of Food, Love and Mental Illness , the Waitsfield author and journalist explores how learning to feed herself contributed to her mental and physical wellness.

“ Feed Me is all about sustenance and nourishing oneself ... in terms of taking care of your body as well as your mind,” she told Melissa Pasanen (page 38).

That’s certainly food for thought.

DAN BOLLES

Loves

MAGNIFICENT

SUNDAY 22 & MONDAY 23

Romanov the Record

Anastasia, the musical adaptation of the classic animated film of the same name, brings Broadway to the Flynn in Burlington. The story follows a young woman — who may or may not be the lost princess of the fallen Russian empire — as she finds love, home and family on the way to uncovering the secrets of her past.

SEE CALENDAR LISTING ON PAGE 68

THURSDAY 19

Watershed Moment

North Branch Nature Center’s latest Montpelier PLACE event is Upstream-Downstream: A River Resilience Film Festival & Panel Discussion. After a screening of several locally made short films about Vermont’s waterways, including “No Other Lake” and “Nebi: Abenaki Ways of Knowing Water,” a panel of aquatic experts discusses conservation.

SEE CALENDAR LISTING ON PAGE 64

FRIDAY 20-SUNDAY 22

Reel Them In

Hunting and fishing enthusiasts go wild at the Yankee Sportsman’s Classic at the Champlain Valley Exposition in Essex Junction. Countless exhibitors offer up their wares for browsing between seminars and presentations on such wide-ranging topics as buck tracking, turkey hunting, waterfowl calling and venison butchering — plus, kids keep busy at the trout pond and reptile shows.

SEE CALENDAR LISTING ON PAGE 66

SUNDAY 22

Drums Up

Four-part harmonies and unforgettable songs are the hallmarks of New England-based folk quartet Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem, appearing at Next Stage Arts Project in Putney. A homemade percussion kit, featuring bottle caps, tin cans, cardboard boxes and more, lends an eclectic beat to the band’s witty, uplifting tunes.

SEE CALENDAR LISTING ON PAGE 68

OPENS WEDNESDAY 25

Generation Why

Northern Stage premieres ’Bov Water, a new play by Dartmouth College alum Celeste Jennings, at White River Junction’s Barrette Center for the Arts. This intimate, poetic story follows four generations of Black women, from the Civil War through the present, as they discover identity and resilience in their family’s forgotten histories.

SEE CALENDAR LISTING ON PAGE 70

ONGOING Snow Show

Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery’s annual winter exhibit, “Silver Glow,” returns to Shelburne with new work by a dozen Vermont artists. These paintings all zero in on light and the way it changes in the winter months, glinting off subjects including snowy hillsides, the frigid waters of Lake Champlain and the fruits of a frozen garden.

SEE GALLERY LISTING ON PAGE 53

‘Wellness’ Check: Burlington

For decades I was a regular at the Greater Burlington YMCA, daily navigating the mazelike hallways of the historic building at the corner of College and South Union streets to the windowless pool or workout room. The place had plenty of quirks but also a cozy charm. Many of the people I met in the locker room became good friends.

One perk that I will miss for as long as I have a body to work out: I was able to keep all of my toiletries on the premises in a wire basket assigned to me — a privilege for which longtime Y members waited years. In the time it took to wend my way from the outside door to the front desk, someone would have retrieved my basket of hair products from a long, narrow hallway. The place felt like home.

I started mourning its loss with the announcement of plans to construct a new facility up the road. Mine was the minority view, of course. Very few people had anything nice to say about the old building, which, among other failings, wasn’t fully accessible to people in wheelchairs. The Y staff and board were a little more diplomatic about the marketing goals: The organization was seeking to serve a younger and more diverse clientele.

I’ve since returned to the Y to use the machines in its gleaming new gym and this week discovered a time when it’s not totally packed with practitioners: 8 a.m. on Sunday morning. At that hour, I even recognized some elder athletes from the former Y. Looking at you, Peter Burns, pedaling a recumbent bike.

wellness iSsUe

All this change would be easier to embrace if going to the new digs on College Street didn’t bring me past the former site, discarded like an old tennis shoe, and its attendant memories. Since the goodbye “party,” the historic building has suffered one indignity after another, spiraling into disrepair. A faceless owner has come and gone without so much as sweeping up the debris on the sidewalk. The old brick is covered in graffiti. For months during the pandemic, a single guy pitched his camp — tarps and all — right outside the main entryway.

Getting older by the day, I took the closing hard and even attended a ceremony on the last day the familiar building was open. Listening to people’s personal recollections made me cry. Fueled by nostalgia — I’d spent so many hours there over 35 years — I walked through the facility, taking pictures of the pool, the communal showers, the steam room and the sauna. Out of pity, someone found my basket and gave it to me as a keepsake.

And with that, my beloved group of Y friends, once so close, scattered across the health clubs of Chittenden County.

Then the pandemic hit.

The double whammy cost me; I belong to three health clubs now. And it reduced my fitness routine from a healthy downtown workout between shopping and home — with social benefits — to long, lonely walks and satisfying but solitary suburban swims.

Will the new out-of-state entity that recently purchased the building finally turn this local landmark into something positive? Or at least clean it up so it doesn’t look like a crime scene? Once a symbol of a healthy community, the building is now a glaring illustration of what ails Burlington: uncaring property owners, stalled development, rampant homelessness, unchecked vandalism and a growing sense that this beautiful small city has lost a step.

Paula Routly

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The former Greater Burlington YMCA building in downtown Burlington

Milk Check

Andy Birch and his wife, Sarah, set about reviving his family’s Derby dairy farm in 2014, when milk prices were near record highs. They bought a small herd of Holsteins, upgraded the aging barn and began selling milk to the Cabot Creamery cooperative.

The next year, milk prices plunged 30 percent, blindsiding the young couple as they watched their savings evaporate. Prices fell another 7 percent the following year before recovering slightly. They tanked again during the pandemic, then rebounded strongly last year.

“It’s hard to go from year to year not knowing what our milk price is going to be with these dramatic swings,” Birch said.

The couple survived the roller coaster, cushioned from the worst impacts of the volatility by having little debt and generous landlords — his parents.

Hundreds of dairies in the state haven’t been so lucky. Since the Birches reopened Maple Grove Farm eight years ago, the number of dairy farms in Vermont has dropped 40 percent, from 880 to 527. The downsizing has been decades in the making; in the 1940s, there were more than 11,000 dairy farms in the Green Mountains.

During most of this consolidation — fewer farms working the same number of cows — milk production rose steadily

TOO-SMALL SCHOOLS IN SOBU

Garnet Health to Close, Citing Financial Difficulties

BY COLIN FLANDERS colin@sevendaysvt.com

Garnet Health, a Chittenden County ambulance service that has played a major role in Vermont’s COVID-19 testing and vaccination effort, will close at the end of the month, citing financial difficulties.

The company’s closure coincides with the Vermont Department of Health’s decision to shutter its walk-in COVID-19 vaccination clinics by January 31.

In a statement, Garnet president and CEO Ryan Ferris blamed the company’s demise on a mix of low reimbursement rates from insurance companies and rising costs of operating an EMS service, which have increased during the pandemic.

“Given the wind-down of COVID-19 services subsidized by the state and federal government, Garnet is left without sufficient revenues to sustain operations and must make decisions to prevent a catastrophic collapse,” Ferris wrote in the statement.

AGRICULTURE

BY KEVIN MCCALLUM • kevin@sevendaysvt.com

due to improvements in feed, genetics and milking technology that increased the yield per cow. But so many farms have stopped milking in recent years that both the number of cows and the amount of milk produced in Vermont are starting to slide, as well.

Maine and Pennsylvania, already have such price premiums to aid dairy farmers.

“If we keep doing the same old, same old, we’ll get the same old results,” Sen. Bobby Starr (D-Orleans) told Seven Days last week.

Starr, longtime chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, grew up on a dairy farm and once owned a hauling company that served dairy farmers. He cochaired the seven-member Task Force to Revitalize the Vermont Dairy Industry, which was created by the legislature in 2020 and just issued a report with two key recommendations.

Garnet notified the Vermont Department of Labor about its impending closure last week and said 76 people would lose their jobs, according to deputy labor commissioner Dustin Degree. Ferris declined an interview through a public relations firm that handles the company’s media requests.

Garnet launched in fall 2019 on a business model built around transporting patients from one medical facility to another throughout New England and northern New York. The arrival of the pandemic threatened to tank the for-profit company, according to Ferris, who told Seven Days in 2021 that Garnet lost nearly half its business overnight.

Milk production peaked at 2.7 billion pounds in 2017 but has since dipped to around 2.5 billion. The number of cows has slipped from 125,580 in 2019 to about 117,000 today.

That’s led anxious lawmakers to explore a controversial solution: requiring that farmers be paid more for their milk. The payments farmers get, based on prices set by the federal government, are simply not enough, they say. A few states, including

The first is that Vermont should continue to reimburse farmers for participation in U.S. Department of Agriculture insurance programs, something the state began doing last year. The insurance can pay farmers when production costs, such as the price of feed, unexpectedly increase. The state paid $1.6 million in premiums for farmers; the report recommends expanding that funding for 2023.

The second, and potentially more farreaching, recommendation is to give the Vermont Milk Commission added authority to set the minimum price that dairy processors must pay farmers for their

To stay afloat, the company retooled itself as the premiere provider of COVID-19 tests in Vermont, operating two of the state’s busiest sites — in Burlington and Middlebury — in addition to providing services to businesses, summer camps and even individuals through a directto-consumer testing program. More recently, Garnet has been running a walk-in COVID-19 vaccination clinic at the University Mall in South Burlington.

Ferris said he plans to reevaluate the company’s future once the layoffs are completed, with the hope of eventually relaunching with “a more limited offering of medical services.”

“Until then, the company will work with affected employees to help them find alternative employment and do everything possible to ensure a smooth wind-down of the company operations,” Ferris wrote. ➆

FILE:OLIVER PARINI

Ryan Ferris

Andy and Hannah Birch feeding cows in Derby

Towns across Vermont are beginning to regulate the short-term market

BY RACHEL HELLMAN • rhellman@sevendaysvt.com

When Moriah Stokes and Vincent Connolly purchased a second home in Morrisville in 2017, they already had plans to list it on Airbnb.

The couple were living in Colorado at the time, and Stokes, who grew up in Morrisville, wanted to be able to visit her family without staying in a hotel. Renting out the home meant the property didn’t sit vacant, and it provided some extra cash. When the couple decided to move back to Vermont in 2019 to raise their three young children, the home was waiting for them.

couple became staunch supporters of a successful effort last year to impose limits on short-term rentals in the village.

According to AirDNA, a Denver-based company that tracks the short-term rental industry, 157 of Morrisville’s 1,078 housing units were active rentals through either Airbnb or Vrbo in 2021 — and the number was growing by 7 percent per quarter.

Stokes, who moved back to Vermont largely because of the sense of community she remembered from her youth, said it’s been hard to watch her hometown change so rapidly. “I would rather keep the community and lose my investment,” Connolly said.

Stokes and Connolly acknowledge that they benefited hugely from their short-term rental. “Vincent was like: ‘I want to have 10 of these. I want to have one in every ski town,’” Stokes said jokingly.

But when Stokes and Connolly settled in, their opinion of short-term rentals changed. Morrisville is just north of Stowe and the Stowe Mountain Resort, making it an ideal place to convert single-family homes and apartments to short-term rentals. After watching vacation rentals proliferate in their neighborhood, the

Stokes’ and Connolly’s evolving views capture both sides of the impassioned argument in a growing number of towns across Vermont. Neighbors and some policy makers say the conversion of housing to vacation rentals has deepened Vermont’s housing crisis and eroded the character of communities; they want to regulate and limit shortterm rentals. But short-term rental owners say they count on the income from their properties to make living in Vermont more affordable. They argue against limiting the business.

According to Vermont Short-Term Rental Alliance, at least 14 communities already have taken steps to regulate the practice.

Vincent Connolly and Moriah Stokes

Burlington Progressives Release Public Safety Plan

BY COURTNEY LAMDIN courtney@sevendaysvt.com

Progressives on the Burlington City Council held a press conference on Tuesday to release what they say is a holistic approach to improving public safety in the city.

The Prog push comes five days after Mayor Miro Weinberger, a Democrat, released a public safety plan of his own. The issue is likely to be top of mind for voters heading into Town Meeting Day elections in March.

The Progs want the city to form a crisis response team, confront racial bias in policing and open an overdoseprevention site, among other steps.

The party platform also includes support for a ballot question that would create a new police oversight board — a proposal that Weinberger has encouraged voters to reject. The mayor vetoed a similar plan in late 2020.

The Progs painted their plan as a “foundation” for addressing public safety in Burlington. The city has seen an uptick in thefts, property crimes and gun violence.

“This is just the next step in building a community where everyone feels safe,” Councilor Joe Magee (P-Ward 3) said at the press conference at city hall. “We’re called to participate in imagining what that looks like.”

Progs have clashed with Weinberger on public safety in recent years, particularly following a 2020 council vote to reduce the size of the police force through attrition. But the two sides’ new plans do overlap in some areas, including a shared goal of preventing gun violence.

On Tuesday, Progs lauded Weinberger’s proposal to form a task force to address the issue. And they support the mayor’s push to lobby legislators on safe storage of firearms and a ban on guns in bars — charter changes that Burlington voters previously approved but were rejected in the Statehouse.

The Progs also want the city to pay more into the Victims Compensation Program, something Weinberger also supports.

In a statement on Tuesday evening, the mayor said he’s pleased that the Progs are aligned with some of his goals and added that he hopes they can all “work together and urgently advance these needed actions.” But Weinberger did criticize the party for its support of a “community control board,” which could fire and suspend police officers for misconduct, bypassing the chief, who currently has sole discretion over discipline. ➆

milk. Ben & Jerry’s, Cabot Creamery and Commonwealth Dairy would have to pay a minimum price set by state regulators for the milk that goes into the ice cream, cheddar cheese and yogurt made at their Vermont facilities.

It’s a thorny proposition, one fraught with legal, economic and political questions that could take months or even years to sort through before it could be put in place. Some dairy processors, such as Ben & Jerry’s, are already voluntarily paying extra to certain farmers for adhering to desirable practices.

But Starr and others say the time to act is now, when milk prices are high but the memory of the recent price turmoil is fresh in the minds of farmers.

“You don’t wait until the bottom falls out and then say, ‘Oh, my golly, why didn’t we do that last year?’” Starr said.

Federal and industry sources predict that milk prices will likely slip by several dollars from this year’s record highs of more than $24 per 100 pounds of milk (about $2.09 per gallon).

Dan Smith, a Montpelier attorney who cochaired the task force and has been involved in milk regulation for more than 30 years, said Vermont’s dairy industry today is virtually unrecognizable from the one he grew up with.

When he was young, the vast majority of Vermont milk was trucked in bulk out of state, mostly to the Boston market, where it was bottled for sale in supermarkets.

Today, about two-thirds of Vermont’s milk is sold to in-state food manufacturers who turn it into a dizzying selection of high-end ice cream, cheese, butter, sour

cream and yogurt, most of which is sold out of state.

“The old industry is gone,” Smith told Starr’s committee last week. “There is no other way to explain it.”

While companies such as Ben & Jerry’s and Cabot Creamery have grown into big, profitable enterprises, many of the dairy farmers producing their milk are getting squeezed out of existence, Smith said.

“We have a thriving industry at the same time we’re losing farms,” Smith said.

It was wise for the industry to transition away from the low-margin commodity milk market toward higher-end, value-added dairy products, Smith said. But the farmers supplying the milk for those products have become trapped in an economic and regulatory system that leaves them little choice but to accept prices below their costs of production, he added.

“The value is there, but it’s never trickled down to the farm,” Starr said.

Vermont’s dairy farms often have higher environmental and trucking costs than farms in other states, but that’s not reflected in the federal formula that determines what they are paid for their milk, Starr said.

The draft bill that Starr’s committee is considering would give the milk commission the authority to raise prices to reflect such costs, but only after holding an industry referendum on the issue. That means farmers would need to be on board.

Dairy Farmers of America, the nation’s largest dairy co-op, opposes the move. DFA bought the state’s oldest dairy co-op, the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery, in 2019.

State premiums can have unintended consequences and create “disorderly market conditions,” such as companies looking out of state for milk supplies not subject to the premium. That’s according to a letter that Kiersten Bourgeois, DFA’s director of marketing and industry affairs, sent to the task force.

Milk Check « P.14

Maple Grove Farm

PHOTOS: DON WHIPPLE news

To prevent Ben & Jerry’s from simply buying cheaper milk from New York, the task force came up with a simple solution. Vermont-based dairy processors would have to pay the Vermont price to farmers regardless of their location. This approach would also sidestep any legal concerns about interstate commerce, which Smith said would not apply because Vermont would simply be regulating milk purchases within its borders.

Smith knows a thing or two about the interstate milk trade. He helped establish and run the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact, which from 1997 to 2001 set the prices for fluid milk in the six New England states. Smith was executive director and general counsel of the compact commission until political pressure from Midwest dairies ended its run, he said.

that’s a wonderful thing,” he said. “But if we’re just going to be moving money from one pocket to the other, that’s a situation I’d want to avoid.”

Those are valid questions the milk commission would have to address before it made any decisions, Smith said. The task force is only recommending that the legislature update the law to give the commission the powers and tools it would need to pursue over-order pricing, he said. All the draft bill requires is that the milk commission hold a public meeting on the issue.

Starr said he expects the Senate to pass the bill this session.

Rep. Rodney Graham (R-Williamstown), a former dairy farmer who sits on the House Agriculture Committee, doubts that the House would do the same. The premium pricing could cause some national brands that contract with local processors to shift production elsewhere, he said.

“Hood could just pull out of the state of Vermont,” Graham said.

Starr countered that producers threatening to leave Vermont over a few cents per gallon were “blowing smoke.”

The federal milk pricing program, which has its roots in the New Deal, was designed to be a price floor to ensure the nation had an adequate milk supply. The prices are set and regularly updated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for each of 13 regions, or marketing “orders.” A key goal of the program is to prevent an oversupply of milk from depressing prices below farmers’ transportation and feed costs.

“But the floor has become the ceiling,” Smith said.

He thinks Vermont should consider adding a premium to the federal price. DFA’s Bourgeois contends that the state would be wiser to focus on changes to the federal pricing formula than to pursue state premiums.

Birch, the Derby farmer, is conflicted about Vermont getting involved in determining what he’s paid. He likes the idea of a more stable price for his milk, especially as he considers whether he can afford to invest in making his operation more efficient, he said.

But if Cabot Creamery’s owner, AgriMark, were required to pay higher prices for Vermont milk, that might make it harder to compete against other big brands, he said. He also worries that the cooperative might seek to offset its higher milk costs by hiking fees on farmers, which would undermine the whole effort.

“If we can do it without hurting the marketability of our milk, then I think

Anson Tebbetts, secretary of the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, is chair of the commission. He said his agency shares the task force’s concern about the financial health of farmers and would take a close look at any bill aiming to boost their payments.

“We are open to anything and any strategy,” Tebbetts told Seven Days. “If it’s viable and if it can help dairy, we are all in.”

To date, however, that has not included price controls. The milk commission was last active in 2019 to provide feedback on the federal Farm Bill.

Tebbetts’ agency and lawmakers have instead focused on helping struggling dairy farmers modernize their operations through grant programs such as the Northeast Dairy Business Innovation Center. The USDA program run out of Tebbetts’ department issues federal grants to help farmers diversify their businesses, upgrade milk tank capacity and embrace new packaging, he said.

Such programs are important, but to task force member Heather Darby, they are “dancing around” the core issue that farmers aren’t being fairly paid.

Darby, a University of Vermont Extension agronomist who has worked with dairy farmers for more than 15 years, said she didn’t want to be part of yet another report about the decline of the dairy industry. She wants to help craft a real solution that would help the people who feed the rest of us make a living off the land.

“We have to do something different and at least try something bold and new,” she said. ➆

HEATHER DARBY

No Room to Grow

To accommodate more students in its schools, South Burlington wants to charge developers a fee

BY ALISON NOVAK • alison@sevendaysvt.com

During a tour of Rick Marcotte Central School earlier this month, interim principal Lissa McDonald gestured to a jumble of backpacks, winter boots and water bottles lining the hallway.

“This is the stuff that should be in the classroom,” she explained.

But this year, overcrowding at the school has meant that one class of fourth graders is crammed into a small room that doesn’t have enough space to accommodate a coat closet and storage cubbies.

That’s not the only sign of growing enrollment at the South Burlington elementary school. Lunch period spans nearly three hours to allow all the students to cycle through the overwhelmed cafeteria. Kindergarten teachers use a small classroom for storage. Four shabby rented trailers outside the building serve as office and meeting space.

Orchard School — another of the three elementary schools in the district — is also overcrowded.

Demographic consultants forecast that enrollment at all five of the district’s schools will continue climbing over the next decade as a result of new construction, generational turnover in housing, and an influx of young families drawn to suburban amenities that include roomy properties, chain-store shopping and easy highway access.

In school districts around Vermont, the K-12 student population has dropped steadily in recent years. But South Burlington is on the upswing. State officials say it may be the only district where surging enrollment is beginning to overtax the capacity of its buildings.

In the short term, district leaders hope to stanch the overflow by spending $6 million to install eight 900-square-foot energy-efficient units called zero energy modulars — four each at Marcotte and Orchard — as part of a proposed $14.5 million bond that South Burlington voters will consider on Town Meeting Day.

To recoup the cost of the modular units, known as ZEMs, the district wants to charge residential developers an “education impact fee” to offset the cost of educating students whose families are moving to the booming burb. A public hearing on the proposed ordinance is scheduled for January 23, and the city council will vote on it soon after.

“We want to continue to develop our vibrant community, and it’s people that make it vibrant,” superintendent Violet Nichols said in an interview. But “students’ ability to learn is absolutely impacted by our space limitations.”

Impact fees are one tool Vermont municipalities can use to compel developers to contribute to the costs of public infrastructure needed as a result of new construction. South Burlington already uses such fees, which must be tied to a specific project, to pay for road improvement, recreation fields, water lines and fire trucks.

Only municipalities with growing student enrollments can use education impact fees, meaning they are rarely used in Vermont. Low-income housing is exempt. Developers of qualifying projects in South Burlington would have to fork over anywhere from $2,748 for each one-bedroom unit to $12,535 for a fourbedroom unit. The proposed fee would be phased in, with developers paying 50

percent for projects approved after July 1 and the full amount after January 1, 2024.

Since 1980, the city has added an average of 140 to 150 new single-family homes and apartments per year. That number could tick up in the coming years, in part because

The school district first approached the city council about the education impact fees last spring, before it had settled on ZEMs as the preferred solution for overcrowding, according to Councilor Helen Riehle. At first, she said, there was some concern that large impact fees could make new housing in the city unaffordable, since developers are likely to pass on the extra cost to renters and buyers. In its current form, though, Riehle said the proposed fees seem reasonable.

of the ongoing downtown development on and around Market Street, said the city’s director of planning and zoning, Paul Conner. At that pace, it’s estimated that the city could recoup about 90 percent of the $6 million price tag for the ZEMs within six years.

Developer Joe Larkin, president of Larkin Realty, agreed. His company plans to build several hundred residential units in South Burlington in the next five to 10 years, and he said the education impact fees wouldn’t deter him. He said it makes sense to ask developers to contribute to infrastructure that is related to population growth for which they’re responsible.

“It’s already a challenging environment to build,” Larkin said, noting that rising construction costs and interest rates are bigger concerns right now.

Fourth graders learning in an overcrowded classroom at Rick Marcotte Central School

PHOTOS: DARIA BISHOP

Even if the impact fee ordinance won council approval — which appears likely — the city would have to find a way to devise a more permanent solution for its burgeoning student population. In the next 10 years, the district is expected to grow from its current level of about 2,500 students to 2,900, according to a recent study conducted by McKibben Demographic Research.

Last school year, an enrollment committee made up of school staff, parents and community members met over the course of six months to look at a range of options for alleviating elementary school overcrowding. Possible solutions included redistricting

would also likely require the passage of a sizable school bond.

Whether South Burlington residents have the appetite for a large-scale capital project is an open question. In March 2020, voters there resoundingly rejected a $209 million bond that would have substantially raised taxes to renovate the middle and high schools.

But Nichols, who became superintendent this school year, said she believes that there’s wider community recognition of the need for new school facilities. She said the state could help by lifting its moratorium on school construction aid, which was put in place in 2007 due to a backlog of projects. Today, Vermont is

to balance enrollment among the three schools, moving fifth graders to the city’s Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School, building additions to the overcrowded elementary schools or constructing a fourth. That committee ultimately recommended installing ZEMs as an interim fix.

Now, superintendent Nichols is working with the school board to look more closely at longer-term options and to collect additional input from the schools and wider community.

There are other issues on the horizon. The city’s middle and high schools also need substantial work. That includes both deferred maintenance and renovations needed to support the swell of new students that will eventually flow from the elementary schools.

Another education impact fee on developers might partially fund longerterm improvements to accommodate increased enrollment. But given their expected costs, such improvements

the only state in New England that has no designated funds going directly to school facilities.

Conner, the city’s planning director, touted the benefits of the “compact development” taking place in South Burlington in recent years — including resource conservation, proximity to employers and services, and greater pedestrian accessibility.

From his office on Market Street, just a stone’s throw from Marcotte Central School, Conner has witnessed the “growing parade, day by day and year by year, of kids and their parents … walking to school,” he said.

But he acknowledged that without robust state funding for infrastructure such as schools, the cost of that growth often falls on the communities.

“Whether it’s the existing residents or it’s the new residents via an impact fee,” Conner said, “the burden of all of this is largely being carried at the local level.” ➆

Rental Rules « P.15

At the state level, regulation has met pushback: Gov. Phil Scott vetoed a bill that would have established a statewide registry of both long- and short-term rentals in 2021. Last year, under pressure from the governor, lawmakers scrapped the idea. Now it’s back. This week Senate legislators plan on releasing the first draft of an omnibus housing bill that will include provisions for data collection on short-term rentals.

In August 2022, roughly 9,757 homes, or 3 percent of Vermont’s total stock, were being consistently used as short-term rentals, according to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. That’s up from 2019, when the count was only about 5,300 homes. In Lamoille County, home to Stowe and Morrisville, closer to 9 percent of the dwellings are being used for temporary stays.

“Short-term rentals are considered to be a blessing and a curse,” said Ted Brady, executive director of the Vermont League of Cities & Towns. Brady has noticed more discussion about short-term rentals in selectboard meetings across the state. But the issue is different in every community, and he argues that the solutions must be customized.

In towns near ski resorts, short-term rentals abound. Some resort communities, such as Stowe, have made no move to regulate short-term rentals. Others are taking a cautious approach.

Killington and Chester, for example, have opted for requiring short-term rentals to register with the town, a first step intended to monitor the number of rental conversions.

“Rather than do nothing, we’ll take a sort of crawl-walk-run approach,” explained Hugh Quinn, chair of Chester’s planning commission.

Greensboro planners have pursued a similar strategy. The town planning commission in October recommended creation of a short-term rental registry. The bylaw is awaiting a public vote this Town Meeting Day.

“The feeling is that we don’t have a problem right now, but we want to get our arms around how large the situation is,” said Kent Hansen, chair of the town’s planning commission.

Other communities have gone further. Since August, Burlington landlords have been largely limited to owner-occupied short-term rentals, with some exceptions. In Londonderry, restrictions are in development to address both the effect of shortterm rentals on housing stock and concern about loud “party houses.”

In Woodstock, the planning department is committed to comprehensively regulating short-term rentals. Tackling the acute housing shortage is a top priority,

according to planning and zoning director Steven Bauer. Every short-term rental in Woodstock has to go through a conditional approval process, and owners of properties in the Village of Woodstock are allowed to rent out rooms no more than six times per calendar year, with the exception of foliage season. Last year, the selectboard approved a program that pays landlords to convert short-term rentals into long-term ones. So far, though, there have been no takers.

Not everyone is thrilled about the rental regulations. Julie Marks, founder and director of Vermont Short-Term Rental Alliance, noted that short-term rentals provide Vermont owners with income to cover expenses, from paying their taxes to funding their retirement.

“I think people forget that these are people, that these are their neighbors,” Marks said. Data show that most shortterm rentals are, in fact, mom-and-pop businesses. According to Transparent, an international vacation rental data analyzer, roughly 75 percent of Vermont’s vacation rental owners in 2021 had only one or two short-term rental properties.

In Morrisville, though, town planning director Todd Thomas said he felt urgency in setting some boundaries. “It was clear to me that if we didn’t get it this time, I didn’t think we were going to be able to put the genie back in the bottle,” he said.

The Morrisville Planning & Zoning Department has focused on short-term rentals and housing development to answer what Thomas called a “rallying cry” from the community for more housing stock.

He cited neighboring Stowe as an example of what can happen if short-term rentals remain unregulated. “If you go to Stowe in the shoulder season, there’s a lot of houses that are empty,” he said. “We don’t want to be like Stowe in that regard. The intention here is to protect our neighborhoods.”

That’s been a challenge. The community of 2,210 has about 450 apartments under construction right now — the fastest housing growth it has ever seen — but Thomas said it’s not enough to offset the loss of units to short-term rentals and the need for longterm housing.

Since 2017, Morrisville has restricted short-term rentals in the downtown area, but last year those rules were expanded

ROUGHLY 9,757 HOMES, OR 3 PERCENT OF VERMONT’S STOCK, WERE BEING USED AS SHORT-TERM RENTALS.

to the entire village. Effective December 2022, residents can only have one shortterm rental unit, and it must be their primary property. They must also comply with town-wide occupancy limits and fire inspection requirements. Those already operating multiple short-term rentals were grandfathered in.

Todd said the regulation provoked heated discussion. Planning sessions are usually held in the municipal offices, but for meetings involving short-term rental regulation, the commission had to rent out a tent to fit the more than 130 residents who turned out.

Stokes and Connolly were leading voices for regulation. One voice on the other side was Lamoille County Sheriff Roger Marcoux Jr., a Morrisville resident. Marcoux told Seven Days that he purchased a property in 2021 to use as a short-term rental to help pay for his children’s college tuition. When Marcoux heard talk of shortterm rental regulation, he was worried: “We had a plan and were a little unnerved that all of a sudden the rules were going to change,” he explained.

Marcoux is likely in the minority, according to a survey of 573 Lamoille County residents conducted by the Working Communities Challenge, a statewide initiative supported by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Asked whether the area lacks housing options, 82 percent of those who responded cited a shortage of long-term housing in the area; 67 percent believed their town should have a shortterm rental ordinance.

Today, Stokes and Connolly lament that most of their neighborhood has become Airbnbs. Out-of-state vacationers use the units some of the time; otherwise, the houses are dark in the evenings.

“The tidal wave is coming to Morrisville in some neighborhoods, like it has in my own,” Stokes said. “Maybe, though, the wave has already crashed.” ➆

Rachel Hellman covers Vermont’s small towns for Seven Days . She is a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. Find out more at reportforamerica.org.

Roger Marcoux Jr. outside his Airbnb

FEEDback

complete lack of transparency and/or planning for a future use of the land should shock and appall any of the citizens, who would never be allowed to make such a move.

The rules exempting religious organizations and educational institutions are in place specifically to protect those organizations from discrimination. The treatment of this parcel as any other parcel in no way discriminates against the owner, who just happens to be a church.

In light of the overwhelming public support for adaptive reuse and saving this remarkable building and landscape, I hope the owner and their consultant decide to reverse course and work with the community to provide a nonsecular sanctuary that benefits everyone and not some unnamed developer.

Ron Wanamaker BURLINGTON

Wanamaker serves on the board of Preservation Burlington.

ROGUE VOTE

I am a member of the Development Review Board of Burlington that last week approved the request by the Catholic church to demolish the beautiful, sacred, elegant Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. It was not a vote that I agreed with, but it may be that those who voted for approval had the more true interpretation of our zoning regulations.

There is something wrong with our regulations when a 45-year-old church has no protection of its beauty and community presence, but a 50-year-old building is subject to careful analysis to determine its worthiness of preservation.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington has noted its obligation to prevent profane or offensive acts from being performed in this once-sacred space, should it find other uses. But is there anything more profane and offensive than its destruction? In its effort to respect the sacredness, it choose to resort to the obscene.

If this building were to be protected by our regulations, then who would bear this burden? Is it a responsibility that we all need to accept as an obligation of our city? Or is it strictly the responsibility of the property owner to protect what we see as a community value?

The sad result is a reminder that the city we experience on a daily basis is a result of our decisions and actions — decisions and actions guided by the vision we have for our city today and in the future.

Brad Rabinowitz BURLINGTON

NO LAUGHING MATTER

Kudos to Tim Newcomb for his December 28 cartoon reminding us, as cartoonist Walt Kelly said in a “Pogo” cartoon over 50 years ago: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” “Us” as in population numbers and consumption of nature’s renewable and nonrenewable resources; “us” as in living under an economic religion that speaks of eternal growth on a finite planet.

Let us all wake up and speak truthfully about the reality of our predicament. Life takes energy to feed and shelter us. The sun is the only true forever source of energy. Photosynthesis is the only process of converting the sun’s energy into plant life from mainly water and air. All animal life is plant lifebased. Ruin the atmospheric composition of gases and the temperature range for successful photosynthesis, and you have extinguished life as we know it.

Neither technology nor green growth will save us; we need to reduce our numbers and energy and materialintensive lifestyles starting now.

Thank you, Tim, for your periodic reminders.

Wolfger Schneider CHARLOTTE

Tim Newcomb’s cartoon in your December 28 edition raised my ire and compelled me to comment. I find it not only fatalistic and simplistic but also misanthropic.

Until we human beings value ourselves as an inseparable part of the living Earth, we will continue to destroy our only life-support system, upon which we are completely dependent, as an infant is for its mother.

The dominating ideologies of modern civilization create a hierarchy of value with the white male on top and the rest of us beneath, as stepping stones, slaves, servants and soldiers. Women, children, animals, forests and minerals are all fuel for this mad illusion of grandeur.

Until women can equally determine the fate of our bodies, sexuality, reproduction, life ways and fulfillment of our communities’ basic human needs, our civilization will continue to flounder.

Until we see ourselves not as consumers but creators as mysterious

and wondrous as creation, we will continue questioning the meaning and purpose of our lives.

Until each being on the planet alive today is seen as a gift, with a unique contribution to all of our survival, we will explode and implode in a messy war against one another and life itself.

Pointing to population growth as the problem does not present us with any workable solutions.

Pointing to the several hundred wealthiest and most influential people and corporations that perpetuate endless war and chemical solutions to our human problems would be “great marching orders.”

Janice Walrafen PLAINFIELD

Apt “Newcomb” cartoon on page 7 in the December 28 issue. As Bertolt Brecht wrote: “To those who do not know the world is on fire, I have nothing to say.”

Peter LaFlame SALISBURY

Tim Newcomb’s cartoon in the December 28 edition of Seven Days represents an unfortunate misunderstanding of the causes of our current ecological crises. The notion that human overpopulation is the primary cause of these crises is indicative of a colonial mentality rooted in the racist neo-Malthusian imagination.

This colonial logic blames people who are the least responsible for our planetary problems, such as those in the Global South who live lowthroughput lives of self-sufficiency and resourcefulness in the face of capitalism-induced scarcity. The overpopulation narrative is a wellworn trope used by European and Euro American colonial powers, including the U.S., to globalize the blame for our current social and ecological problems, spreading it across humanity in general, when, in fact, the blame should be placed on a much more specific cause: capitalism and the overconsumptive lifestyles of people in the Global North, especially in the U.S.

Until we recognize that capitalistcolonialism is the root cause of global ecological catastrophe, our policies will remain impotent as we keep recycling these ineffective and xenophobic narratives. The overpopulation narrative only serves to make capitalist-colonial powers feel innocent of their crimes and enables them to continue sidestepping meaningful action that will actually resolve the climate crisis and ecological catastrophe.

Mica McDonald EAST MONTPELIER

OBITUARIES

Doran Gene Anderson

DECEMBER 10, 1927DECEMBER 16, 2022 WILLISTON, VT.

Doran Gene Anderson passed away peacefully on December 16, 2022, surrounded by loving family members after a brief illness.

Doran was born in Fort Madison, Iowa, on December 10, 1927, the only child of Obadiah Eugene Snyder and Elizabeth Jane Snyder (Caswell). Doran grew up in Oak Park, Ill., and Fort Wayne, Ind., and attended public schools, where she was recognized for her quick wit and aptitude for math.

Doran attended Lawrence College and the University of Indiana. While on summer break during college, she met her future husband on a blind date.

Doran married Harold W. Anderson, a graduate of Brown University, on January 12, 1952, and went on to raise a family in Cheshire, Conn. As her children grew, Doran worked as a senior administrative assistant, took art and interior design classes, and enjoyed beating friends and family at various card games. Doran was known for her independent spirit, determination and financial acumen. An avid reader, she enjoyed taking her sons, Brook and Bryan, skiing any chance she could to enjoy quiet time, relaxing in a ski lodge while reading a collection of novels. She also loved spending time with family and friends at the Old Lyme Beach Club and Copper Valley Club in Cheshire, Conn., where her sons learned to swim and play tennis. Taking a spin on the dance floor to tunes by her favorite jazz musician, Illinois Jacquet, or at her grandson’s wedding at the age of 93 was one of her favorite things to do. She was known for her no-nonsense attitude (“Say it like you see it”), often entertaining her grandchildren and friends. She was an accomplished card player, learning to play poker at a very young age

and mastering the games of pinochle and bridge.

Travel was one of Doran’s favorite activities, most notably her last trip to Peru at the age of 89. Doran was a devout supporter for the humane treatment of animals and also contributed to the arts. After her husband passed away in 2015, Doran moved to Williston, Vt., to be closer to her two sons. She was not a fan of Vermont winters, but she was able to get almost anywhere in her red Pontiac Vibe.

Doran is predeceased by her husband, Harold W. Anderson, and her youngest son, Bryan H. Anderson, who passed away in October 2022. Doran leaves behind her son Brook D. Anderson and his wife, Laura B. McNally, of Essex, Vt.; five grandchildren: Taylor McNallyAnderson and wife Agne Rapkeviciute (Copenhagen, Denmark), Christopher McNally-Anderson and wife Lauren Neller (Long Beach, N.Y.), Kyla McNally-Anderson and fiancé Aaron Fish (Watertown, Mass.), Jared Anderson (East Northport, N.Y.) and Teagan Anderson (South Burlington, Vt.); brother-in-law, Michael Gluse (Chesapeake, Va.); niece, Shelly Brooks (Chesapeake, Va.); and nephew, Eric Gluse (Columbia, S.C.).

A celebration of life will be held at a future date. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Humane Society of Chittenden County, 142 Kindness Ct., South Burlington, VT, or the Flynn in Burlington, VT. Please visit awrfh.com to share your memories and condolences.

James Morse

SEPTEMBER 11, 1940JANUARY 13, 2023 CHARLOTTE, VT.

e Honorable James L. Morse, 82, died on January 13, 2023, at his home of 52 years in the little red house by the covered bridge on Lewis Creek. He was embraced by his wife, Gretchen, and his two daughters, Rebecca and Rachel. Jim’s home was his sanctuary and where he nurtured his loving family, was a steward of the land, protected all living things, and welcomed friends and neighbors with an open door. His home gave him inspiration and solace to write poetry, record his thoughts in “Doodles & Jots,” and capture the beauty and irony of life through his photography and drawings.

Jim was born in New York City to Isabel and Robert Morse on September 11, 1940. He moved to Middlebury, Vt., when he was a teenager. He graduated from Deerfield Academy in 1958 and Dartmouth College in 1962. After serving as a line officer in the Navy on destroyers, he attended Boston University Law School, where he was editor in chief of the law

review and graduated in 1969 with the highest honor for service and scholastic achievement. He then clerked for Vermont Judge Sterry R. Waterman on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.

Jim was passionately committed to the constitutional promise of “justice for all” and to making life better for everyone in our “brave little state” and beyond. After private practice, he served as Vermont Assistant Attorney General and later as Vermont Defender General. Jim was appointed to the Vermont Superior Court in 1981 by governor Richard A. Snelling and was appointed Associate Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court in 1988 by governor Madeleine M. Kunin.

As a member of the

judiciary for 22 years, Jim authored hundreds of opinions and earned a reputation as one of Vermont’s most compassionate and conscientious jurists. He especially enjoyed mentoring law clerks and creating opportunities for judicial education.

In addition to public service in Vermont, Jim participated in rule-of-law initiatives in Russia and Ukraine and was a consultant to the war crimes tribunal at Sarajevo in Bosnia.

After retiring from the bench in 2003, Jim served for nearly three years as a commissioner for the Agency of Human Services, reorganizing economic services, child protection, early childcare and education, and juvenile justice into the Department for Children and Families. He fully retired in October 2005.

Jim was a trustee of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges after serving as a commissioner on NEASC’s Commission on Institutions of Higher Education. Jim served as a trustee and president of the board of Hunger Free Vermont. He also served as a board member and president of the Board of the Vermont Chapter of the

American Civil Liberties Union.

Jim leaves his wife of 57 years, Gretchen; his daughter Rebecca Morse and her husband, Jerry Swope, and three grandchildren, Emma and William Downey and Henry Swope; and his daughter Rachel Scarborough and her husband, Mitch, and two grandsons, Samuel and Nathaniel. He is also survived by his sister in-law and brother-inlaw, Nancy and David Barry; and his nieces, Samantha Baker, Elizabeth Bain and Katherine Speede, and their husbands and children.

Our family is grateful for friends and neighbors who supported Jim through his last months of life. We are also thankful for the tenderhearted team at the University of Vermont Home Health & Hospice and Jim’s oncologist, Dr. Shahid Ahmed, at the University of Vermont Cancer Center.

To honor Jim, please consider donating to the Vermont ACLU, the Lewis Creek Association or the United Way of Northwest Vermont.

A memorial service will be held in the spring when Jim’s favorite poet, Robert Frost, reminds us that “nature’s first green is gold!”

Della May Deane

JANUARY 21, 1944DECEMBER 26, 2022 BURLINGTON, VT.

Della, age 78, passed away unexpectedly following a recent stroke. e daughter of Helena and Eugene Deane, she was born in New York City. e family resided in Fairfax, Vt., for many years.

Della was a dedicated RN and obtained two master’s degrees. She practiced nursing in New York, South Dakota, Montana and Vermont. For nearly 30 years of her career, she was a psychiatric nurse,

serving the mental health community at the University of Vermont Medical Center.

She loved teaching and will be fondly remembered by her former patients and colleagues, especially by her good friend Linda Emmons. She was an animal lover and especially loved her German shepherds and cats.

Della, an only child, was predeceased by her parents.

In recent years, after retirement, Della lived at Pillsbury Manor in South Burlington and St. Joseph’s Residence in Burlington, Vt.,

following several debilitating illnesses.

A mass will be said in Della’s honor on ursday, February 16, 2023, at St. Luke’s Catholic Church, Fairfax, Vt., at 9 a.m. A graveside memorial service and burial will take place in the spring at the family plot at St. Luke’s Cemetery in Fairfax, Vt.

Contributions can be made in Della’s name to the Humane Society of Chittenden County or the St. Labre Indian School in South Dakota.

lifelines

OBITUARIES

Je rey G. Hagedorn

JANUARY 12, 1949JANUARY 5, 2023

WESTERLY, R.I.

Jeffrey died on January 5, in New London, Conn., after a brief illness. Jeff lived a large, adventurous life — much like Ernest Hemingway — with a love of words and language, weaving grand and funny tales and traveling the high seas. He grew up in a large, raucous family in New Britain, Conn., with six brothers and a sister, where he was the chief instigator of mischief and mayhem. He graduated from St. omas Aquinas High School and Hobart and William Smith College, where he studied creative writing and played lacrosse. He received his MFA from the prestigious Creative Writing Program at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. His writing focused on poetry and playwriting.

Jeff’s professional life reflected the diversity of his life’s interests. is included working in the Social Affairs Office of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., editing a medical magazine, becoming an arborist in Vermont and taking to the high seas as a member of the Merchant Marines. He loved the solitude and the vastness of life at sea, where his convoy visited many exotic places but also assisted during times of conflict. Jeff especially loved Diego Garcia, a military atoll that is part of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.

His passion for the natural world around him was equaled only by a fervent desire to engage directly with it. ere was always another cross-country bicycle trip planned, a bird count for the Audubon Society or a body of water

OBITUARIES, VOWS, CELEBRATIONS

to swim. As a lifeguard in Charleston, S.C., he was invaluable to the community with his experience in water rescue. In retirement, Jeff became an avid teacher of the constellations at nearby observatories and aided in the care of his aging mother. His final years were spent close to the ocean he loved, in Westerly, R.I. Jeff is predeceased by his beloved son, William Cameron Hagedorn, of Charlotte, Vt., and his parents, Dr. Maxwell and Marie Hagedorn, of Connecticut. Remaining to grieve his loss are his immediate family: Mark and Ann Hagedorn of Clinton, Conn.; Joel and Cate Hagedorn of Hollywood, Fla.; James and Ana Hagedorn of Bend, Ore.; Mary Hagedorn and Ned Busch of Kaneohe, Hawaii; Keith Hagedorn of Maggie Valley, N.C.; Steve Hagedorn of Delray Beach, Fla.; and Glenn and Rebecca Hagedorn of Apex, N.C.; along with 10 nieces and nephews and four grandnieces and -nephews.

A service is planned for springtime 2023 at St. John’s Church in Old Saybrook, Conn., followed by an oceanside celebration.

Should anyone wish to honor Jeff’s life with a gift, please consider the Mt. Philo Forever Fund (vermontparksforever.org/ mt-philo-fund), created by Jeff and his family to honor his son, Will.

Linda Haar Douglas

JANUARY 28, 1933DECEMBER 22, 2022 RICHMOND, VT.

Linda Douglas died peacefully on December 22, 2022, surrounded by her family, as she had wished. She had been diagnosed with lymphoma on December 1 and chose to receive hospice care in her room at the Sterling House in Richmond, Vt. She expressed deep gratitude for a life that felt complete and faced the end without regret. She was one month from her 90th birthday.

Linda, née Henny Haar, was a Holocaust survivor. Born Jewish in Berlin, two days before Hitler became chancellor, Henny’s childhood was framed by the dominance of the Nazi party and the Second World War. With the courageous guidance of her Lithuanian mother, Rosa, and against all odds, she managed to hide until the Allied forces liberated Berlin in 1945.

Michelle Sa ran

JUNE 17, 1957JANUARY 1, 2023 NEWBURY, VT.

Michelle C. Saffran passed away on January 1, 2023, at age 65. Michelle was very much loved and will be missed by her many friends and family for her loving heart, gentleness, love of fun and adventure, quirky sense of humor, and respect and caring for others.

Michelle was born in Detroit, Mich., and raised in Southfield, Mich. She was a graduate of Oakland University, where she majored in psychology. After moving to Vermont, she was the coordinator of

Together, they evaded the SS until they were captured, then escaped from a labor camp ahead of the arrival of the trains to the death

camps. They found refuge with a network of contacts, Rosa worked the black market at night, and they withstood the devastating bombings of the city. Forced to seek sanctuary in Czechoslovakia with fake papers, Henny’s father, Sigmund Haar, was eventually captured and executed.

After the war, Henny and her mother lived in Switzerland with one of the families that had protected them, until they gained passage to America in 1947.

New York City became her home and the city that she loved. Henny changed her name to Linda. She reveled in the arts and culture that New York had to offer and frequented the theater, opera, jazz clubs and museums. Literature was her great comfort; she was an avid reader until the end. In 1966, she married the artist Stephen Douglas and moved to Yorktown Heights in Westchester, N.Y. After their divorce, Linda relocated to Great Neck, Long Island, with her three children. She

wrote poetry as a means of expressing her pains and joys, and, in the 1990s, she created a small, locally successful jewelry business, Linda’s Treasures.

In 1997, she came to live in Williston, Vt., to be close to her daughter, Stephanie, who was beginning her own family, and her son Jordan. Linda enjoyed the natural beauty of Vermont and developed a wonderful community of friends. Mainly an introvert, she was shy about her dimensional history yet held an enduring appreciation for all of life’s gifts.

Linda was predeceased by her son Gavin in 2017 and is survived by her other children, the Realtor Stephanie Douglas and photographer Jordan Douglas, as well as her grandchildren, Jasmine, Skye, Isla and Iona, to whom she was their beloved “Nima.”

Linda Douglas was buried on December 26 with a humble ceremony at the Ahavath Gerim Cemetery in South Burlington, next to her remarkable mother, who died in 2001.

lifelong love of visual arts, making unique, stunning, spiritual and meaningful photographic images.

While in Minnesota, Michelle met her husband, Jay, and they both eventually moved back to Vermont, living first in Underhill and later moving to Moretown before settling in Newbury.

Michelle returned to school and achieved a master’s of visual arts degree from Lesley University in Boston in 2013.

Grants from the Vermont Arts Council and National Endowment for the Arts and a Vermont Community Foundation Grant. Her work is included in private and public collections across the United States, Mexico and Australia.

Survivors include her husband, Jay; brother, Peter Colling; nephew, Jacob Bourgeois; aunt Barbara Wolfe; aunt and uncle Joyce and Tommy Snyder; and her dogs, Betsy and Jasper.

the Franklin County Citizen Advocacy Program. Michelle also worked as a victim advocate for the Vermont Attorney General’s Office.

Michelle received a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Minnesota College of Art and Design and pursued her

Her art practice included the creation of photographybased collage, found object, sculptural, treated print, art books and more. She also taught art and photography at the Community College of Vermont. She was a recipient of the Artist Creation Grant and Artist Development

She was predeceased by her sister, Julie; grandmother Gertrude Snyder; mother, Marianne; and father, Edward. A celebration of Michelle’s life will be held at an upcoming date to be announced. Please call Jay at 802-999-6473 for information.

Mary Jane Corley Rozendaal

JANUARY 26, 1937JANUARY 11, 2023

SOUTH BURLINGTON, VT.

On a cold winter day in January 1937, an angel arrived on Earth. Mary Jane was a gift to all who knew her, and her life was a lesson to us all on how we should aim to live. Every day of her life, MJ woke thinking of others, what she could do for them and how she could make someone else’s day better.

Mary Jane was born in Manchester, N.H., to Eleanora and Edward Corley; however, South Burlington, Vt., was her true home. The Corleys bought a house on 80 Kirby Road, and that soon became the family home. Not long after Mary Jane’s arrival came her brother, Dick, sister Anne and sister Barb. Baby Michelle and Michael arrived a few years later.

Sadly, when MJ was only 20, her mother passed away, and she was left in charge of the family. Mary Jane loved her family and never minded

Richard Jenney

JULY 24, 1927JANUARY 8, 2023 CALAIS, VT.

Richard H. Jenney, 95, of Calais, Vt., died on January 8, 2023, at Central Vermont Medical Center, after a brief illness. He was surrounded at his bedside by loving family members: his wife, Judy; daughter, Karen; brother, Peter, and his wife, Michelle; and niece Becky.

Born in Cambridge, Mass., on July 24, 1927, Dick was the son of Clementina Hartshorne and Richard Jenney, whose career as an engineer brought him to Argentina, where Dick received his early education. Upon returning to the United States, Dick’s family settled in Haverford, Pa., and Dick was educated at the Haverford Prep School.

He is a veteran of World

a bit that her role would be to care for her father and help raise her siblings.

Mary Jane went to Cathedral High School and then attended Champlain College’s medical secretarial program. After graduating, she accepted a position with dermatologist Dr. Daly as medical administrator, a job that she loved for many years.

Throughout this time, Mary Jane was a friend, sister, godmother and aunt to many. She made friends everywhere she went and constantly offered to watch children, help with a project or run an errand. She lived to be helpful, and it brought her so much

joy and satisfaction when she was able to be.

Dr. Daly retired, and MJ found a new role working for her brother, Dick, and his partner, Jan Rozendaal, who were running a restaurant and needed a good administrator. Mary Jane happily joined the team. Only a year or so after being in that position, Jan’s wife perished in a fire, which broke Mary Jane’s heart. Her compassion and sympathy eventually caught his eye — then his heart — and the two fell in love and were married at their home at the Malletts Bay Club on July 1, 1972. The two, together with Jan’s young son, Eric, became a family. Within a few years, Steven and Kara were added and the family was complete.

Jan and Mary Jane decided to move into town and bought the house on Spear Street, which became Mary Jane’s home for the rest of her life. She loved that house and entertained tirelessly — Cornish game hens with ribbons, a good pot roast or her famous ribs were common fare. Mary Jane was a devoted mother to her three children and never missed an assembly, sporting

event or concert. She loved entertaining the children’s friends, and the Rozendaal house was always a welcome hub for anyone who wanted to stop by. When you did visit, you were sure to be greeted by MJ, her hair fluffed and soft silver rose lipstick shimmering on her beautiful smile. You’d be offered a drink and food before you could even say hello.

Mary Jane’s greatest role, however, was that of wife. She was a devoted wife to Jan, whom she adored so very much. They spent 50 wonderful years together, and for each day she was able to be, she centered her day around Jan’s needs and happiness. This brought her true joy, as she loved him so dearly.

The couple would travel together to such places as Hawaii, Alaska, Utah, Florida, Switzerland and Norway.

Summers were spent at the camp on Malletts Bay and winters in Stowe or, later, Lowell. Jan enjoyed things like skiing, sailing and snowmobiling, so Mary Jane, ever the good sport, pretended to, as well. In her downtime, MJ wrote notes to all of you reading this. She acknowledged

achievements big and small and made everyone feel important and noticed. She actively paid attention to other people and let them know it. She was relentlessly generous, sending boxes of books to children, each with loving words etched in her perfect cursive on the inside cover. Treasures.

Mary Jane was a woman of great faith, and St. John Vianney parish was an integral part of her life. She bonded with many through her faith and love for her Lord. Mary Jane also loved caring for others and volunteered weekly for over 20 years in the oncology department at the University of Vermont Medical Center. She also volunteered and gave blood religiously at the American Red Cross.

Mary Jane is survived by her beloved husband, Jan, and their dog, Chip; son Steven and his wife, Elise; daughter, Kara, and daughter-in-law, Keenann; and grandchildren, Louissa and Hans (Eric), JP and Noa (Steven), and Katherine, Lily and Wyatt (Kara). She is predeceased by her son Eric, whom we miss so very much.

Mary Jane’s family was

extensive, but each member was a treasure to her: brothers Dick (Cheryl) and Mike (Kim); sister Barb (Butch); late sister, Anne; and many nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews — all of whom heard from Aunt MJ on every occasion.

Mary Jane was a mother to far more children than just her own, most notably Mary Jo, Michelle, Camie, Shelby, Carolina and Nora. She had seven godchildren that she also thought of as her charges.

Mary Jane will be welcomed into heaven by her parents and sister Michelle, as well as sister Anne and son Eric.

Mary Jane taught all who knew her how to care for others and to put others first. She made the world better, and she challenges each of us to do so, as well. Truly, the world needs more Mary Janes.

Visiting hours will be held at Corbin and Palmer Funeral Home in Essex from 2 to 4 p.m. on Thursday, January 19, 2023, and a Catholic mass will be held at St. John Vianney at 1 p.m. on Friday, January 20, 2023. Arrangements are made by Corbin and Palmer.

psychologist at California School of the Arts in Valencia, Calif., where he later became dean of students. His love of the arts made him well suited to serve students, faculty and staff.

War II, having served in the U.S. Navy in the Philippines, and after the war, he was educated at Swarthmore College. He continued his education at the University of Chicago and received a PhD in psychology at Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Much of his career centered on academia, initially as a

Upon retirement, Dick and Judy relocated to Vermont when Judy joined the faculty of Goddard College in Plainfield, Vt. They bought a house in Calais and quickly developed a love for their new surroundings and formed many close friendships with neighbors. Dick put his psychological training to good use as a member of the Vermont Reparative Justice Board, a role that he considered some of his most meaningful work.

Dick was a key member of the Green Mountain Film Festival, started by Rick Winston and Andrea Serota, and as operations manager,

Dick made insightful suggestions for the screening committee about how to improve the festival each year. Rick Winston saw Dick’s participation “as a continuation of his heartfelt feeling of community in his post-retirement years. He loved participating in our post-GMFF dinners and retreats that took place not only in Montpelier but Lake Placid and Montréal.”

As an active member of the Unitarian Church of Montpelier, Dick was one of the founding members of the Montpelier-area Seasoned Souls, a discussion group initiated by the Rev. Joan JavierDuval that was modeled on a similar group out of Augusta, Maine. Oriented around spiritual and spirited discussions about aging, the group drew great interest from church members, attracting 30 people to their initial

meeting (so that they broke into three smaller groups) and expanding to five groups that continue to meet. This social and spiritual support network was critical in carrying Dick, his wife, Judy Harden, and others through the isolation of the pandemic and brought laughter to Dick’s hospital room in his final days.

Dick’s warmth, his wit and engaging conversation brought him many sustaining friendships in his neighborhood and throughout the larger community. He was especially proud of his role as “Mr. August“ in the Men of Maple Corner calendar, which received nationwide TV coverage in September 2001, when it was published to raise funds for the Calais Community Center.

Dick is survived by his loving wife, Judy Harden; daughter, Karen Jenney Gaukel, of Carlsbad, Calif.; sons

David Jenney of Vassalboro, Maine, and Thomas Jenney and his wife, Helen, of Poway, Calif.; brother, Peter Borie Jenney, and his wife, Michelle, of Boston; sister, Betsy Jenney Basch, and her husband, Martin, of Gloucester, Mass.; niece Becky Basch of Williamsburg, Mass.; grandson, Nicholas Jenney; granddaughter, Allison Jenney, and her husband, Garrett Galstaun, and greatgrandson, Wyatt, of Orange, Calif.; stepson, Kris Knowles, of Lawrence, Kan.; and several other nieces and nephews.

Dick is predeceased by his former wife, Jose, the mother of his children.

Dick was interred in a small, green burial ceremony at the Robinson Cemetery in Calais on January 10. A celebration of life will be scheduled for distant family and the larger community at a later date.

BY JEN ROSE SMITH

Standing in a sweltering sauna near Montréal on a recent morning, Dominique Evens whirled a towel through the air, snapping the terry cloth to the piped-in sounds of sitar jazz.

Evens, a Montréaler who has a black goatee and an easy smile, was guiding an aufguss session at Förena Cité Thermale, a sprawling spa complex that opened in early 2020 in the city’s suburb of Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville. Aufguss is a ritual originating in Germany that enlivens the usual sit-and-sweat sauna experience with an artful combination of music, air movement, lights and scent.

“The aufgussmeister is the master of the sauna, so he will decide how to distract you for 15 minutes in the sauna,” said Evens, who learned the basics by immersing himself in aufguss videos on YouTube. He executes the practice with more flair than the words “German towel ritual” might suggest. Each session is designed to help spa visitors withstand a brief period of extra-hot sauna conditions,

he explained, to maximize the potential health benefits.

Förena is the most recent addition to Montréal’s already impressive collection of hydrothermal spas, often called Nordic spas for their links to that region’s bathing traditions. All combine heating and cool-

past several years have seen the spas proliferate from British Columbia to Newfoundland.

“Canada, as a country, tends to be less resistant to European influences than the United States,” said Don Genders, head of the Hydrothermal Initiative at the Global

waterfront. Genders’ company, Design for Leisure, is consulting with Urban Moonshine founder Jovial King, whose Nordic-inspired Silt Botanica bathhouse is scheduled to open on Burlington’s Pine Street in spring 2025.

Aficionados argue that these traditional bathing establishments are a grounded alternative to the facials and fanciness of American spas. In places such as Finland, Norway and Sweden, regular trips to the sauna are seen as part of routine wellness. Visiting is a chance to relax and catch up on gossip.

ing elements, such as saunas, steam rooms and cold plunges, laid out in a prescribed “thermal cycle.” Hot, cold, relax: Research points to resulting benefits for mental health, cardiovascular function and pain management.

A 21st-century Canadian passion for hydrothermal bathing began in Québec and remains most vibrant there, but the

Wellness Institute, by way of explaining Canada’s comparatively early adoption. Luckily, Montréal’s spas are only a day trip away. And now, the hydrothermal vogue is finally making its way across the international border. Vermont-based Savu — the name means “smoke” in Finnish — has private saunas available hourly near Smugglers’ Notch and the Burlington

“It’s going to take some time for us to kind of shift culturally that much, but I think we have a really ripe moment to do so,” King said. “People are reaching for self-care. They’re reaching for immersive experiences.”

From thermal pools to saunas, the traditions that spas draw upon are both widespread and ancient.

“Sweat bathing is common throughout the globe — like fermenting of the grape or baking bread, it’s just one of those things

PHOTOS COURTESY OF FÖRENA CITÉ THERMALE

we have found in most cultures,” said Mikkel Aaland, the Norwegian American author of Sweat, a now-classic 1978 book on bathing culture.

While interest in traditional bathing has wavered in the face of modernity and modern plumbing, it is returning. When Aaland researched the book in the 1970s on trips to Turkey, Mexico and Scandinavia, he often discovered that the practice had become less common. On more recent travels for his upcoming documentary series “Perfect Sweat,” in which he revisited some of the same destinations, Aaland found sweat-bathing traditions resurgent. It’s a relaxation revival. Or, as Aaland prefers, a remembering.

“I like that word, remembering, because this is nothing new for some of these cultures,” he said. “The foundation is there. The basics of their forms of sweat baths have been there for thousands of years.”

Those foundations include the Islamic hammam, steamy public baths that drew inspiration from earlier Roman thermae. Māori people of Aotearoa-New Zealand have long used geothermal baths for medicinal purposes. And in ancient Mexico and Central America, steamy temazcal saunas were prized for health, spiritual renewal and hygiene.

But it is in Nordic countries, particularly Finland, that sauna bathing has remained central to modern life, and that influence predominates at Montréal’s hydrothermal spas.

With a Viking ship for its logo, Scandinave Spa Vieux-Montréal offers urban relaxation in a hushed facility a few blocks from the historic waterfront. Housed in a converted ferry bobbing in the St. Lawrence River, Bota Bota Spa-Sur-L’eau might not call itself Nordic, but its modern design and pale woods riff unmistakably on Scandi-chic.

On Montréal’s riverine Nuns’ Island, Strøm Spa Nordique feels like a portal into some boreal woodland. It has a Finnish barrel sauna, a hygge relaxation room and a cold Nordic bath with a sign reading “restez calme.” Presumably this is because a natural reaction to going from sauna to 60-degree water is not, in fact, to stay calm, but to wave one’s arms and shriek — embarrassing, given the overall aesthetic of design-forward minimalism.

Not all hydrothermal spas are quite so ascetic, or so focused on Nordic traditions. In Montréal’s northerly suburb of Rosemère, Spa Le Finlandais brings a more playful spirit. Visiting in early January, I joined a wine-drinking crowd, many dressed in Canadiens hats and colorful BYO bathrobes. There were stations to rub yourself with salt and stations to rub yourself with snow. Chatting groups drifted

Read about Vermont’s home sauna trend in “Heat Wave,” part of Nest, inside this issue.

NORDIC KNOW-HOW

PLAN IT OUT. Spas close to walk-ins when they reach capacity, so it’s worth booking in advance, especially when visiting at popular times. (A few only accept bookings until 48 hours before your visit.) Weekdays are less crowded and generally cheaper — some spas offer weekday deals on treatments such as massage, as well.

TAKE A TOQUE. Frigid weather nips exposed skin even if you’re neck-deep in a hot tub, so savvy Québécois spa-goers bring a winter hat to wear outdoors on the coldest days. You’ll want to pack sandals, plus a bathing suit to wear in the saunas and pools, since suits are required for all spa-goers.

DON’T LOSE THE ROBE. Spas that offer robes charge for replacements. Hold on to your spa-provided robe as you move between thermal stations, and try not to saturate it. Nothing dampens a post-spa relaxation session like wrapping up in sodden terry cloth.

DRINK UP. Steer clear of booze, though, because alcohol and saunas don’t play well together. To replace all the sweat you’re losing, experts recommend drinking two to four glasses of water after each sauna session. Some suggest rehydrating with fluids that contain sodium and simple sugars, such as a sports drink.

between the elaborate Turkish bath, the Japanese sauna and the orb-like “Helsinki bubbles” floating in an outdoor hot pool. Chartreuse light illuminated craggy rocks with theme park vibes.

Förena also has global ambitions, if more muted décor. Evens, the aufgussmeister, told me of coming expansions based on Middle Eastern and Asian traditions, adding to the spa’s current German, Icelandic and Russian offerings. But such distinctions blur amid steam and heat. The German-inspired aufguss session I attended was held in the spa’s Russian banya.

Evens made the space his own. He moved to a very un-Slavic soundtrack of hip-hop and jazz while directing puffs of hot air at each of us in turn. He dashed sage-scented water onto hot stones to drive the temperature higher. Several redfaced participants slid down to the slightly cooler bottom benches. An hourglass on the wall marked time. Evens handed out tiny cups of sunny-tasting guava juice to sustain us.

And then our time ran out. Evens guided us, a row of sweaty ducklings, toward a nearby ice-cold plunge bath. When it came to reaping the full benefits of aufguss, he admonished, cooling off was critical.

“Allez-y, allez-y!” Evens cried, leading the way into the pool. “In the water! You can do it!”

FÖRENA CITÉ THERMALE

Relaxation and activities, with no Montréal city driving required

Blue-tinged hot pools steam outside of Förena Cité Thermale, studded with craggy black boulders inspired by Iceland’s volcanic landscape, while saunas nod to German and Russian bathing traditions. What sets this Saint-Bruno spa apart, however, are the activities included in the price of entry.

Daily schedules suggest a spa-themed adult summer camp. A visitor might follow an aufguss session with a 30-minute yoga class and an ASMR sensory meditation at the German sauna, then return to the banya for some gentle, guided stretching.

Quiet talking is allowed in most areas, but others, including a dorm-like relaxation room and a wood-heated geodesic dome overlooking nearby fields, are silent.

And if the idea of “spa food” evokes minuscule plates of macrobiotic veggies, think again. The on-site restaurant is more indulgent than abstemious, with an impressive wine list and specialties, such as German sausage and brioche-like Russian vatrushka, from the regions whose bathing traditions are represented here.

250 Rang des Vingt-Cinq Est, Saint-Brunode-Montarville; forena.ca; Can$80 for fullday passes; ages 16 and up

A hot pool inspired by Iceland’s volcanic landscape at Förena Cité Thermale

SCANDINAVE SPA VIEUX-MONTRÉAL

Steamy calm in the heart of Old Montréal

Down the street from Montréal’s historic Notre-Dame Basilica, Scandinave Spa is an enclave amid the Old Port’s clattering cobblestones and tourist shops. Hot elements include a eucalyptus steam bath, a Finnish dry sauna, a hot bath and a thermal waterfall; the plunge pool and showers are a bracing cooldown.

This is perhaps the quietest Montréal spa, and most guests adhere to the strict silence policy. Screens including e-readers are banned, so bring a book to enjoy in the relaxation area filled with heated slate benches, giant cushions, daybeds and cocoon-like hanging chairs.

Unlike many other Montréal Nordic spas, this is an indoor-only location with a compact footprint, and most visitors will be content to leave after a couple of hours. But if you’re exploring the city on a frigid winter day — gliding around, perhaps, on the nearby Old Port ice skating rink — Scandinave Spa is a blissful way to get warm.

Scandinave has additional locations in Whistler, Mont-Tremblant and Blue Mountain, and it teams up with neighboring hotel Le St. Sulpice to offer overnight deals.

71 rue de la Commune Ouest, Montréal; scandinave.com/vieux-montreal; prices vary by time, day and season, ranging from Can$77 to $95 for all-day access and $60 to $80 for walk-ins; ages 16 and 17 are allowed when accompanied by an adult

BOTA BOTA SPA-SUR-L’EAU

Modernist spa-chic in a converted ferry boat

Bobbing gently just off the Old Port of Montréal, this beloved floating spa is walking distance from the city’s downtown and historic center. The Japanese name is a watery onomatopoeia meaning “drip-drip.”

A geometric, matte-black exterior signals the spa’s contemporary style, including saunas whose floor-to-ceiling glass walls open to the city skyline and nearby architectural landmark Habitat 67. Winter months lend the view some extra drama by turning the surrounding harbor to ice — the luckiest visitors might even spot an ice canoe team racing past. Silence is required on board, where offerings include saunas, a steam bath,

hot tubs, a cold plunge and spaces to relax. Quiet conversation is permitted in the adjacent garden, which has a hot-andcold water circuit of its own.

Book in advance to dine at the onboard restaurant La Traversée, whose Provençal chef, Thomas Engasser, serves refined meals using ingredients sourced from Québécois farms. Despite caps on visitors, the busiest days at this popular spa can feel overcrowded, making this an especially worthwhile destination during the quieter midweek.

Located on the waterfront between rue McGill and rue de la Commune Ouest, Montréal; botabota.ca; prices vary with time, day and season, ranging from Can$60 to $85 for two- or three-hour visits; adults only, although youths 12 to 17 are welcomed

A relaxation area at Scandinave Spa Vieux-Montréal

A thermal waterfall at Scandinave Spa Vieux-Montréal

Bota Bota Spa-Sur-L’Eau, housed in a converted ferry on the St. Lawrence River

STRØM SPA NORDIQUE NUNS’ ISLAND

Strøm Spa Nordique, which also has locations in Québec City, Sherbrook and Mont-Saint-Hilaire, channels Nordic bathing and style: clean lines, muted colors, plenty of steam.

Picture windows in the saunas frame a startlingly sylvan view. Though wrapped in residential streets, the Nuns’ Island facility looks onto deciduous forest and the man-made Lac des Battures, a favored hangout for migratory birds including least bitterns and peregrine falcons.

Hot waterfalls tumble into the outdoor baths, and the saunas come in dry, aromatic, steamy and barrel varieties. Between outdoor fireplaces and relaxation yurts, this is a silent spa that invites all-day lounging sustained by a stop at the on-site restaurant, Nord. (You can talk at the restaurant.) Its Nordic-inspired cuisine ranges from trout gravlax to open-face mushroom smørrebrød sandwiches to the leek-rich fish soup known as fiskesuppe.

1001 boulevard de la Forêt, Verdun; stromspa.com; Can$59 to $79 for reserved spa access; $44 for walk-ins outside of high season, but there’s often a waiting list; ages 16 and up

SPA LE FINLANDAIS

Cheerful global-bathing kitsch and a convivial atmosphere

Posters in this sprawling spa complex invite visitors to enjoy their apéros en maillot de bain — cocktail hour in a bathing suit — signaling the spirit that prevails here. Forget Scandi minimalism: This is more about hot tub mingling over plastic stem glasses of chardonnay.

While the name hat-tips Finland, the spa is like a bathing-themed model United Nations located midstream in the Thousand Islands river. A visitor might start in the Maya temazcal or the Japanese sauna, then take a frigid Nordic shower in preparation for a steamy session in the Islamic hammam.

That hammam is within the 1001 Nights Pavilion, which also includes a Moroccan lounge, a Turkish bath, an exfoliation room and an Egyptian sauna. Arabesques abound. Edward Said comes to mind, but

only briefly, because the next stop is a giant barrel sauna emblazoned with runic writing and a Viking ship.

The overall effect is deliciously unserious fun. An on-site hotel means you can soak until tender as overnight brisket and ooze straight to bed, then return for a morning session before checkout time.

124-125 boulevard Labelle, Rosemère; spalefinlandais.com; Can$100 to $120 for full-day spa access; $50 to $60 for half-day access; $10 towel and robe rental, so many guests BYO; hotel rooms start at $159, including breakfast; $65 for spa access with hotel booking; ages 16 and up

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jen Rose Smith is a writer in Richmond. Her work has been published by the Washington Post, National Geographic, the BBC and CNN. She is the author of six travel guidebooks to Vermont and New England, including the award-winning New England Road Trip

Woodsy tranquility minutes from downtown

Spa Le Finlandais’ Himalayan Lounge, with walls made of color-changing blocks of pink Himalayan salt

Spa Le Finlandais from above

A barrel sauna at Strøm Spa Nordique Nuns’ Island

Stepping Up

PE educator Robyn Newton coaches fitness and

BY SALLY POLLAK • sally@sevendaysvt.com

Robyn Newton starts her day as the crossing guard at Vergennes Union Elementary School, encouraging students to walk and helping them arrive safely. By the time she assumes her afterschool post in the same gig, she’s clocked more than 20,000 steps on her Fitbit and taught students about ball control, fitness, focus and vowel sounds.

A physical education teacher, Newton begins her term as Vermont Teacher of the Year this month. The award has been presented annually by the state Agency of Education since 1964. During her tenure, Newton will serve as an advocate for physical education.

“She’s a teacher who believes that learning can take place anywhere — in the classroom, in this gym, on the playing field and out in the community,” Education Secretary Dan French said during a Vergennes Elementary assembly in September.

While providing instruction in what Newton hopes will become a lifelong interest in and enjoyment of physical activity, she also gives kids a chance to play and run around.

“She teaches us games that we don’t know about, but we get better each time,” fourth grader Oliver Tembreull said. “She’s just a fun teacher.”

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fun

as Vermont’s Teacher of the Year

Newton, 49, is in her 28th year of teaching physical education at Vergennes Elementary, a kindergarten through sixthgrade school with about 300 students. She started the job after graduating from the University of Vermont as a 22-year-old education major and athlete who played first base on the UVM softball team.

Though she was certified to teach PE to students from kindergarten through high school, “I knew I wanted to stay with the little kids,” Newton said. “I felt like it was the best age to influence kids to be active and make it fun. They love you, and they love coming to class.” She also worked with older students for 18 years as the softball coach at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester.

Newton grew up in Fairlee as the oldest of three siblings and spent her free time running around outside, hiking in the woods, biking and swimming in Lake Morey. She was a three-sport athlete at Oxbow High School in Bradford, where she ran cross-country in the fall to stay in shape and played basketball in the winter under late, legendary coach Mona Garone, an inductee in the Vermont Sports Hall of Fame, and softball in the spring. She was a pitcher and a first basewoman, a selfdescribed “very competitive” athlete

and a “little bit of a hothead.” She credits her Oxbow softball coach, Cindy Day, with teaching her to stay focused and master the mental side of the game.

In her own teaching, Newton begins class with a quick warm-up that encompasses three key areas: cardio, muscle strength and flexibility. She ends by checking in with each student as they assess themselves on a scale of 1 to 3, a rating in which effort and cooperation rank above skill. “They usually have it right on the money,” she said. “It gives them ownership and pride in the class.”

Physical education, Newton believes, should motivate children and build their confidence, as well as bring them joy and nurture friendships and social engagement. She makes a point of exposing kids to a variety of sports, including those they can play on their own: golf, swimming, Rollerblading and tennis.

“With all of the sports I’m going to teach you,” she tells her students, “I want you to learn them and find one that you love.”

Newton prefers to teach outdoors, and that’s mostly where she holds her classes. But due to an early January thaw, the ice rink behind the school was off-limits for skating, and a snowless spell ruled out snowshoeing and cross-country skiing. These are activities Newton teaches in the winter, using gear purchased as part of a nearly $1 million federal grant she won for her school district in 2008. Springtime brings (chilly) swim lessons in the outdoor town pool near the school.

“I’d rather be outside all the time,” Newton said. “Just because it’s cold, [it] doesn’t mean we don’t move,” she tells kids. “We gotta be active.”

But last week, still snowless, phys ed was held in the gym, which doubles as the lunchroom. A banner on the wall announces Newton’s Teacher of the Year title. A sign by the door describes expectations and guidelines under the acronym ROARS: respect, ownership, attitude, responsibility, safety.

On the job, Newton looks confident and collected in athletic pants, a school jersey and sneakers. She’s tall and enthusiastic, and her voice can be heard over 18 bouncing basketballs and 36 sneakers running a dribble drill. But Newton can make her point without talking, modeling a perfect basketball shot: Her eyes are fixed on the basket, she squares up before she shoots, and her followthrough is textbook.

Newton also demonstrates skills she didn’t use as a high school state basketball champion in 1991 or a runner-up that year in softball. She sits on the floor to show kindergartners how to stack a set of plastic cups in descending numerical order.

ROBYN NEWTON

PHOTOS: CALEB KENNA

Tales From the Gym

Seven Days writers remember their own PE classes

BY SEVEN DAYS STAFF

Certain educators are more unforgettable than others. Gym teachers seem to hold a special spot in the memories — or nightmares — of Seven Days writers. Like with that time capsule your grade-school class buried behind the football field, we dug deep to recount formative moments from PE classes of the past. Even the cringiest recollections contain a life lesson of some sort. As old-school coaches were prone to saying: No pain, no gain!

GYM RAT

I won’t write his name. I won’t say it, either. As in those Candyman would make him real, conjure him, summon him. No way do I want to relive that terror at Seaman Neck Elementary School in Seaford, N.Y.

movies, it

The class schedule listed it as gym or phys ed, but I knew it as living hell. Why? Because in fifth grade there was The Rope, a vertical torture rack made of twisted hemp that we were supposed to climb. Our gym “teacher” could have taught the Marquis something about sadism. With a face like a clenched fist and a whistle on a lanyard around his bull neck, Mr. — nope, won’t say it — drove us to climb the 20-foot-long vine and, when we failed, to try again, our hands red and blistered with splinters of fiber.

No excuse, no doctor’s note freed you of the knotted nightmare. My attempts were futile until a classmate took pity and showed me that feet were the key to aiding an ascent. I yearned to wipe the smirk off my tormentor’s face. One day I finally scaled the rope, tapping the ceiling, sweat pouring into my eyes — yet still I spied a wicked grin on Rasputin’s face. He knew something I was soon to learn.

I had no idea how to get down.

Tales From the Gym

ON TARGET

As a teachers’ kid in a small town, I grew up knowing most of my eventual educators out of school first. My ninth-grade PE teacher, Julie Crosier, was a good friend of my mom’s and had been my summertime swim instructor for years before I reached high school.

From her patient attempts to teach me the butterfly, Mrs. Crosier knew that I was far from coordinated. Unsurprisingly, PE was not my best subject. I could barely walk from the locker room to the gym without tripping or dropping something, let alone muster the hand-eye skills needed for badminton or basketball.

For the archery unit, the class headed to the back of the school parking lot — our target range for the week. Mrs. Crosier gave a lively demo and safety instruc tions, then casually stepped to the side of the targets while my classmates fired arrows across the lot one by one.

When it was my turn, she winked and quickly walked away from the targets to stand behind me, not so subtly shielded by a parked car.

I aimed for the bull’s-eye, but the arrow only made it halfway. It bounced in the dirt and landed within a foot of where she’d been standing. Smart move.

ARMS AND THE MAN

I think I had a small crush on Mr. Wall, my gym teacher throughout most of grade school in Bethesda, Md. It might have been because he was the only male in sight at Carderock Springs Elementary. Or because he taught me to love kickball, soccer and softball. Small but ripped, he didn’t say much — a man of mystery. And sometimes, in dodgeball, I wondered if he was actually trying

My admiration increased considerably after he saved me from a poten tial traumatic brain injury. Or, rather, his arm did. One minute I was doing flips in the air on the tram poline; the next, I was coming down, wrong side up, toward the tangle of springs and metal that encircles it. The back of my head hit something hard, but it wasn’t the frame from which the trampoline was suspended; it was Mr. Wall’s muscled forearm protecting me from the unforgiving surface. He’d positioned it there, at the last minute, to soften the impact.

Once a year, he coached us through the muchanticipated Presidential Physical Fitness Test. Nobody made me want to run faster or jump higher.

PAULA ROUTLY

AMERICAN HUSTLE

A few months shy of my 13th birthday, my family moved 5,300 miles from London to Palo Alto, Calif. As if leaping home continents in my tween years was not disruptive enough, I was yanked out of a very proper private girls’ school and thrown into public junior high.

It was 1977. Jimmy Carter was the newly inaugurated president, and Star Wars was about to take the world by storm. My classmates teased me mercilessly about my accent and never tired of provoking me into asking for an eraser (a “rubber” in British English). Theo retically, we spoke the same language, but some days it felt like I’d moved to Mars.

Every subject was taught differently — even physical education. In London, my classmates and I had donned short turquoise pleated skirts and white collared shirts to play lacrosse and netball (think basketball without drib bling). In California, we changed into shorts and T-shirts and danced

I don’t remember our gym teacher, specifically, but I clearly recall my surprise that American gym class involved learning the steps of a popular dance during which we were encouraged to shout-whisper, “Do the hustle!”

The gym was also the site of my first school dance, where we put our physical education lessons to good use

doing the hustle and the bump. Or some of us did. My close friend from that era recently reminded me that I chose a different kind of workout during the event.

“I remember you continuously running circles around the gym,” she wrote by email. “You said if you kept moving, then no boy would be able to ask

MELISSA PASANEN

ALL HAIL MR. LUCAS

Worthington Hooker School in New Haven, Conn. — an elementary school known as Hooker — had no basketball hoop, no jungle gym, no grass, no picnic table and no swings. But students who attended Hooker in the late 1960s and early ’70s had Mr. Lucas. That’s all we needed.

Mr. Lucas was our gym teacher. He was God to us kids, and to some of the teachers, too. I once saw a fourthgrade teacher genuflect when Mr. Lucas

Everything about Mr. Lucas was cool, from his Afro to his high-top black Converse All Stars, which we called, simply, Cons. He wore a gray zip-up sweatshirt and black pants with a black ribbon stripe down each side. He had a whistle around his neck, but he didn’t need to blow it. Mr. Lucas turned the asphalt schoolyard into kickball heaven, with a maple tree looming over second base. Kickball was the only game we played outside, and he pitched for both teams. Before he rolled that dimpled red kickball to the kid at the plate, Mr. Lucas offered words of encouragement — the same ones every time. I remember them more than half a century later: “Batter up, turn it loose.”

ILLUSTRATIONS: SARAH CRONIN

She folds her body in half to squeeze through a rectangular frame that’s an easy fit for the little kids. As if she’s a circus performer, not a PE teacher, Newton tosses colored scarves across her body from one hand to the other.

These activities are part of a kindergarten class, called Action Based Learning, that Newton teaches in collaboration with other educators at the school. The curriculum is based on research that indicates engaging in physical activity while learning academics can boost children’s comprehension of the material. In particular, certain physical skills — including ones that involve crossing

activities were “mind-blowing” to Bearor when she encountered them in her first years at Vergennes Elementary.

“The same kids that have difficulty with the motor skills are the same kids that are having trouble with academic skills in my classroom,” she said.

The work with kindergartners underscores the value of what Newton offers all students at the school.

“She’s a very dynamic person,” Bearor said. “She’s always striving to get the kids to be their best, and she does the same for us as a staff.”

Fourth grader Ansley Montgomery observed the benefits of PE class in relation to other subjects. When she and her classmates can “get our energy out,” she

the body’s midline, balancing and visual tracking — are fundamental in helping kids gain language proficiency, Newton and kindergarten teacher Beth Bearor said. The class also gives kids an opportunity to practice classroom work in a different environment.

Eight teachers and paraeducators work together in the Action Based Learning class, each overseeing a station that kindergartners visit in pairs. The adults observe and assess the students as they walk on upside-down disc cones; run to a spot in the gym and pair pictures with matching vowel sounds; and practice writing a letter of the alphabet standing up, as opposed to sitting down, on paper taped to a wall.

“It’s almost like an academic intervention that everybody gets, and we’re doing it in a fun way,” Bearor said.

The program helps identify students who need extra help and indicates what supports could be beneficial, she said. The assessments made from the physical

said, they’re calmer and better prepared for the next class. “It’s a good balance.”

As crossing guard, Newton finishes her day at Vergennes Elementary championing kids who walk and ride their bikes to school. On the first Wednesday of the month, the school participates in a program called Walk and Roll to School. The goal is to get as many kids as possible to walk or bike to school. For kids who live far away, the school bus lets them off a short distance from the building so they can walk a portion of their journey. About 80 percent of students get in on the fun, Newton estimated, and one fifth-grade class has achieved 100 percent participation.

It’s all part of Newton’s effort to encourage physical activity and its associated benefits, a message her Teacher of the Year honor could help promote.

“It’s pretty cool that I can stand out in that way,” Newton said. “The fact that I was chosen is pretty incredible to push my field and the importance of movement.” ➆

Robyn Newton teaching gym class

Applying Pressure

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy breathes new life into treating long COVID and other ailments

BY KEN PICARD • ken@sevendaysvt.com

Merin Perretta was initially skeptical of trying hyperbaric oxygen therapy to treat her lingering symptoms of COVID-19, which she contracted in October 2021. Her chiropractor suggested it might be beneficial, and a referring physician touted its many healing benefits. Still, the 46-year-old integrative counselor from Montpelier remembers thinking, This sounds too good to be true

But Perretta said one COVID-19 symptom in particular, an “obnoxious tickle” in her throat and lungs, irritated her for almost a year. After it flared up again in the summer, Perretta finally gave hyperbaric oxygen therapy, or HBOT, a try.

Three days a week, Perretta visited Hyperbaric Vermont, a nonprofit health care facility in Montpelier. There, she spent roughly an hour reclined in an enclosed plastic chamber roughly the length of a pool table, exposed to concentrated levels of oxygen under higher-thannormal atmospheric pressure.

Though it took several weeks before she noticed any improvement, Perretta eventually called the results “a total game changer in my life.” The annoying cough finally subsided, as did other, more serious complaints she’d lived with for years.

For two decades, Perretta suffered from posttreatment Lyme disease syndrome, commonly called “chronic Lyme.” Many of its symptoms — body aches, extreme fatigue, and cognitive impairment or “brain fog” — are similar to those experienced by patients with long COVID. An estimated 45 percent of patients who recover from COVID-19 experience symptoms that last four months or more, according to a study published in December in the medical journal the Lancet.

“Hyperbaric didn’t cure me,” Perretta cautioned, “but it supported my body in such a way that it’s been able to get on top of the COVID and the Lyme.”

Perretta is among an increasing number of Vermonters who are using HBOT to relieve their long COVID. Originally developed as a therapy for deep-sea divers experiencing decompression sickness, aka “the bends,” HBOT has become what one local provider called “the last stop” for patients with treatment-resistant ailments. Chief among them: long COVID and Lyme.

Many of Vermont’s medical professionals are either unaware of these uses of HBOT or are skeptical of its touted

benefits due to the dearth of U.S.-based studies on its effectiveness. But HBOT advocates point to mounting evidence from other countries showing it offers many patients significant and lasting relief.

People have used pressurized environments to treat maladies since the 1600s, when Anglo-Irish philosopher and physicist Robert Boyle first began experimenting with them. By the mid-1900s, military physicians were using hyperbaric chambers to treat divers sickened by gas embolisms or the bends. Currently, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration has approved the use of HBOT for 14 medical conditions, including carbon monoxide poisoning, radiation burns, crush injuries, skin graft complications, and nonhealing wounds and ulcers.

Treatment of neither long COVID nor chronic Lyme are on the FDA’s list of approved uses. Nevertheless, hyperbaric chambers, which were once available only in large hospitals and burn centers, have found their way into community outpatient clinics, where they’re commonly used to treat those and other ailments. The FDA considers HBOT “off label” — that

is, legal only with a doctor’s prescription — for treating multiple sclerosis, strokes, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and traumatic brain injuries.

In Vermont, Dr. Grace Johnstone has long championed the use of HBOT. The East Hardwick chiropractor is nationally certified in undersea and hyperbaric medicine and is the founder, president and medical director of Hyperbaric Vermont, which has offices in South Burlington and Montpelier. She has also trained independent practitioners in Middlebury, Brattleboro and West Lebanon, N.H., in the use of HBOT.

Johnstone first tried HBOT herself after contracting Lyme disease in July 2012, which led to meningitis and radiculoneuritis, an inflammation of the roots of the spinal nerves. These conditions left her incapacitated and unable to walk, read, drive or work for nearly a year.

But after Johnstone began using a hyperbaric chamber in April 2013, most of her symptoms subsided. As she told Seven Days in 2017, “For me, it was the beginning of getting my life back.”

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Since then, Johnstone’s mission has been to make HBOT available to any Vermonter who needs it, regardless of their ability to pay. Because no Vermont insurance companies will cover off-label uses of HBOT, she founded Hyperbaric Vermont as a way to make treatments more affordable for her patients. In a hospital setting, HBOT can cost thousands of dollars. Hyperbaric Vermont charges patients $62 to $65 per visit, depending on the number of visits; the nonprofit fundraises to cover the full expense of its hyperbaric services.

How does HBOT work? The combination of increased pressure and concentrated oxygen levels has potent physiological effects, Johnstone explained. HBOT acts as a natural antimicrobial and healing agent that helps normalize the body’s immune functions. Several studies have shown that HBOT has anti-inflammatory effects on muscles, tissues, joints and organs. In the brain, it can stimulate the growth of new nerves and blood vessels.

Traditional hyperbaric chambers, such as those found in hospitals, typically use 100 percent oxygen at 2.4 atmospheres. Normal

Grace Johnstone

room air is 21 percent oxygen, and normal pressure at sea level is 1 atmosphere.

By contrast, Hyperbaric Vermont’s HBOT chambers are set no higher than 1.3 atmospheres with an oxygen level between 93 and 97 percent. The lower pressure and oxygen level are just as effective therapeutically, Johnstone noted, and also minimize the risk of complications, such as lung and sinus damage, vision loss, inner ear problems, and oxygen toxicity. An added benefit is that the lower oxygen level eliminates the danger of fires or explosions from static charges, thus allowing patients to use electronic devices while in the chamber.

Beyond its FDA-approved uses, HBOT has long been considered an alternative, even fringy treatment method. But in the past few years, its value for other ailments

disorders, calling it “a technology that has been searching for a clinical niche for some time.” Similarly, Dr. Joe McSherry, a UVM Medical Center neurologist, called it “a fairly harmless placebo.”

Not much has changed since then. Dr. David Kaminsky, a pulmonary and critical care physician at UVM Medical Center and a professor in the Larner College of Medicine, routinely sees patients with long COVID symptoms. In fact, he’s currently involved in a yearlong study of the lung functions of 50 long COVID sufferers, many of whom still have breathing problems.

In an email, Kaminsky wrote that he knows of no patients or medical colleagues who have used HBOT to treat long COVID. But he urged patients to exercise caution when trying any non-FDA-approved therapies, which may be costly, have only a placebo effect or distract from other underlying causes of their symptoms.

“But I certainly understand that many people are desperate to feel better, so as long as their eyes are wide open to these caveats, they certainly have every right to explore some of these new, potentially useful therapies,” Kaminsky added. “It looks like HBOT is relatively safe, and there is biological rationale to support it being helpful.”

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FIND YOUR FOOTING.

GRACE JOHNSTONE

has attracted attention in a range of medical settings, including at U.S. military hospitals. In 2017, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs began offering HBOT to combat veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who had treatment-resistant posttraumatic stress disorder. Many of those vets, who’d been injured by roadside explosives, initially sought HBOT to relieve their TBI symptoms but subsequently saw improvements in their PTSD, as well.

HBOT has also shown promise in the treatment of anxiety and depression. A study published in the July 2017 issue of the journal Medicine found that patients with incomplete spinal cord injuries who underwent HBOT had “significantly lower” levels of anxiety and depression than patients who didn’t use the treatment. Johnstone noted that Hyperbaric Vermont, as well as the organization’s flagship practice, Community Hyperbaric in East Hardwick, routinely sees patients who use it to manage their anxiety and depression.

When Seven Days first wrote about HBOT in 2017, most local physicians interviewed for the story were either unfamiliar with its off-label uses or questioned its alleged benefits. Dr. Peter Moses, a nowretired gastroenterologist at the University of Vermont Medical Center, was dubious that HBOT could benefit patients with ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s or irritable bowl

Johnstone isn’t surprised that more Vermont physicians aren’t aware of HBOT’s potential uses. Only five medical schools in the country teach hyperbaric therapy, she noted, and it’s only offered as an elective.

“Our physicians are trained in and rely heavily on pharmaceuticals,” she said. And, because the FDA review process is time-consuming and costly, there’s little incentive for corporations or individual practitioners to seek federal approval of HBOT’s off-label uses.

Perretta wasn’t surprised, either. She said she was “not a heavy user” of the mainstream medical establishment, in large part because of her experiences with trying to treat chronic Lyme.

“I felt gaslit all the time,” she said. “Going to them became an exercise in my own frustration.”

But HBOT is the one treatment that’s made a measurable difference. Over the past month, Perretta has reduced the frequency of her hyperbaric sessions from three days a week to just once a week, and she expects to scale back further to every other week.

“Honestly, there’s not a doubt in my mind that hyperbaric will, at some point, be covered by insurance … because it is so effective,” she added. “The truth is stronger than their skepticism.” ➆

Weekend youth ski and snowboard lessons in January. middleburysnowbowl.com

Poles Apart

A book nerd finds a new sense of self through pole dancing

BY EMILY HAMILTON • ehamilton@sevendaysvt.com

Everyone has their own unique list of reasons to feel bad about their body, especially during January, otherwise known as National Feeling Bad About Your Body Month. Here are some of mine:

• An utter lack of background in anything athletic, having grown up as the book nerd daughter of a marching band nerd (and eldest sister to an engineering nerd, a video game nerd, a choir nerd and a film nerd, in that order).

• A very religious upbringing, which combined with my lesbianism to produce a veritable smorgasbord of shame and repression when it comes to — not to get too crass in a community newspaper, but — various activities I like to do with my body.

• Scoliosis and the spinal fusion surgery I had in 2015 to correct the 54-degree curve in my spine, the consequences of which include back pain, low lung

capacity, fatigue and a general sense of weakness, thanks to a yearslong recovery process.

All this is an overlong way of saying that I have always had trouble feeling good in my body. It’s hard to feel sexy when I don’t feel strong; it’s hard to feel strong when I was never taught how to sustain a consistent exercise routine; it’s hard to sustain an exercise routine when I’m so freaking tired all the time. Add in the pandemic and a genetic predisposition toward depression, and you’ve got an entire adulthood spent struggling to get motivated to move.

Until, that is, I walked into a pole dancing class at Burlington’s RevolVT two months ago and promptly became obsessed with it.

When I agreed to go to this class with my fiancée, I was highly skeptical that I would enjoy it, mainly because I appreciate high heels on my fiancée but prefer to

stick to Timberlands myself. Here’s the thing about pole dancing, though: Yes, it has historically been associated with femininity and sex work — something that has earned it plenty of ridicule in mainstream society — but it also requires an unbelievable amount of raw strength.

I was shocked by how powerful I felt after just one intro class spent swinging myself around the pole, having the time of my life. I was hooked.

Finally, I had found a form of exercise that I enjoyed for its own sake. I realized that my lack of enjoyment had, perhaps, been the problem all along. When I was struggling to run anything

missed where everyone else learned how to flip their hair like that; and you will feel, at times, very, very alone as you try to figure out a version of sexy, a version of feminine, that feels right to you.

• When you jump from intro level to intermediate, you will realize that your arms are, in fact, noodles; that holding yourself on the pole using only, like, one hand and the back of your knee requires muscle mass heretofore unknown to you; and that, even though you were starting to feel stronger, you’re still not strong enough.

But I am getting there. A month ago, I could barely lift myself onto the pole; now, I can climb to the top with only minimal hyperventilation. A month ago, all I felt was pain when I tried that back-of-the-knee thing (a move called a jasmine); now, it comes easier.

There’s an emotional strength building, too. I compare myself less with my classmates; I’m figuring out how to feel sexy and comfortable in my body on my own terms; and it’s been a few weeks since I cried after a class because I tried to do a new move and all I got was a bruise under my belly button.

less than a 14-minute mile, or zoning out waiting for my turn on the leg press at the Y, or huffing and puffing up Burlington’s hills on the ancient three-gear bike I bought off a guy on Facebook in April 2020, I wasn’t really doing it for the love of the game, so to speak. As we’ve established, I was a reading kid, not a swim meet kid or a soccer kid or even a particularly good Wii Sports kid; I never had a game to love.

But I immediately fell in love with pole dancing. And pole dancing proceeded to kick my ass.

Here are some ways in which pole dancing will try to make you feel bad about your body:

• The morning after a class, you will always, always find bruises in places you didn’t even know you could get bruises.

• You will have moments when you feel desperately unpretty, ungraceful and unsexy. You will bang your hip loudly on the floor attempting a sultry backflip of some kind; you will wonder if there was some kind of seminar you

For the first time in my life, I’m excited to put in the work to get stronger. Because, in my good moments, pole dancing makes me feel sexy, powerful and like a kid on a jungle gym — a holy grail of a combination that I wish everyone on Earth could experience when they work out.

The very last thing I want is to be another writer telling you, during National Feeling Bad About Your Body Month, that you have to try this Hot New Workout Routine to Burn Calories and Get Tight. I couldn’t care less about burning calories or getting tight. I don’t even care if this piece makes you want to try pole dancing (it’s hard enough to get into classes at RevolVT as it is!).

All I know is that life is too short for me to keep believing that the only good way to move my body is to sweat all over a leg press, blasting Cardi B straight into my eardrums to trick myself into thinking I’m having a good time.

So, if you need me, I’ll be in the studio, attempting something called a Superman spin, somehow getting bruises under my armpits and feeling like Superwoman. ➆

food+drink Narrative Nourishment

A Waitsfield author explores the role of food in her quest for mental health

BY MELISSA PASANEN • pasanen@sevendaysvt.com

Erika Nichols-Frazer’s recently published memoir, Feed Me: A Story of Food, Love and Mental Illness, did not originally focus on food. The Stowe native had been working for close to a year on a manuscript about her long struggle with undiagnosed bipolar disorder when she landed a two-week summer residency at Vermont Studio Center in Johnson.

“I was sitting at my desk, buttering a piece of bread for lunch with those little Cabot pieces of butter in aluminum foil,” Nichols-Frazer, 34, recounted in a phone interview from her Waitsfield home.

The butter prompted a Proustian moment that sent her back to a week she spent at a local hospital when she was 13. At the time, the five-foot, four-inch teenager barely weighed 80 pounds. Her parents, at their wits’ end, had brought their daughter to the teen psychiatric ward hoping to jolt her out of an eating disorder.

Every meal was closely supervised by hospital staff. “They made me eat those little pats of butter,” Nichols-Frazer recalled. “I remember trying to get away with eating a muffin or roll without the butter … A nurse would watch me and insist that I eat every calorie on the plate.”

The memory was a difficult one, but it prodded Nichols-Frazer to consider how food threaded through her life in both negative and positive ways and how learning to feed herself had contributed to her mental and physical wellness.

“Feed Me is all about sustenance and nourishing oneself ... in terms of taking care of your body as well as your mind,” Nichols-Frazer explained by phone. “Everything kind of comes back to the idea of sharing food and creating food as part of the community — and how that has the capacity to heal oneself.”

Nichols-Frazer, who works as a freelance editor and staff writer for the Valley Reporter, said writing has always helped her work through emotions and life events. “From a very young age, I would write journals. I would write poems.

I would write to kind of make sense of things,” she said. She earned a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts with a concentration in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, N.Y., and a master’s in fine arts from Bennington College.

It was at Bennington that NicholsFrazer first spoke openly about her 2018 bipolar disorder diagnosis, which eventually enabled her to find effective treatment. It was gratifying, empowering and “a weight off my shoulders,” she said, to discover that sharing her story helped people who’d had similar experiences.

“It took me a long time to get to a point where I was writing for the public about my own mental health,” she said, “but I have

found that to be a really important aspect of me coping with mental health issues.”

From a very young age, NicholsFrazer writes in Feed Me , “dark moods had already become familiar visitors, wrapping their heavy hands around my small body,” but it was decades before she knew they were caused by bipolar disorder. One of the ways Nichols-Frazer coped was to control any aspect of her life that she could, including food. At age 9, motivated by the realization that she was consuming living creatures, she became a vegetarian, which “put

Erika Nichols-Frazer

NARRATIVE NOURISHMENT » P.41

New Owner Seeks Restaurant Tenant for Sand Bar Inn Site

After 15 years, the abandoned Sand Bar Inn and restaurant location on the west side of the causeway in South Hero has been cleared of the derelict motel building in preparation for construction of a new restaurant and eight townhomes. PIERRE LEBLANC, president and CEO of Colchester-based Engelberth Construction, purchased the 4.7-acre property at 59 Route 2 in October 2021 and is now seeking an operator for a planned two-story restaurant.

In 2019, Seven Days reported that the property was on the market for $795,000. The prime lakeside location had hosted lodging starting in 1900 and operated as the Sand Bar Inn since 1923. About 25 years later, it became a restaurant and motel. The most recent owners, business partners Mark Naud and Marco DiCarlo, bought it in 1999 and ran the restaurant and motel until 2007.

A 20-year resident of Grand Isle, LeBlanc said he and his wife frequented the Sand Bar Inn restaurant and miss it. “It was pretty iconic back in the day,” he said. “There aren’t enough restaurants up here.”

LeBlanc said he plans to break ground in the spring and shared a site plan and elevations of the proposed 78-seat, year-round restaurant, with a second-floor seasonal deck. He is open to concepts from prospective tenants but expects the restaurant to be similar to its predecessor in terms of menu and atmosphere.

“It will be comfort food and very relaxing,” LeBlanc said. “In summertime, people can enjoy the view from the deck.”

Melissa Pasanen

A

La Vie Est Belle

European-style Belleville Bakery opens doors in Burlington

BY MELISSA PASANEN • pasanen@sevendaysvt.com

It’s been a long, slow build toward the full opening of Belleville Bakery, which chef-owner Shelley MacDonald launched in late fall 2020 with weekly pickups from her Burlington apartment. On January 5, after six months of renovations and three months of takeout-window sales, the public finally stepped into Belleville’s new brick-and-mortar location at 217 College Street — perfect timing for the second story in our Bakery Month series. (Diet in January? Not us.)

In the bright space with brick walls, a periwinkle ceiling and pendant lights crafted from industrial whisks, customers select from a daily menu that might include airy, moist orange-olive oil tea cake (from $4 a slice); indulgent mini Belgian chocolate tarts scattered with dried fruits and pistachios ($6); or individual, crisp-crusted quiches ($9) in flavors such as bacon-cheddar with broccoli or sun-dried tomato and pesto.

Customers can stay to eat and sip coffee, tea or freshpressed juices ($3 to $10) as they watch MacDonald; her husband, André Beaulieu; and a team of blue-aproned apprentices work in the open kitchen. Eliminating interior walls made the best use of the 1,200-square-foot space, previously home to My Little Cupcake, which is now focused largely on wholesale. And the layout, as MacDonald, 56, noted with a smile, “forces us to be better.”

MacDonald and Beaulieu, a professional artist whose hyperrealist oil paintings hang on the bakery wall, originally hail from Canada. They moved to Burlington in 2020 after 11 years in Paris, where MacDonald studied cooking at Le Cordon Bleu and started her first culinary enterprise. While her menu is not purely French, she said it’s “European in sensibility.” Or, more pointedly: “It’s all homemade by somebody who gives a shit.”

The bakery’s hours — currently 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday through Sunday — and rotating menu of sweet and savory items will expand gradually, MacDonald said. The 4,000plus recipients of her weekly electronic mailings can still preorder, and she takes a limited number of special orders.

MacDonald is a lifelong entrepreneur and believes strongly in direct customer communication, evident in her enthusiastic and prolific use of newsletters and social media. “I like the storytelling,” she said. She also likes changing her menu weekly. “People become loyal to you and not to lemon bars,” MacDonald said. Plus, she added, “It’s way more interesting for the staff. I don’t want to make banana bread every day.”

What MacDonald does want to make — and eat — varies. “You make what you like, and you hope there are enough other people like you,” she said. Her menu features many French classics, such as pillow-soft, buttery brioche loaves ($3 to $9 based on size) and nutty brown-butter almond financiers with an alluringly crisp bite ($2). Showstoppers include multilayered Eastern European Medovik honeyand-cream cake and lemon-blueberry genoise sponge cake swathed in deep lilac cream cheese frosting (both from $8 a slice).

The daily cookie roster ($3 each) might offer thin, chewy “ex-boyfriend” (ask MacDonald to explain) chocolate chip cookies liberally studded with chocolate chunks, or densely delicious, almost savory chocolate chip-cranberry cookies enhanced with rye flour and poppy seeds. Her straight-sided, frosted or glazed “babycakes” ($5 each; don’t call them cupcakes) come in flavors such as lime-cardamom and chocolate-Champagne. Mini cheesecakes ($7.50) deliver intense, creamy combinations, including chocolate cookiecrusted pistachio and mocha with a cappuccino shortbread base.

The cheesecakes are definitely rich enough to share, but I would argue that we each deserve our own. Life is beautiful, or la vie est belle, as they say in French. Belleville invites us to indulge. ➆

INFO

Belleville Bakery, 217 College St., Burlington, 304-0969, bellevillevt.com

Chef-owner Shelley MacDonald with customers

Baked goods at Belleville Bakery

PHOTOS: DARIA BISHOP

Sun-dried tomato and pesto quiches

Jessie Tarnoff frosting a Medovik cake

me in control of something, however small,” she writes.

As a young teen, she developed anorexia. The book starkly juxtaposes her excruciating need to control every calorie against food-filled visits to her aunts in New York City. They introduced her to puffy poori bread at Indian restaurants, spinach gnocchi in Gorgonzola sauce at a trendy Italian spot and grilled baby artichokes dipped in hollandaise. “Never had I tasted anything like it, the tang of the artichokes, the bright acidity of the rich sauce,” she writes.

Her aunts, one of whom had been a professional chef, taught NicholsFrazer how to make the finicky French sauce — lush with yolks and butter — and to poach eggs perfectly. That mastery at the stove helped the young woman start to build confidence and a positive sense of control over food.

“There was no one specific moment where food became something that could bring joy instead of just difficulty and pain,” she told Seven Days, “but a huge part of that process was visiting my aunts.”

To this day, NicholsFrazer often makes eggs Benedict for herself and her husband with fresh eggs from their small flock of backyard hens. “It does kind of ruin other eggs for you,” she remarked.

sauce and Dylan’s delicious, soft fried rice,” she writes.

But Nichols-Frazer was in a mental health crisis at the time. Frustrated by her husband’s inability to provide the support she needed, she refused the meal, “reject[ing] Dylan’s attempt to feed me, to care for me.”

While it can be retraumatizing to write about painful experiences, Nichols-Frazer acknowledged that a bigger challenge in crafting Feed Me was making public what had been largely private. In particular, she reveals unvarnished details of her mother’s alcohol use and draws parallels with her own mental health struggles.

“This book is very honest about myself,” Nichols-Frazer said, “and I felt like I had to be honest about my relationships with other people in my family.”

ERIKA NICHOLS-FRAZER

Another recipe in her regular rotation is a chunky vegetable and lentil soup that she describes making for friends in the book. “Cooking is what I do when I need to calm down, to give me something to focus on instead of my frantic thoughts,” Nichols-Frazer writes. “The process of chopping and sautéing and stirring is cathartic, and feeding others gives me purpose.”

Feed Me also illuminates the flip side of feeding loved ones — being fed by them. Nichols-Frazer describes returning home from one of her MFA residencies to find that her husband had cooked a favorite meal using many of the vegetables he cultivates in their backyard gardens. “The kitchen smelled like soy

Regarding her anorexia as a teen, NicholsFrazer writes, “I didn’t think I deserved food. I didn’t think I deserved to exist.” Later in the book, she observes of her mother: “She drinks to erase herself.”

As Nichols-Frazer matures, she realizes she must grapple with her demons, even as her mother stubbornly resists discussing her drinking. “She doesn’t know how to feed herself in the ways she needs,” Nichols-Frazer writes with resignation.

Feed Me depicts the failure of NicholsFrazer and her brother to persuade their mother to acknowledge her problem. The author said she believes her mother understands her daughter’s need to share the full story.

“I explained to her that these are things that so many people and families deal with,” Nichols-Frazer recounted. “It can save lives to be able to talk about and destigmatize a lot of addiction and mental health issues. It was a piece I felt like I had to lay bare — just tell the truth — because I do think that is how we heal.”

24, 2023

Chef Will Gilson | March 28, 2023

Erika Nichols-Frazer and her husband, Dylan Frazer

Tasty Tonics

Chef-owned Wolfpeach alchemizes food and herbal medicine

BY JORDAN BARRY • jbarry@sevendaysvt.com

Five years ago, Fiona Lucia Genadio-Allen trained at Ireland’s illustrious Ballymaloe Cookery School. The immersive education — which she called “Hogwarts for food” — was centered on a 100-acre organic farm and gave her the skills she needed to cook professionally at restaurants in London.

But even in those prestigious culinary circles, the young chef didn’t find what she was looking for: medicine in food form.

“I’d get really frustrated working in kitchens,” GenadioAllen, 30, said. “Like, Why are you using this shitty salt when you could be using amazing, mineral-rich Celtic sea salt?”

As a teenager in Vermont, Genadio-Allen was interested in herbalism, developing her knowledge of powerful plants through independent study, mentorship and programs such as the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism. She often made tinctures for her family to try, but they weren’t sold on the bitter flavors.

“That’s the thing about herbal medicine,” Genadio-Allen said with a laugh. “A lot of times, it doesn’t taste very good.”

After attending culinary school, she found herself thinking more and more about producing herbal formulas that people would actually enjoy. In 2021, Genadio-Allen returned home to Vermont and launched Wolfpeach, a Morrisville-based apothecary kitchen with an online shop.

Wolfpeach offers a full line of oxymels, tonics, aromatic salts, honey-and-herb electuaries, digestive bitters, and hot sauces. Barring the Celtic sea salt, almost all the ingredients are sourced from Vermont farms. The result is a rainbow of pantry staples that are as tasty as they are beneficial — and they’re popping up like bright beacons at bars and restaurants around the state.

Wolfpeach’s most popular product is Nectar of the Gods, a citrusy, bright-orange oxymel made with sea buckthorn berries, raw honey and raw, barrel-aged apple cider vinegar. Oxymels are ancient tinctures that predate alcohol distillation, Genadio-Allen said, combining vinegar and honey to

extract medicinal value from plants and preserve their flavor. She describes Nectar of the Gods as a vitamin C-rich “vitality tonic” that can be consumed on its own or in a mocktail or cocktail.

“The oxymels are really easy [to use],” Genadio-Allen said. She often makes a zero-proof cocktail by throwing a splash of Nectar of the Gods in with sparkling water on ice and adding a pinch of Mermaid Dust, a pink-and-purple aromatic salt with rose petals, calendula and seaweed. The combo of vinegar, honey, water and salt creates a fullspectrum electrolyte drink, she said. To booze it up, she adds a shot of good gin and moves the salt to the rim.

Genadio-Allen started her biz by selling products at farmers markets in Waitsfield, Stowe, Burlington and Winooski. Now that she has an established customer base, she’s shifting her focus to supplying drinking and dining destinations around Vermont, including the Oasis in Morrisville, Doc Ponds in Stowe, Zenbarn in Waterbury Center and Hearth & Candle in Jeffersonville.

FIONA LUCIA GENADIO-ALLEN

Fiona Lucia Genadio-Allen

COURTESYOFCOREYRONDEAU

“I’m really motivated to get these products behind the bar,” Genadio-Allen said. “Why not have medicine while you’re imbibing, especially if it tastes good and looks beautiful?”

Wolfpeach’s products offer fresh, fancy alternatives to people who aren’t drinking alcohol, too, injecting sorely needed variety into the mocktail category.

Genadio-Allen is also bringing her products to the table through multicourse pop-up dinners that feature Wolfpeach offerings in the cocktail menu and infused into the food. In December, she hosted a Nordic feast with Haley Blair of Stowe’s Live Forever Foods, a friend and frequent collaborator. Upcoming events include a Burns Night celebration at Zenbarn on Thursday, January 26, and a meal with Abenaki chef Jessee Lawyer at the helm in mid-February.

At Ballymaloe, Genadio-Allen learned from cofounder Darina Allen that “menus really drive change in the culinary and agricultural world,” she recalled. In other words, when diners try something new at a restaurant, they’re more likely to seek it out elsewhere. She hopes that having Wolfpeach’s products on menus around Vermont will draw attention to them, she said, and to the farms that she sources from and proudly showcases on each label.

Genadio-Allen’s go-to herb sources are Jeff and Melanie Carpenter’s Zack Woods Herb Farm in Hyde Park and Karen Taylor’s Generation Herb, based in South Albany.

Taylor, who has worked with Wolfpeach for two seasons, said Genadio-Allen has been “a great hype girl” for Generation Herb; her products make it easier to market the dried medicinal herbs that Taylor produces.

“It’s not a clinical remedy as much as it’s this experience of the landscape around you,” Taylor said of the Wolfpeach line. “That’s such a helpful voice to have repping the plants that I grow.”

For this year’s batch of Nectar of the Gods, Genadio-Allen sourced 2,000 pounds of sea buckthorn berries — as much as Buzz Ferver of Perfect Circle Farm in Berlin could harvest — and stored it in borrowed freezer space. The raw apple cider vinegar, made with wild and heirloom varieties, comes from Neil Hochstedler’s Side Hill Cider Mill in Vershire.

“I’m just alchemizing the things,” Genadio-Allen said. The farmers, in her view, are “really doing the magic.” ➆

INFO

Learn more at wolfpeachvt.com.

The roughly chronological memoir is composed of 26 chapters grouped in three sections with culinary headings: Simmer, Boil and Rest. The final section’s title refers to the recommended practice of resting cooked meat before slicing it, although Nichols-Frazer admitted she doesn’t use that technique much as a longtime vegetarian. Her version of “rest,” she said on the phone, came when, at age 29, she received her diagnosis and began to glimpse light at the end of a long tunnel.

For this reader, it was hard to detect that glimmer until the last few chapters — when, equipped with a medical explanation for the extreme swings of her bipolar disorder, Nichols-Frazer begins to find equilibrium with therapy and medications. Even as late as Chapter 23, she shares descriptions of the mania she endured, which evoke the sensation of being stalked by an insatiable beast intent on eating one alive.

It’s violent. On fire. It’s ravenous; it’ll swallow you whole. It buzzes with ferocious energy. It’s restless — can’t stop moving, can’t slow down. Volume up too loud. Thoughts pinballing, never landing or connecting or making sense. It’s a desperate need to move, to take action without thought of consequence. It’s a live wire, spitting

sparks. It rattles you, strips you, overfills then empties you.

On Monday, January 30, at the Round Hearth Café & Marketplace in Stowe, Nichols-Frazer will give a reading and serve several dishes featured in Feed Me, including lentil soup, jalapeño mac and cheese, and grilled chicken salad. She will also bring chocolate chip cookies, her husband’s favorite. They won’t be broken or served on a shattered plate, as they appear on her book cover.

That image, Nichols-Frazer explained, was true to her story and how broken she felt at her lowest points. With the passage of time and treatment, she said, she can now see that, even though “I felt like I was breaking,” surviving the depths “made me stronger.” ➆

If you need to talk to somebody about your mental health, help is available 24-7 by dialing 9-8-8 or texting VT to 741741. For more resources, visit mentalhealth.vermont.gov.

INFO

Feed Me: A Story of Food, Love and Mental Illness by Erika Nichols-Frazer, Casper Press, 210 pages. $16.99. NicholsFrazer reads and serves dishes featured in her book on Monday, January 30, 5 to 7 p.m., at Round Hearth Café & Marketplace in Stowe. Free. nicholsfrazer.com

SIDEdishes

SERVING UP

FOOD

NEWS « P.39

Windy Lane Bakehouse Goes Brick and Mortar in Randolph

KELSEY WOLFE started her home-based bakery, WINDY LANE BAKEHOUSE, in 2019. In late November — just in time for Thanksgiving pickups — she moved the biz from its eponymous street into a shop in downtown Randolph.

Still called Windy Lane Bakehouse, the bakery is one of several new businesses in the former Belmains retail space at 15 North Main Street. Wolfe, 35, bakes “a little bit of everything,” she said, includ ing tarts, bars, cakes and breakfast pastries, such as brioches, cinnamon rolls, muffins and sticky buns.

“Maple-walnut éclairs are definitely the most popular,” Wolfe said. “People really show up for maple.”

Wolfe started her career at SWEET SIMONE’S in Richmond, where she worked as a baker and kitchen manager. She also attended the New England Culinary Institute for a year and, after launching her home bakery, worked part time at Montpelier’s BIRCHGROVE BAKING

“It got to a tipping point where I outgrew the kitchen at home,” Wolfe said. “This was a great opportunity to put down roots in my own community, take a chance and participate.”

Right now, Wolfe is the only person in the kitchen. Windy Lane is open Thursday through

Sunday, serving drip coffee and tea alongside a daily selection of baked goods. The cookie selection includes gluten-free options as well as standard offerings, such as chocolate chunk. Cakes, ranging from classic birthday to the lemony Sunshine Daydream, are also available for special order.

“I enjoy the fact that baking is not a necessity in life,” Wolfe said. “It’s purely for joy, pleasure, nostalgia, comfort and all those parts of being human.”

Jordan Barry

CONNECT

Follow us for the latest food gossip! On Instagram: Seven Days: @7deatsvt; Jordan Barry: @jordankbarry; Melissa Pasanen: @mpasanen.

Kelsey Wolfe of Windy Lane Bakehouse

Carrot cake with cream cheese icing and crushed walnuts (left) and milk chocolate-caramel tart

Narrative

Cocktail made with Nectar of the Gods

culture

Laugh Lines

River Butcher talks jokes versus storytelling and heckling versus cackling

BY JORDAN ADAMS

Comedian River Butcher breezes through sharp pandemic-era observations at the top of his 30-minute standup special, “A Di erent Kind of Dude.” A master of calling out things that otherwise might go unchecked — like those dangling fake testicles that some truck owners attach to their back bumpers — Butcher has choice thoughts on everything from how fiber gummies can be dangerous in large quantities to the questionable life choices he associates with men from his home state of Ohio, the “dudes” referenced in the special’s title.

Available to stream on YouTube, “A Di erent Kind of Dude” also introduces viewers to the “new” River Butcher, one who, during the pandemic, began a gender transition.

“I’ve been taking testosterone for about a year,” he says to cheers and applause. “And, honestly, sometimes I just feel like history’s slowest werewolf. Just a hair every now and then.”

“A Different Kind of Dude” is the latest entry in Butcher’s catalog. He’s released two comedy albums, Butcher and Pull Yourself Up by Your Bootleg; cocreated and starred in the sitcom “Take My Wife”; served as a

consultant for the Amazon original series “A League of Their Own”; and, for several years, hosted the baseballthemed podcast “Three Swings.”

Butcher currently has shows booked in two places: San Francisco and Burlington. During a recent phone conversation, the comic stressed his love of the Queen City and the Vermont Comedy Club, where he performs on Friday and Saturday, January 20 and 21. Seven Days caught up with Butcher by phone to chat about writing material, how he deals with praise and criticism, and his new special.

River Butcher

SEVEN DAYS: You balance traditional (setup/punch line) observational jokes with storytelling that has its own rhythm. Is that something you plan, or does it happen naturally?

RIVER BUTCHER: It’s a little bit of both. I like storytelling. I respect it. But I’m not a storytelling comic. I enjoy a straight-up setup/punch line, 10-second joke. I like a good tag. That’s why I try to keep it in my storytelling. There are jokes within it. It’s usually just a larger piece that contains more jokes because I like to keep people’s attention. It makes my job more fun to tell more jokes.

MY EGO DOESN’T NEED TO BE SO FRAGILE.

RIVER BUTCHER

SD: Do you find that storytelling has overtaken standup?

RB: I don’t think anything ever fully overtakes anything, especially in comedy. I think it’s just where you’re at, what you’re listening to.

With the recent evolution of TikTok becoming what’s breaking people —breaking in the good way — who’s telling a story in a 15-second fix? To me, it’s renewed that idea of getting [the joke] out. How quickly can you tell this joke to somebody that’s, like, flipping through a feed and maybe even reading your joke? It’s created a whole new consciousness of joke telling.

SD: In “A Different Kind of Dude,” there’s a moment when you interact with an audience member who’s having a big, vocal reaction to one of your jokes. Where is the line between that kind of disruption and heckling?

RB: What’s interesting about that is, I shot that half hour in July of 2021. So if you can mentally place yourself there, in New York, we thought the pandemic was over. I hadn’t been doing standup in person that much. I was completely out of my normal routine. I was like, This guy is heckling me. I had to slow down and just think, What is up with this guy? And he was just enjoying it.

I was also onstage as my new self for the first time. So many things were going on in my mind. Five years before that, [this person] probably wouldn’t have bothered me. So I had to take it very gently and remember, Oh, this guy wants to be here

Even before the pandemic, I would try to approach somebody that’s having a loud reaction as gently as possible

— especially with my audiences, because they tend to be LGBTQ and often neurodiverse. I have to check myself. My ego doesn’t need to be so fragile. Rarely am I being heckled.

SD: To that end, how do you feel about sharing criticism with other comics?

RB: I have learned, in my own life, that criticism is just not something that I share with another human being. Especially not other comics. I never know what’s going to be criticism to another person.

Sometimes I think of a tag, but somebody has to be very close for me to be like, “Hey, are you open to a note to this?”

Because sometimes notes or tags feel like criticism to people. I get really sensitive when I get offstage. So I just keep it to praise with my fellow comedians. You know, what’s the point? I think it’s a good tag. They might not. I’d rather keep my friendships intact than share that.

An opposite practice for me is learning to take criticism with a grain of salt. It has nothing to do with me.

SD: And what about praise?

RB: I just love to hear from a fellow comic, “Hey, man. Great set.” That’s a thing from Maria Bamford. She always says that, and she’s paying attention, too. She watches people’s standup, you know? The best compliment that you can give to any comedian is watching their set.

SD: Any upcoming projects you want people to know about?

RB: I am in a deep hibernation and a deep welcoming-what’s-next phase right now. I’m sort of moving away from Twitter. I would encourage people to follow me on Instagram. That’s probably where I’m gonna start doing more new and exciting things.

I’m shedding my old self, and the Vermont shows are a big part of that, of expanding and bringing some new material into an hour that I’ve been working on that I hope to put out next year. So that’s what I’ve got going on. Maybe a new podcast. I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but it’s gonna be fun. ➆

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity and length.

INFO

River Butcher performs on Friday and Saturday, January 20 and 21, 7 and 9 p.m., at Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington.

$25. Recommended for ages 18 and up. vermontcomedyclub.com

The Wanderlust Challenge

FABULOUS

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Behind the Music

BY AMY LILLY • lilly@sevendaysvt.com

How much do the unsavory parts of composers’ private lives influence how we hear their work? According to Matt LaRocca, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra’s artistic adviser and project conductor, not enough.

“We gloss over the fact that Bach was an asshole, that composers did crazy things that are well documented, [like] drugs and cult worshipping. Instead, we prop them up on pedestals,” LaRocca noted during a phone call.

dedicated to violence, drugs and sex, titillating stories about composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Percy Grainger and Georg Friedrich Haas will preface selections of their music.

Curated and hosted by LaRocca, the Jukebox series typically presents innovative and new classical music played by a quartet of VSO musicians in outside-thebox venues. But this program — firmly advertised as 18-plus — is sure to surpass even regulars’ expectations for edginess. The sex section, for example, involves a collaboration with the Burlington adult store Earth + Salt.

LaRocca originally assembled the program for March 2020 concerts, but they were nixed by the pandemic lockdown. A composer himself, he became interested in composers’ seamier sides after encountering the Tumblr account Composers Doing Normal Shit and the 2018 documentary film The Artist & the Pervert, about the living Austrian composer Haas and his dominant-submissive private life.

Sometimes that side is hidden. Grainger, an Australian composer who lived for most of his career in the U.S., composed “Molly on the Shore” in 1907 for his mother. The jaunty, reel-like piece o ers no hint of his BDSM habits.

Grainger left the latter for posterity to discover, enclosing 70-odd whips and photographic evidence of his bondage experiments in a locked chest in a bank in Melbourne. He included instructions to open it 10 years after his death and display its contents in a museum of his life that he had founded and endowed. The museum is still open and was recently renovated.

Haas, now 70, whom LaRocca calls “the king of new music right now, especially in Europe,” decided not to wait until after death to reveal his preferences. He and his wife, the sex therapist Mollena WilliamsHaas, came out to the media in 2016. Haas’ creativity, LaRocca noted, “is inextricably linked to being able to practice … his domsub relationship.”

unsettling harmonies or Bach’s church compositions sound di erent when we know about the darker aspects of their personalities. LaRocca, for one, has no doubt. “The goal is to more openly talk about these hidden sides so that we understand their music di erently,” he said.

For music lovers who want to bring the kids along, the VSO is also o ering a family-friendly concert in LaRocca’s drolly named Juicebox series on the afternoon of Saturday, January 21, at the Higher Ground Showcase Lounge. (His children are 4, 7 and 9.) The program pairs music by Joseph Haydn, Philip Glass, John Cage and others with each emotion explored in Todd Parr’s children’s book The Feelings Book.

The 18-plus concerts, meanwhile, are sure to provoke discussion. “My hope is that it makes people a little uncomfortable but not totally uncomfortable,” LaRocca said of the program. “I like being uncomfortable in art.” ➆

MATT LAROCCA

The VSO’s Jukebox Quartet concerts this weekend at Merchants Hall in Rutland and the Higher Ground Showcase Lounge in South Burlington won’t shy away from the sordid, depraved and experimental sides of composers’ lives. In sections of the program

“We think of the product and the environment [of classical music] as so prim and proper, but the people who are performing and creating the music — that’s not the way most of us are,” LaRocca said. “As much as we look at [famous composers] as our creative deities, there’s always this other side.”

As for Bach? “He was fired from jobs. He was a borderline alcoholic. He was a womanizer. He had very violent tendencies,” the curator said, citing historians’ research. Still, Bach wasn’t quite as violent as the lesser-known Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo, who in 1590 openly murdered his wife and her lover.

The question is whether Gesualdo’s

INFO

Vermont Symphony Orchestra Jukebox Quartet Tour, Friday, January 20, 7:30 p.m., at Merchants Hall in Rutland, $10-30; and Saturday, January 21, 7 p.m., at Higher Ground Showcase Lounge in South Burlington, $15-20. 18+. Juicebox, Saturday, January 21, 4 p.m., at Higher Ground Showcase Lounge in South Burlington. $5-10. vso.org

VSO Jukebox series explores the scandalous private lives of composers at 18-plus concerts

Matt LaRocca (far left) with the Jukebox Quartet

Robert Resnik to Join Folk DJ Hall of Fame

BY CHRIS FARNSWORTH • farnsworth@sevendaysvt.com

Longtime Burlington radio DJ and musician Robert Resnik has been selected for the Folk Alliance International’s Folk DJ Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony — part of the International Folk Music Awards on February 1 in Kansas City, Mo. — will honor Resnik’s 50-plus-year career in radio, including his work as host of Vermont Public’s “All the Traditions,” a program dedicated to folk and traditional music.

“I was a little shocked when I found out, honestly,” Resnik said by phone. He explained that members of the Folk DJ Hall of Fame select the new inductees. “So you’re getting chosen and congratulated by your peers,” he continued, “people like Nick Spitzer and Fiona Ritchie, who are legends in folk radio, and it feels really, really good.”

Resnik’s radio career began after he moved to Vermont in 1970 to attend the University of Vermont. He started his own free-form program, “The Shirley Temple Show,” on UVM radio station WRUV. While serving for 28 years as the codirector of Burlington’s Fletcher Free Library, Resnik started to attract more attention for his work in radio in 1996, when he began hosting “All the Traditions.”

“The secret to being a good DJ, I think, is to not stay in the same place,” Resnik said. “I’ve always told people: ‘If you don’t like what I’m playing, just wait 10 minutes, because the next set will be completely different.’”

Resnik, 69, plans to fly to Kansas City with his family for the induction. “Look, usually when you get things like this, it’s after you’ve dropped dead,” he said with a laugh. “But I’m still here! So I don’t want to miss this.”

Having attended the awards in the past, Resnik knows what to expect.

“It’s so great,” he enthused. “They book a third of a hotel for the musicians, who play all day just to catch the ears of wandering disc jockeys. It’s a true love fest. Plus, there’s Arthur Bryant’s, which is one of the best barbecue

joints in the country. I’m not missing those ribs.”

Aside from the killer ribs, Resnik is looking forward to having the hall-of-fame designation. “Maybe this will give me a little more cred to say what’s folk music and what isn’t folk,” he said. “It’s been a debate that’s been going on since Bob Dylan plugged in, in 1965. It’s such a bigger genre than most people think.”

Once he’s back from Kansas City, it’s right back to doing what he loves, hosting “All the Traditions” every Sunday. When Resnik first got the job, beating out more than 30 other potential hosts, he told the station’s brass that he had no preconcep tions for what his show would be like, other than he wanted to focus on Vermont artists.

“Showing people music that they’ve perhaps never heard before is heaven to me,” Resnik said. “It’s just what I do. And I’ve been so lucky that a lot of what I’ve done in my life has been centered around music.” ➆

INFO

“All the Traditions” airs on Vermont Public radio every Sunday from 7 to 10 p.m. vermontpublic.org

COURTESY OF TODD

LOCKWOOD

Robert Resnik

Vermont Railway BURLINGTON

For about eight years now, the annual Christmas tree drop-o at Pine Island Community Farm in Colchester has been a favorite tradition for families. Vermonters bring as many as 800 trees to the farm to be eaten by hungry, photogenic goats. The 230-acre parcel of land is owned by the Vermont Land Trust and farmed by new Americans, people who came to the state as refugees, many with farming roots. Started in 2013 and originally called the Vermont Goat Collaborative, Pine Island began because the new American community had di culty fi nding fresh goat meat locally.

Chuda Dhaurali, who is Bhutanese, has been with the farm since its founding and lives there with his family. He has increased his herd of goats from fewer than 100 to 440. Families purchase goats — which cost between $450 and $500 each — for graduation, wedding and funeral celebrations. Sometimes they butcher the animals themselves. There is a state-sanctioned slaughter facility on-site at Pine Island.

Volunteers from Burlington’s City Market, Onion River Co-op memberworker program help out at the farm year-round, and they were on hand on January 7 to facilitate the Christmas tree drop-o , manage an endless line of cars, and help families feed and take selfies with the goats. Seven Days senior multimedia producer Eva Sollberger was there to capture the action.

SEVEN DAYS: Happy New Year! How were your holidays?

EVA SOLLBERGER: Meh, not great. I caught COVID-19 for Christmas and passed it on to my family: Merry Christmas! Then my mom broke her ankle, and it officially became the worst holiday on record. The silver lining was our friends and neighbors who kept us going and brought us groceries and chicken soup. And we all feel better now.

SD: Yikes, sorry to hear that. Bet you were ready to give your Christmas tree to the goats, too! How did you pick this video subject?

ES: I saw this event mentioned on Facebook and have always wanted to learn more about Pine Island Community Farm. I’d love to go back in the summer to see the community gardens, which have 60 to 80 garden plots that support just as many families. I’d also like to see the goats grazing in the verdant pastures.

I’m grateful to photographers Caleb Kenna and James Buck, who allowed me to use their photos of summer life on the farm in this video. It helped give a fuller picture of what happens on the farm year-round. I also used a photo from 2013, when the farm was founded, by late Seven Days sta photographer Matthew Thorsen, who passed away in 2019.

SD: So, did you know the purpose of the goats?

ES: Yes, I read our former coverage about Pine Island and knew the goats were being raised for meat. Although many people around the world eat goat, it is less common in the States. That was a huge issue for local new Americans; they had to travel to Massachusetts to purchase a fresh goat. Chuda also told me that sometimes they would drive to Boston, find out the supply was exhausted and return home empty-handed.

Burlington resident Karen Freudenberger recognized this issue before founding Pine Island Community Farm and helping Chuda start his goat operation. The pair talked to goat dairy farmers and discovered that the male animals were

a drain on their resources. Raising them for goat meat was a practical solution that solved two problems at once: finding a use for young male goats, aka bucklings, and providing new Americans with fresh, locally raised meat.

Karen passed away in 2016, but the farm is carrying on her mission. Chuda says customers are very excited to pick out the goat they want and to slaughter it on-site. Again, this is something most Americans don’t have a lot of familiarity with, as many of us are disconnected from our food systems. I have never butchered an animal and eaten it. Not sure I would have the guts to do it, either. But I have a great deal of respect for other cultures where this is more common. It connects families to the local food systems and makes you aware of where your food comes from. That connection is also something Chuda mentions at the end of the video. He wants the younger generations to be educated about it, as well.

SD: Any regrets from this video?

ES: I was hoping to film Chuda doing some of his daily chores with the goats. I got there early on Saturday, but the timing didn’t work out. If I’d had the stamina, I would have gone back on another occasion to film him working with the animals.

I have never eaten goat meat, and I’d like to try some. Chuda plans to sell smaller cuts of meat in the future, so that might be an opportunity for people who can’t consume an entire goat.

This video was filmed with my iPhone, and there are a few GoPro shots, as well. I was using a body mic for my interviews with Chuda and Abby White of the Vermont Land Trust, but I used the iPhone audio for the other interviews, which was a big mistake. You can hear a lot of wind and interference. With every shoot, I learn new lessons. Never again will I rely on my camera’s shoddy audio.

SD: What else did you learn?

ES: I live in Burlington and have visited the Intervale Center many times over the years. I did not realize there was so much farmland on the east side of the Winooski River. Once I turned left onto Pine Island Road, it was like entering another world, with farmland stretching out for miles on either side of the road.

Colchester resident Ben YouseyHindes said it was awesome to have part of the diversified agriculture economy so close to Burlington. I could not agree more. ➆

Moving Parts

Shelburne Museum curator Kory Rogers talks action figures and fancy glasses

BY PAMELA POLSTON • ppolston@sevendaysvt.com

Last week, Kory Rogers marked his 19th year at the Shelburne Museum. His official title is Francie and John Downing Senior Curator of American Art, named for longtime benefactors of the museum. Though nearly everything at the renowned institution fits within the rubric of American art, Rogers does have specialties. The curator, whose Oklahoma accent remains undaunted by his Vermont residency, has a background in the history of American design. He’s happily hands-on with objects such as the museum’s inestimable circus and decoy collections.

Rogers is perpetually engaged in planning and mounting exhibitions. Since the beginning of the pandemic, that has included a steady flow of virtual ones. Like museums worldwide, the Shelburne Museum has upped its digital profile, making its collections more accessible and homing in on what Rogers calls “niche” exhibitions. The current “Action Figures: Objects in Motion” is one of them.

Those objects are mechanical toys and other gizmos that can move “by turnkey, loaded spring, drawstring or a gust of wind,” explains introductory text on the museum’s website. Most were created in the late 19th or early 20th century. The accompanying videos show how the toys move, which of course is the point. Rogers’ descriptions are lively, informative and sprinkled with sly wit.

Since last fall, Rogers has exhibited a personal collection on social media: eyeglasses. No, not fusty museum models; ones he actually wears. Sporting a number of styles in amusingly staged settings, the curator shows he knows from spectacles.

In a phone conversation, we queried Rogers about both movable toys and his passion for glasses.

Why did you curate the “Action Figures” exhibit?

It was purely selfish. I’ve looked at these objects almost 20 years, and I wanted to see them activated. I came up with a long list of items, and our conservator Nancie Ravenel looked at them to make sure they could operate safely.

We videotaped them and put them online. There’s no audio because I’m in the background just squealing and talking about random stuff. Those video clips will be viewable through QR codes in the museum so people can watch them move.

TALKING ART

I wanted to pull from the more playful parts of our collection. They had to have good stories, too. I like the drama.

Besides not preparing a physical space, how else is creating a virtual exhibit different from an in-person one? It’s nice because you can focus on these interesting thematic shows. I probably wouldn’t be able to dedicate an entire gallery to this show, for example. It allows us to look at different parts of the collection. It’s also easier for the curators because it’s not as many objects.

Only 11 toys are in this exhibit. Do you know how many of these kinds of objects are in the museum’s collection as a whole?

The list I had pulled together was at least 25. There are probably four times that, if not more. These were just ones that caught my attention.

Kory Rogers

BEAR CIERI

I love the “Toy Fire-Escape.”

It is really extraordinary. At the time it was made [1892], everyone was so afraid of fire. There was a bit of an educational element to it — what to do if there’s a conflagration. It’s a little gruesome.

I also really liked the elephant pull toy. “Trumpeting Elephant Bell Toy,” from around 1905, is just a lovely, elegant piece of design. It was cast in iron in a two-piece mold.

Do you have a favorite in this collection?

Yes, I do. It’s “The Mysterious Ball,” just because [its inspiration] was a popular French circus performer, Leon LaRoche. He had a tragic end. He was hallucinating on a ship and went overboard, never to be seen again.

Whose gloved hands do we see in the videos?

Alex Kikutis, assistant collections manager. He was a great sport. We had to do multiple takes.

Why do you think people seem always to love movable toys?

I think it’s because, even though we understand it’s powered by a windup or cog and wheels, it seems like magic. I think we’re drawn to the humor. Everybody loves moving things — we watch television, movies. It’s a human trait.

Perhaps we have always needed fidgets.

Exactly. That’s perfect. I need one of those, badly.

In the whirligig section, this museum text caught my attention: “… soldiers, police officers, and other martial figures appear to have been especially popular subjects. The prevalence of such characters suggests that the amusement these toys offered was subversive, pitting figures of power and authority in futile battle against the wind.” Is there evidence supporting the subversiveness theory?

Yes, there are lots of examples of soldier, police and firemen whirligigs out there. Americans have always had that independent streak — they like to take the wind out of “the authority.”

So, they were kind of antecedents to Donald Trump chew toys for dogs. Exactly.

I always wondered why so many toys were made of cast iron. And then I read your line about post-Civil War foundries being repurposed from making armaments to domestic goods.

Yes, retooling from wartime to peace time. They knew there was a burgeoning middle class and people were receptive to children’s toys.

I have to say the Clown Magician Automaton kind of creeps me out, because clown.

It is horrifying, but it’s a great example of Mrs. [Electra Havemeyer] Webb’s collection, great design. It was made for the middle class to entertain their friends.

Let’s talk about your glasses! How many pairs do you own?

I’m currently at 23. That’s growing, because I just went to Montréal a couple weeks ago, and I’m having a bespoke pair made just for me. They’re from Bar à lunettes. There’s a long bar, and a woman behind the bar helped me find the right glasses. I posted them on Instagram, and Marie-Sophie Dion, the owner, contacted me and asked if I wanted a pair made for me.

So you really are an influencer?

Yeah, I guess so. The big-name brands who I’ve been buying from are reaching out to me, too.

“The Mysterious Ball” (left)

Clown Magician Automaton

barre/montpelier

‘WHIR, CLANK, BEEP’: Artworks and assemblages by more than 30 artists that explore simple, complex and fantastic machines. KENNY HARRIS: “Envisivivarium,” a site-specific installation that presents the universality of mythology through illustrative, sculptural and theatrical experiences. VERMONT SURFACE DESIGN ASSOCIATION: “Transformation: Material, Environment, Us,” fiber artwork by Sarah Ashe, Cari Clement, Judy Dales, Rosalind Daniels, Jennifer Davey, Elizabeth Fram, Eve Jacobs-Carnahan, Marya Lowe, Kris McDermet, Jane Quimby, Heather Ritchie, Leslie Roth, Dianne Shullenberger, Fern Strong, Sharon Webster and Betsy Wing. “Transformation” panel discussion: Friday, February 3, noon, with Dianne Shullenberger, Jane Quimby and Heather Ritchie; Leslie Roth facilitates. January 25-March 4. Free. Info, 479-7069. Studio Place Arts in Barre.

brattleboro/okemo valley

‘HEROES & VILLAINS’: Artwork by Clare Adams, Thomasin Alyxander, Debi A. Barton, Jean Cannon, Len Emery, Mindy Fisher, Corinne Greenhalgh, Gregory Damien Grinnell, Su Lin Mangan, Charles Norris-Brown, Gretchen Seifert and Linda Udd. Reception: Friday, January 20, 5-7 p.m. January 20-March 4. Info, 289-0104. Canal Street Art Gallery in Bellows Falls.

JAMES MULLEN: “Luminous Edge,” 72 vignette paintings from the artist’s “Pilgrim” series that investigate iconic sites of the 19th-century American landscape. Reception: Friday, January 27, 4:30-6:30 p.m. January 19-March 3. Info, 387-6249. Michael S. Currier Center, Putney School.

outside vermont

15TH ANNUAL HIGH SCHOOL EXHIBITION: Ceramics, drawing, mixed media, painting, photography, sculpture and wearable art by students from 14 schools in Vermont and New Hampshire. Awards chosen by Matt Neckers of Eden, Vt. Awards celebration: Friday, January 20, 5-7 p.m. January 20-February 10. Info, 603-448-3117. AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon, N.H.

online

‘RIGHT UNDER YOUR NOSE’: The Shelburne Museum presents children’s printed textiles from the collection of J.J. Murphy and Nancy Mladenoff, featuring 21 playful, colorful handkerchiefs with motifs including insects, alphabets, circus clowns, shadow puppets, the solar system and a lumberjack beaver. Webinar reception: Wednesday, January 18, 6-7 p.m., with the collectors and curator Katie Wood Kirchhoff. January 18-May 13. Info, 985-3346. Online.

ART EVENTS

ARTIST TALK: VALERIE HIRD: The artist examines some of the visual and literary sources that inform her work created over the past decade and are featured in the current exhibit “The Garden of Absolute Truths.” BCA Center, Burlington, Thursday, January 19, 6-7 p.m. Free. Info, 865-7166.

COLLAGE ANIMATION POP-UP AND BUTTONMAKING: Kids and adults of all ages can drop by to create stop-motion animations by collaging with photographs, with help from local artist and filmmaker Rich Fedorchak. Supplies provided, or bring your own pictures of family and friends. Turn your creations into wearable art at a button-making station. Junction Arts & Media, White River Junction, Saturday, January 21, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Free. Info, 295-6688.

OPEN STUDIO: Make art alongside other artists, socialize, get feedback and try out new mediums. No experience required; art supplies provided.

EVENT

Andrea Pearlman

An image of Vermont artist Andrea Pearlman’s colorful abstract paintings might not call to mind the Rolling Stones. Yet the now-wizened rockers inspired the title of her current exhibit at Vermont Studio Center’s Red Mill Gallery: “Two Thousand Light Years From Home.” A song on the band’s 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request, on which the Stones briefly flirted with psychedelia, is titled “2000 Light Years From Home.”

Pearlman said by phone that inspiration struck when Leila Bandar, VSC’s visual arts program manager, asked for the title of her exhibit. “In the paintings I have lots of circles that look like planets,” Pearlman observed. “In the ’60s the Rolling Stones had that song, and I thought, Perfect.”

She carried the concept further. “I label the paintings after they’re painted, and I got this idea of labeling them with names from the universe or cosmos,” Pearlman said. “One where stairs go off the canvas [is called] ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ There’s a bunch of David Bowie titles. ‘Blue Moon’ from the ’50s. Anything that had planet, universe or heaven — I looked them over and matched them to the paintings. It was fun.” The exercise also informed her reception playlist.

Pearlman is showing drawings and hooked rugs, as well — the latter she frequently swaps out with other examples from her collection at home. “I’m more protective of the rugs because they take so long to make,” she explained.

Pearlman lives with her husband and fellow artist George on Johnson’s Pearl Street. (“I can always find my way home,” she joked.) The couple met while studying at Pratt Institute in New York City and moved to Vermont in the mid-’70s. When George took an administrative job at the Vermont Studio Center a decade later, Andrea opened an art supply store in the back of their house. “I could paint, but when someone came over, I could help them,” she said of the arrangement.

Later they moved the store moved across the street, and the Pearlmans sold it in 2014. Through the years, Andrea has made abstract paintings. She has endlessly been absorbed, she said, by the same “problem” to solve in her art. “I’m trying to move things in space, in rhythm, without using perspective,” she said. “I’m trying to keep the painting flat and have the experience be threedimensional. I’m trying to do two things at once.”

Hosted by the Howard Center Arts Collective, whose members have experience with mental health and/ or substance-use challenges. ONE Arts Center, Burlington, Monday, January 23, 12:30-2:30 p.m. Free. Info, artscollective@howardcenter.org.

RED BENCH SPEAKER SERIES: SCOTT LENHARDT: The Vermont Ski & Snowboard Museum presents a conversation with the Vermont artist in conjunction with his current exhibit, “Artistic Contributions to Burton Snowboards 1994 to Present.” Chris Copley moderates. Register for Zoom link at vtssm.org. Online, Thursday, January 19, 7 p.m. Free or $10 donation. Info, 253-9911.

THE SNOWY DAY WORKSHOP: Artists of all ages are invited to create their own snowperson with provided materials. Chaffee Art Center, Rutland, Saturday, January 21, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Free. Info, 775-0356.

With vivid colors and interesting shapes, Pearlman infuses her work with a sense of movement as well as dimension. “I see it in nature: push/pull, cause and effect. It makes sense to me,” she said. “It’s my explanation of the world, it’s a great problem to work on, and it’s fun.”

Pearlman credits the influence of abstract expressionist painter James Gahagan — himself a student of Hans Hofmann — and Gahagan’s artist wife, Pat deGogorza. “When you paint abstractly, you need some kind of philosophy, an aesthetic,” she said.

“Space Oddity”

“James Gahagan said 50 years ago, let the color determine the shape,” Pearlman continued. “It’s kind of random in the beginning: You put down the color; you react; you move it around. Nothing is really preconceived. So it’s always an adventure.”

“Two Thousand Light Years From Home” is on view through January 26.

ONGOING SHOWS burlington

ART AT THE HOSPITAL: Photographs by Greg Nicolai and Caleb Kenna (Main Street Connector, ACC 3); relief monotypes by Erika Lawlor Schmidt (Main Street Connector); acrylic paintings by Sandra Berbeco (McClure 4 and EP2); oil and mixed-media paintings by James Vogler (EP2); and oil paintings by Julia Purinton (BCC). Curated by Burlington City Arts. Through January 23. Info, 865-7296. University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington.

ART AT THE MALTEX: Paintings by Pievy Polyte, Shannon O’Connell, Nancy Chapman and Ashley MacWalters and photography by Brian Drourr and Robert Fahey. Through April 8. Info, 865-7296. The Maltex Building in Burlington.

BILL MCDOWELL: “Roxham Road to North Elba,” color photographs that challenge viewers to consider

complex ideas around borders, migration, privilege and racism. MATT LARSON: Acrylic paintings by the local artist. VALERIE HIRD: “The Garden of Absolute Truths,” small interactive theaters, hand-drawn animated videos, paintings and drawings by the Burlington artist that utilize familiar childhood stories to examine current power inequities. Through January 28. Info, 865-7166. BCA Center in Burlington.

‘BLACK FREEDOM, BLACK MADONNA & THE BLACK CHILD OF HOPE’: Designed by Raphaella Brice and created by Brice and Josie Bunnell, this mural installed for Burlington’s 2022 Juneteenth celebration features a Haitian-inspired image of liberation. Through June 18. Info, 865-7166. ‘VOICES OF ST. JOSEPH’S ORPHANAGE’: An exhibition that tells the stories of former residents of the Catholic-run institution (1854-1974) and their accomplishments. A project of the St. Joseph’s Orphanage Restorative Inquiry and Vermont Folklife Center. Through February 18. Info, 863-3403. Fletcher Free Library in Burlington.

GET YOUR ART SHOW LISTED HERE! PROMOTING AN ART EXHIBIT? SUBMIT THE INFO AND IMAGES BY FRIDAY AT NOON AT SEVENDAYSVT.COM/POSTEVENT OR ART@SEVENDAYSVT.COM.

CLARK RUSSELL: “Riddleville,” an immersive installation of found objects and detritus. Open house: Saturday, January 21, noon to 4 p.m. Through January 24. Info, 652-4500. Amy E. Tarrant Gallery in Burlington.

‘CONNECTIONS’: Howard Center Arts Collective presents an art installation of painted mailboxes and mosaics, inviting viewers to reflect on the benefits of old-fashioned mail delivery and to consider whether mailboxes have become relics of the past. Through July 31. Info, artscollective@howardcenter.org. Howard Center in Burlington.

KEILANI LIME: “Silver & Gold,” paintings on canvas with a metallic element that represents overcoming difficult times. Proceeds of sales go toward the costs of brain and spinal cord surgeries. In Honor Leather studio, Suite 103, by appointment. Through February 1. Info, 355-2855. The Vaults in Burlington.

‘LARGE WORKS’: A group exhibition of works measuring between two and six feet by artists of all ages working in all mediums. Through March 10. Info, spacegalleryvt@gmail.com. The Soda Plant in Burlington.

‘PROCESS’: A capstone exhibition of seniors in graphic design and visual communication at the college. Through January 30. Info, 865-8990. Champlain College Art Gallery in Burlington.

‘SMALL WORKS’: An exhibition of works 12 inches or smaller in a variety of mediums by local artists. Through January 27. Info, spacegalleryvt@gmail. com. The S.P.A.C.E. Gallery in Burlington.

‘UNCONSCIOUS IMAGINATION’: Eleven students from the Creative Media Professional Practices II class present their unique takes on dreams in a variety of mediums. Through January 30. Info, 865-8980. Champlain College Stair Nook Gallery in Burlington.

VANESSA COMPTON: “Come to Marlboro Country,” a solo exhibition of mixed-media collages that explore the challenges of reconciling personal narratives with collective histories of privilege, colonialism and racism. Through January 21. Info, 324-0014. Soapbox Arts in Burlington.

chittenden county

‘ABENAKI CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE VERMONT COMMUNITY’: A series of murals designed by Scott Silverstein in consultation with Abenaki artists Lisa Ainsworth Plourde and Vera Longtoe Sheehan and members of Richmond Racial Equity; the 10 panels celebrate the Abenaki origins of practices still important to Vermont culture. Through May 31. Info, radiate.art.space@gmail.com. Richmond Town Hall.

ART AT THE AIRPORT: Oil paintings of cows by Stephanie Bush and hand-cut paper scenes from the natural world by Adrienne Ginter. Skywalk corridor. Through March 15. Info, 865-7296. Burlington International Airport in South Burlington.

BRECCA LOH & KRISTINA PENTEK: Abstracted landscape paintings and color photographs, respectively. Curated by Burlington City Arts. Through February 14. Info, 865-7296. Pierson Library in Shelburne.

EMILY BISSELL LAIRD: “Lake Stories,” an exhibition of 30 paintings, a photo collage using images from the artist’s grandmother’s journal from 1916, and video that all explore the holographic nature of time and place. By appointment. Through January 29. Info, 338-0695. High School Campus, Lake Champlain Waldorf School, in Shelburne.

MARVIN FISHMAN: A retrospective of 2D work in a variety of genres by the Charlotte artist. Through March 14. Info, gallery@southburlingtonvt.gov. South Burlington Public Art Gallery.

‘OUR COLLECTION: ELECTRA HAVEMEYER

WEBB, EDITH HALPERT AND FOLK ART’: A virtual exhibition that celebrates the friendship between the museum founder and her longtime art dealer, featuring archival photographs and ephemera, a voice recording from Halpert, and quotations pulled from the women’s extensive correspondences. Through February 9. Info, 985-3346. Shelburne Museum.

PAUL VAN DE GRAAF & GERRY DAVIS: An exhibition of photographic portraits using a modern digital

camera and 8-by-10-inch Deardorff film camera, respectively. Through January 28. Info, 846-4140. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall.

‘SILVER GLOW’: An annual winter exhibit featuring the works of 12 regional artists. Through January 31. Info, 985-3848. Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery in Shelburne.

‘WELCOME BLANKET’: A collection of quilted, crocheted and knitted blankets handmade by community members to be gifted to new American neighbors. Immigration stories and welcoming messages from the makers are also on display. Through February 23. Info, 355-9937. Heritage Winooski Mill Museum.

barre/montpelier

2022 AUDUBON PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS

TRAVELING EXHIBITION: Images of birds by photographers in the U.S. and Canada. Through January 18. Info, 262-6035. T.W. Wood Gallery in Montpelier.

CALL TO ARTISTS

2024 SOLO EXHIBITION PROPOSALS: AVA’s exhibition committee of artists, art curators and art professionals seek proposals for solo shows from artists with strong connections to New Hampshire, Vermont and the greater New England region. Details at avagallery.org. Deadline: March 31. AVA Gallery and Art Center, Lebanon, N.H. $50. Info, 603-448-3117.

‘ALL THE FEELS’: The S.P.A.C.E. Gallery in Burlington invites artists to submit work that exudes emotion for a February 3 to March 25 exhibition. How do you feel during the creation process? Does the content of your work bring joy, angst, humor? We all want to feel connected and artwork bridges many paths. Apply at spacegallervt.com. Deadline: January 28. Online. Info, spacegalleryvt@gmail.com.

‘BEACON OF LIGHT’: This social commentary exhibit invites artists to challenge viewers to consider our day, our options and what our country represents or could embody moving forward. Show dates: March 15 to April 29. Deadline: January 28. Details at studioplacearts. com. Studio Place Arts, Barre. $10; free for SPA members. Info, submissions.studioplacearts@ gmail.com.

CREATIVE SECTOR GRANTS, ROUND 2:

Awards of up to $200,000 are available to creative sector organizations and businesses, including sole proprietors that can demonstrate economic harm caused by or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Funding amounts are based on 2019 operating revenue and can be used for any regular operating expenses, such as payroll and benefits, utilities, rent and insurance. Details and application at vermontartscouncil. org. Deadline: February 28. Online. Info, 402-4409.

CVRAN 2023 MARCH ARTS MARATHON:

The Central Vermont Refugee Action Network invites artists to commit to a daily creative practice making paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings, fabric art or other. The artists’ sponsors receive daily copies of the artwork. Funds raised helps CVRAN assist 19 asylum seekers and nine Afghan refugees with housing, living expenses and legal fees. Sigh up at cvvran.org. Online. Through February 28. Free. Info, nicolamorris@mac.com.

DIANE GABRIEL VISUAL ARTIST AWARD:

Burlington City Arts announces the opening of the application period for this annual award provided by the family of the late Burlington artist (1947-2017). The awardee receives a prize valued at $2,500, with their work showcased via BCA promotion and social media. Details and application at burlingtoncityarts.org. Deadline: March 17. Online. Info, jobrien@burlingtoncityarts.org.

‘ONE + ONE IS MORE THAN TWO’: This show is about multiple artworks by an artist that

HEIDI COMJEAN: Playful, nature-inspired folk art. Through February 9. Info, 225-6232. Filling Station in Middlesex.

JONI CLEMONS & TERRY J. ALLEN: New mixedmedia assemblages and porcelain tableware, respectively. Through February 14. Info, 456-8770. Adamant Co-op.

MEMBERS SHOWCASE: An exhibition of artworks by Karen Schaefer, Preya Holland, Paul Markowtz, JC Wayne and others. Through January 31. Info, info@ cal-vt.org. Center for Arts and Learning in Montpelier.

PHILLIP ROBERTSON & ED EPSTEIN: Relief prints and charcoal drawings, respectively, by the Vermont artists. Through February 28. Info, 229-6206. North Branch Nature Center in Montpelier.

RICHARD MOORE: “Urban Revision,” digital inkjet prints on birch bark. Through January 29. Info, 603-491-0943. The Front in Montpelier.

relate to each other as a group, in some cases using repetition of pattern, form, shape, color and comparative imagery. Show dates: May 10 to June 24. Deadline: March 25. Details at studioplacearts.com. Studio Place Arts, Barre. $10; free for SPA members. Info, submissions. studioplacearts@gmail.com.

‘SPARK!’: The Birds of Vermont Museum’s 2023 art show seeks works that tell the story of your spark as it relates to birds, birding, conservation, science, art, love or something else. Up to three works of art in almost any media, by new or returning artists of any age, may be submitted. Details at birdsofvermont. org. Deadline: March 20. Online. Info, museum@ birdsofvermont.org.

VERMONT STUDENT WILDLIFE ART CONTEST: The second annual contest and exhibition is open to all Vermont students in grades 7 to 12. The top 40 entries will be exhibited at the Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro; 10 of those will be awarded cash prizes. Details and application at vtwildlifeeducationfund.org. Deadline: March 17. Online.

VERMONT WATERCOLOR SOCIETY: Members are invited to submit works on the theme of “Emergence” for a juried spring exhibition at the Emile A. Gruppe Gallery. Nonmembers may join the association and submit, as well. Details and entry form at vtwatercolor.org. Deadline: February 28. Online. Info, 673-8087.

‘WHAT MAKES A LAKE?’: Another Earth is seeking submissions from Vermont artists and current or former residents of photography, cyanotypes, drawings, writing, video stills, field recordings and historical images that are in some way connected to Lake Champlain. Those accepted will be included in a visual guide to what makes a lake, published in spring 2023. Details and submission instructions at another-earth.com. Online. Through January 31. Info, anotherearthsubmissions@gmail.com.

‘THE WONDER OF LIGHT’: The gallery is soliciting artwork for a February exhibit that depicts the strong influence of light: highlights, shadow, dramatic effects, mood. Any medium is acceptable. Interested artists can submit two images for consideration at melmelts@yahoo. com. Deadline: January 30. The Satellite Gallery, Lyndonville. $20.

WRIF EMERGING FILMMAKERS: In March, the 18th White River Indie Film festival will precede feature films with selected shorts. All self-identifying emerging filmmakers who are residents of Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Québec are eligible to submit. Those selected will be notified of screening date/time prior to the festival. Three will be awarded cash prizes. Details and submission form at uvjam. org. Deadline: March 4. Online. Free. Info, 295-6688.

WAYA USDI: Digital art, pen and ink and painting. Through February 13. Info, 479-0896. Espresso Bueno in Barre.

stowe/smuggs

ANDREA PEARLMAN: “Two Thousand Light Years From Home,” abstract oil paintings, drawings and hooked rugs that express plastic space, volume and movement. Through January 26. Info, 635-2727. Red Mill Gallery, Vermont Studio Center, in Johnson.

ROSS CONNELLY: “Protest,” black-and-white photos from demonstrations in Washington, D.C., 1967 through 1969. Reception and artist talk: Thursday, January 19, 3 p.m. Through February 10. Info, 635-1469. Julian Scott Memorial Gallery, Northern Vermont University, in Johnson.

SCOTT LENHARDT: An exhibition of graphic designs for Burton Snowboards created since 1994 by the Vermont native. Through October 31. Info, 253-9911. Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum in Stowe.

mad river valley/waterbury

KIMBERLY HARGIS: “Close to Home: Photography From a 30-Mile Radius,” images from the natural world and human community around Thetford, Vt. Reception: Friday, January 20, 6-8 p.m. Through March 31. Info, 244-7801. Axel’s Frame Shop & Gallery in Waterbury.

MIREILLE CLAPP: A retrospective of artworks by the late artist and mechanical/industrial engineer, featuring mixed-media wall sculptures and freestanding abstract pieces of welded metals. Through March 25. Info, 496-6682. Mad River Valley Arts Gallery in Waitsfield.

middlebury area

FROBERTAN (FRAN BULL AND ROBERT BLACK): “We’re All at a Party Called Life on Earth,” a carnivalesque art installation of painted sculptures that celebrates humanity, harmony and diversity. Through February 18. Info, 382-9222. Jackson Gallery, Town Hall Theater, in Middlebury.

‘PORTRAIT: SELF AND OTHERS’: A group exhibition of portrait photography juried by Aline Smithson. Through January 20. Info, photos@photoplacegallery. com. PhotoPlace Gallery in Middlebury.

SARA KATZ: “Inner Landscapes,” new abstract paintings that explore botanical forms. Through January 31. Info, 458-0098. Edgewater Gallery at the Falls in Middlebury.

‘SOLACE’: Artworks by Anne Cady, Bonnie Baird, Jessica Parker Foley, Chelsea Granger, Julia Jensen, Hannah Sessions, Pamela Smith, Susanne Strater and Carla Weeks that respond to the question, “What do you turn to?” Through January 31. Info, 877-2173. Northern Daughters in Vergennes.

rutland/killington

JUST IMAGINE: A HOLIDAY GIVING MARKET: Handcrafted wares including pottery, stained glass, jewelry, photography, ornaments, dolls, and original works by more than 30 Vermont artists. Through January 29. Info, 247-4956. Brandon Artists Guild.

MEMBERS’ EXHIBIT: Works in a variety of mediums fill the mansion in themed galleries: “Resolutions,” “Frozen” and “Breathe Deep.” Through March 3. Info, 775-0356. Chaffee Art Center in Rutland.

upper valley

ABRAHAM DUNNE: “Finds on a Hartland Farm,” relics compiled by the Sharon Academy freshman. Through March 31. Info, info@mainstreetmuseum.org. Main Street Museum in White River Junction.

‘I NEVER SAW IT THAT WAY: EXPLORING SCIENCE THROUGH ART: This self-curated exhibition of mixed-media works by artists, sculptors, photographers and crafters on the museum staff considers science from fresh perspectives. Through January 31. Info, 649-2200. Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich.

KATIE ROBERTS: Artworks in a variety of mediums by the nature artist, who is inspired by plants, animals and weather. Through February 28. Info, 359-5000. Vermont Institute of Natural Science in Quechee.

MEMBERS HOLIDAY PRINT SHOW: Prints by studio members, original prints on handmade greeting cards, and small matted prints for sale. Also online at tworiversprintmaking.org. Through January 30. Info, 295-5901. Two Rivers Printmaking Studio in White River Junction.

RICH FEDORCHAK: “Other Worlds,” mixed-media collage and video art that explores a utopian future and the role of art in healing the violence of the 21st century. Through January 31. Info, 295-6688. Junction Arts & Media in White River Junction.

northeast kingdom

‘COMING CLEAN’: An exhibition that considers bathing practices throughout time and across cultures, including religious immersion and ritual purification, bathing as health cure, methods of washing in extreme environments, and much more. All kinds of bathing and scrubbing implements are on display. Through April 30. Info, 626-4409. The Museum of Everyday Life in Glover.

LARRY GOLDEN: “Larger Than Life,” nude figure studies by the Northeast Kingdom artist and educator. Hanging mosaic lamps by Mary Tapogna highlight the work. Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays. . Info, 229-8317. The Satellite Gallery in Lyndonville.

OPEN AIR GALLERY: Outdoor sculptures by 14 area artists line a 1.8-mile trail open to cross-country skiers and snowshoers. Through March 26. Free. Info, 5332000. Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro.

Moving UPPER VALLEY « P.53

Parts «

Why did you start collecting glasses in the first place?

No matter how much my weight fluctuates, my eyeglasses will always fit. That’s why I always invest in high-quality eyewear. People always comment on them, and I appreciate them as works of design.

At what age did you start wearing glasses?

This is a funny story. I think I ruined my eyes. At age 9, my cousin Jeremy got a pair of glasses, and I was jealous. So, I went into an optometrist and lied about my eyesight so I could get glasses.

I trust you haven’t continued to lie? No.

Myopia?

Yes, I’m nearsighted.

In the posts, I love the way you place yourself in front of some dramatic backdrop, such as the mirror that frames your head like a crown. You gotta make it interesting. The canvas I’m working with is not that extraordinary.

Where do you find your glasses?

I usually look online or on Instagram. I source them in a variety of places — California, Oklahoma, New York, Montréal. But I’ve bought more pairs

VICTORIA MATHEISEN: Recent landscape paintings in oil. Through March 8. Info, 525-3366. Parker Pie in West Glover.

‘WINTER BLOSSOMS’: Floral art by Benjamin Barnes, Sachiko Yashida Zahler and Robert Chapla. Through February 25. Info, 748-0158. Northeast Kingdom Artisans Guild Backroom Gallery in St. Johnsbury.

brattleboro/okemo valley

‘WE FEEL OUR WAY THROUGH WHEN WE DON’T KNOW’: A group exhibition of works by Mariel Capanna, Oscar Rene Cornejo, Cheeny CelebradoRoyer, Vessna Scheff, Gerald Euhon Sheffield II and Lachell Workman, guest-curated by Michael Jevon Demps, that address themes of community, memory, dissonance, displacement, intimacy and loss. Through February 12. ALISON MORITSUGU: “Moons and Internment Stones,” watercolor paintings of rocks gathered by the artist’s grandfather while he was imprisoned at the Santa Fe Internment Camp during World War II paired with oil paintings of the moon. Through February 12. JUDITH KLAUSNER: “(De)composed,” sculptures of objects usually considered ruined, meticulously crafted from a child’s modeling medium, expressing a reevaluation of the under-appreciated. Through March 4. MADGE EVERS: “The New Herbarium,” works on paper using mushroom spores and plant matter as artistic mediums. Through February 12. OASA DUVERNEY: “Black Power Wave,” a window installation of drawings by the Brooklyn artist, inspired by images of Chinese Fu dogs, the cross and the Yoruba deity Èsù. Through May 6. RENATE ALLER: “The Space Between Memory and Expectation,” an immersive installation of large-format photographs of mountains, glaciers, trees, ocean and other natural landscapes, plus an assemblage of lichen-covered rocks from the West Brattleboro home of artists Wolf Kahn and

Emily Mason. Through February 12. Info, 257-0124. Brattleboro Museum & Art Center.

‘IN AWE, COEXISTENCE AND MINDFULNESS OF LIFE’: An exhibition of paintings by Vermont artists Judy Hawkins, Carol Keiser and MC Noyes. Reception: Friday, January 20, 5-7 p.m Through February 11. Info, artinfo@canalstreetartgallery.com. Canal Street Art Gallery in Bellows Falls.

‘SNOW SHOW’: Paintings in a winter theme by eight artists in the Hall collection. Through February 26. Info, info@hallartfoundation.org. Hall Art Foundation in Reading.

manchester/bennington

GAIL WINBURY: “The Girl Who Drew Memories,” large-scale abstract paintings and collage. Through February 25. Info, 367-1311. Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester.

randolph/royalton

‘CREATIVE COLLABORATION: THE ART OF DEBORAH AND MICHAEL SACKS’: Printmaking and photography by the married artists. Artists’ talk: Sunday, February 19, 2 p.m. Through March 19. Info, 889-9404. Tunbridge Public Library.

VERMONT ARTISTS GROUP SHOW: Thirteen featured artists present paintings, drawings, photography, basketry and more. Through January 29. Info, artetcvt@gmail.com. ART, etc. in Randolph.

online

‘ACTION FIGURES: OBJECTS IN MOTION’: A virtual exhibition from the Shelburne Museum that explores the theme of movement and action in art. Through April 30. Free. Info, 985-3346. Online.

outside vermont

‘DIANE ARBUS: PHOTOGRAPHS, 1956-1971’: Nearly 100 black-and-white prints shot by the late American photographer primarily around New York City. Through January 29. ‘SEEING LOUD: BASQUIAT AND MUSIC’: The first large-scale multimedia exhibition devoted to the role of music in the work of the innovative American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, organized in collaboration with the Philharmonie de Paris museum. Through February 19. ‘VIEWS OF WITHIN: PICTURING THE SPACES WE INHABIT’: More than 60 paintings, photographs, prints, installations and textile works from the museum’s collection that present one or more evocations of interior space. Through June 30. Info, 514-285-2000. Montréal Museum of Fine Arts.

NELSON HENRICKS: Immersive video installations by the Montréal artist in which visual and sound editing create a musical dynamic, and which explore subjects from the history of art and culture. Meet the artist: Wednesday, January 18, 5:30 p.m. Through April 10. Info, 514-847-6226. Montréal Museum of Contemporary Art.

PARK DAE SUNG: “Ink Reimagined,” 23 ink paintings, some on view for the first time in the U.S., by the renowned Korean artist; curated by Sunglim Kim, Dartmouth College associate professor of art history. Through March 19. Info, 603-646-3661. Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, in Hanover, N.H.

‘UNCONDITIONAL’: A group exhibition about dogs and other beloved pets. Reception: Friday, February 3, 4-5:45 p.m. Through February 11. Info, 603-4483117. AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon, N.H. ➆

“Trumpeting Elephant Bell Toy”

than anywhere at the Optical Center in Burlington. I’ve been a very good customer for 10 years.

Do you have some everyday hang-outat-home specs that you throw on in the morning?

I have several pairs of those, by Oliver Peoples. They tend to be very lightweight metal.

What would be suitable for wearing to a Congressional hearing?

Those would be my [Jacques Marie Mage] Jax glasses — heavy black acetate, very

classy, not overstated. That’s what I would wear if I were being grilled.

Farmers market?

Good question. I think I would do my gold-rimmed glasses that I just got from Oliver Peoples. They’re octagonal and have beautiful pierce work on them. They emulate these patterns that Japanese eyewear makers do.

Date night with Jonathan [Mikulak, husband].

That would have to be his favorite pair. They’re made by a Japanese company

called KameManNen — simple, round glasses, not fussy, high quality.

Staff meeting.

I would probably wear my bright Sabine Be glasses. They’re distracting and throw off my colleagues.

If you were to mount a show of your glasses, how would you display them and, ideally, where would it be?

I would make plaster casts of the top portion of my head, set them on that, and paint [the heads] in the different colors of my moods. I’d have them in a circle so people would be immersed in the Kory Rogers experience. Where? Maybe the Round Barn.

Have you ever wanted to just get LASIK?

No, never. I think if I were forced to do it for medical reasons, I would still get glasses. Or I would just wear sunglasses all the time, like Bono. Or Anna Wintour, that’s even better. ➆

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity and length.

INFO

“The parish believes that the razing of the Church is the best way to help our parishioners cope with the loss of this parish, cleanse the site, and prevent any future non-sacred use of the property.” 1

“To re-use it would be very problematic. Very problematic. Especially if it was an art venue, because the art world, the plays that could be put on, the things that would be said would be so abhorrent to Catholic faith and tradition that it would be appalling.

And you have to admit if you’re having a public space, you'd have to allow anything to take place in it. Do I need to say more on that? That is the main reason part of the discussion with our parishioners in regards to this space is that you just cannot have sordid events taking place where the celebration of the Eucharist was so central to that community and to that faith.”2

ROUTHIER

Joseph’s

music+nightlife

S UNDbites

News and views on the local music + nightlife scene

BY CHRIS FARNSWORTH

From Brattleboro With Love

To say that 2022 was a big year for indie rockers THUS LOVE would be an understatement. The Brattleboro threepiece dropped a killer single/video for “Inamorato,” signed with Brooklyn record label CAPTURED TRACKS and, in October, released its hugely impressive debut LP, Memorial.

THUS LOVE garnered attention far and wide and became an overnight sensation. The band popped up in magazines Rolling Stone and BrooklynVegan and in across-the-pond publications such as NME and the Guardian. As the trio is readying the release of two brand-new singles, it’s taking o for a European tour supporting English post-punk group (and 2022 Waking Windows headliners) DRY CLEANING

Before hitting the road, THUS LOVE play a home stand/tour send-o at the Stone Church in Brattleboro this Saturday and Sunday, January 21 and 22.

For band members ECHO MARS (guitar and vocals), LU RACINE (drums) and NATHANIEL VAN OSDOL (bass), it’s been something of a whirlwind but one they’re enjoying the hell out of so far.

“We can’t really wrap our heads around it,” Racine said in a recent Zoom convo. “Waking up one day and hearing we were in the Guardian … When we found out we were going to the UK, I’ve never felt that excited about anything in my entire life.”

For Mars, the process of navigating the group’s sudden success is twofold.

“We definitely have a vision of the future,” Mars said. “But you have to leave room for change.”

“You have to allow yourself to be in the headspace to experience joy,” Racine added.

The band formed in 2019, when all three of the self-identifying trans artists moved into a one-bedroom apartment. After studying instructional YouTube videos, Mars built a home studio, and the trio set about recording Memorial, an album brimming with post-punk and ’80s-leaning new-wave sounds.

The musicians have since settled in a communal art space in the Buoyant

Heart, a two-story building that connects to the Estey Organ Museum. They’ve created a home for themselves even as they prepare to embark on a European tour.

“This industry is based on travel,” Mars said. “There will always be periods of time where we have to be away, so … it [is] a silly option for us to move somewhere else.”

If they moved, she said, they’d be paying more rent to live in a city they would hardly get to spend any time in, anyway.

“Having a home like Brattleboro that feels more grounding than, say, somewhere like New York City does wonders for our demeanor and health,” she explained.

That’s not to say the band isn’t leveling up in other ways. Both van Osdol and Racine noted how di erent recording their two most recent singles felt from making Memorial. They still worked with producer MATTHEW PAUL, who mixed and mastered their debut, but rather than record it in an apartment,

they went to Guilford Sound studios, where Paul works.

The first of those singles, “Put on Dog,” came out on Wednesday, January 18, complete with a video shot in NYC and directed by MIN SOO PARK. The track, a STOOGES-esque rocker, erupts from the speakers with equal parts ferocity and e ortless cool. The title comes from an expression popular in the 1920s to describe getting a glow-up or dressing in one’s best finery.

“In 2023, self-expression is still a challenge,” the band wrote in the press release for the single. “From the old twenties to the new twenties, we’re bringing it back, but for the gays this time.”

THUS LOVE will release another single in February.

“It’s just so refreshing to have something come out so quickly,” Mars said. “The songs are more recent than the ones on Memorial, so there’s more catharsis in playing them now.”

Given how the past year has gone for THUS LOVE, who knows who they’ll be once they return to Brattleboro after their tour. It’s exciting to watch a talented young group grow into itself.

Awards Season

The 2022 Vermont Hip Hop Awards winners have been announced and include some familiar names and a few surprises. Compiled by the site’s founder, JUSTIN BOLAND, aka WOMBATICUS REX (who is also a frequent Seven Days freelance writer), the awards polled 141 eligible voters for their best-of picks. (Disclosure: I was one of the voters. I called a few winners, missed a few and, yes, had to google a few of the nominees.)

Here’s a quick rundown of the winners. For more details on the nominees and the voting process, be sure to head over to vermonthiphop.com.

After a big year that included signing with INTERSCOPE imprint label LVRN and releasing his debut LP, LaZy, but i have goals (Banned From Vermont), NORTH AVE JAX took home the Artist of the Year award — no surprise there. Did someone ban North Ave Jax, by the way? Like, from what? I think METALLICA is still banned after a loud show in Essex back in the ’90s, but as far as I know that’s it for our banned artist list. Nobody ban North Ave Jax, please. We need all the rappers we can get up here, people.

MAVSTAR snagged the Most Improved award, edging out HAKIM XOXO and HEADY

THUS LOVE at ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain on New Year’s Eve

BETTY on the strength of his NASTEEproduced single “Alpha Centauri” and accompanying video.

KONFLIK holds down the Best Emcee award for another year after his 2022 win. As fine as the competition is, with ferociously good record Head of a Snake, Thumbs of a Thief, Konflik wasn’t losing this year.

RICO JAMES brought home Best Producer, 99 NEIGHBORS unsurprisingly retained the Best Group title, and DJ KANGANADE managed to win the ever-competitive Best DJ award. CAPES pulled off an upset win over scene mainstay ESKAE1 for the crown of Best Graffiti Artist.

My favorite award every year is Best Verse, simply because it’s always such a good competition. For its tiny size, Vermont boasts some fine MCs, and few have the sheer lyrical prowess and speedy flow of Montpelier-based rapper JARV. His verse on “Getting You Up to Speed” just edged out RIVAN, who won votes for two incredible verses: one on ROBSCURE’s “Pilot” and the other on the FATTIE B track “Groove Gladiators.”

North Ave Jax and Robscure tied for Best Song for “Eastside” and “Pilot,” respectively. Ditto ASAH MACK and Jarv for the Best Music Video award, with “Checkmate” and “Blue” finishing in a dead heat.

99 Neighbors took home the Best

Live Performance, and radio DJ extraordinaire and current Burlington City Council candidate MELO GRANT won the ANDY “A_DOG” WILLIAMS Good Citizen award.

Fattie B’s sprawling, guest artist-laden LP GUMBO squeaked past the competition for Best Album. If you checked out my end-of-year lists a few weeks ago, you’ll know how hard I agree with GUMBO bringing home the silverware. What a record.

There you have it! Congrats to the winners and nominees. 2022 was a banner year for hip-hop in the Green Mountains, and 2023 looks to be even better.

Hey, Joe

Following a sold-out ALISA AMADOR performance in November, the Richmond Congregational Church hosts another night of touring musicians this month. On Tuesday, January 24, the church welcomes the truly unique duo of LARRY & JOE

A native of Monagas, Venezuela, LARRY BELLORÍN is a legend of llanera music in his home country. He met JOE TROOP after seeking asylum in North Carolina. Troop, a Grammy-nominated bluegrass musician, soon joined forces with Bellorín to create a musical fusion the duo call “Latingrass.” To purchase tickets, visit larryandjoe.com/tour. ➆

Fattie B

CLUB DATES music+nightlife

live music

WED.18

Bluegrass & BBQ (bluegrass) at Four Quarters Brewing, Winooski, 6:30 p.m. Free.

Blues Jam with Nobby Reed (blues) at Twiggs — An American Gastropub, St. Albans, 7 p.m. Free.

Jazz Night with Ray Vega (jazz) at Hotel Vermont, Burlington, 8:30 p.m. Free.

Jazz Sessions with Randal Pierce (jazz open mic) at the 126, Burlington, 8:30 p.m. Free.

Live Jazz (jazz) at Leunig’s Bistro & Café, Burlington, 6:30 p.m. Free.

RRRC (funk, jam) at Nectar’s, Burlington, 7 p.m. $10/$20.

Sarah Bell (folk) at Bent Nails Bistro, Montpelier, 7:30 p.m. Free.

Wednesday Night Dead (Grateful Dead covers) at Zenbarn, Waterbury Center, 7 p.m. $5.

THU.19

Alex Stewart Quartet and Special Guests (jazz) at the 126, Burlington, 9 p.m. Free.

AliT (singer-songwriter) at the Filling Station, Middlesex, 6 p.m. Free.

Bearded Belligerents (metal) at Charlie-O’s World Famous, Montpelier, 8 p.m. Free.

Bittersweet Sunset (folk) at Bent Nails Bistro, Montpelier, 9 p.m. Free.

Bow, Jack & Krishna (folk) at Babes Bar, Bethel, 7 p.m. Free.

Cole Davidson, Evelyn Cormier (singer-songwriter) at Higher Ground Showcase Lounge, South Burlington, 7:30 p.m. $10/$15.

Cooie & Adlai (acoustic) at Folino’s, Williston, 5:30 p.m. Free.

David Karl Roberts (singersongwriter) at Positive Pie, Hardwick, 6 p.m. Free.

Grace Palmer and Socializing for Introverts (rock) at Red Square, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

Jack Hanson (jazz) at Foam Brewers, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

Organically Good Trio (reggae) at Pickle Barrel Nightclub, Killington, 8 p.m. Free.

Shane Murley Band (rock) at On Tap Bar & Grill, Essex Junction, 6 p.m. Free.

FRI.20

10th Annual Home for the Holidays Benefit with Troy Millette & the Fire Below, Emma Cook & Questionable Company, Ryan Sweezey, Citizen Bare, Christopher Gregory (Americana, pop) at 14th Star Brewing, St. Albans, 5 p.m. Free (Donation).

90 Proof (covers) at On Tap Bar & Grill, Essex Junction, 9 p.m. Free.

Abby BK (singer-songwriter) at the Tap Room at Switchback Brewing, Burlington, 5 p.m. Free.

THU.19 // ALIT [SINGER-SONGWRITER]

Find the most up-to-date info on live music, DJs, comedy and more at sevendaysvt.com/music. If you’re a talent booker or artist planning live entertainment at a bar, nightclub, café, restaurant, brewery or coffee shop, send event details to music@sevendaysvt.com or submit the info using our form at sevendaysvt.com/postevent.

Please contact event organizers about vaccination and mask requirements.

Jack Hanson (piano) at the Venetian Soda Lounge, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

Lazy Bird (funk) at Red Square, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

Lee Ross, Mike MacDonald (funk, jam) at Moogs Joint, Johnson, 9 p.m. Free.

Left Eye Jump (blues) at Red Square, Burlington, 2 p.m. Free.

Loud Moon (folk) at the Den at Harry’s Hardware, Cabot, 6 p.m. Free.

Mavstar, Konflik, McHumble, Old Growth Souljourner, Sed One, DJ Kanga (hip-hop) at Charlie-O’s World Famous, Montpelier, 9:30 p.m. Free.

Mitch & Devon (covers) at On Tap Bar & Grill, Essex Junction, 5 p.m. Free.

Moondogs, No Showers on Vacation (psych rock) at Nectar’s, Burlington, 8 p.m. $7.

The Path, Dearstreet, Dead Solace, Potter’s Field, Unbound (hardcore) at Monkey House, Winooski, 8 p.m. $10/$15.

Taking Control

South Royalton singer-songwriter Alison Turner, better known as ALIT, embraces a do-it-yourself ethos. A constant presence in the live music scene — Turner racked up around 150 shows per year pre-pandemic — she most often performs unaccompanied: just her, a guitar and a catalog of home-grown indie pop bangers. She applied a similar DIY spirit to her forthcoming LP, due in March. Turner took total control of her sound, writing, performing, engineering, mixing and mastering the entire record herself. This Thursday, January 19, Turner continues a monthlong residency at the Filling Station in Middlesex. She drop the new record’s first single, “Static,” the following day.

Annie in the Water, Waiting on Mongo (jam, funk) at Nectar’s, Burlington, 8 p.m. $12.

Dave Mitchell’s Blues Revue (blues) at Red Square, Burlington, 2 p.m. Free.

Duncan MacLeod (jazz) at Bleu Northeast Kitchen, Burlington, 7:30 p.m. Free.

Evan David Warner (rock) at the Venetian Soda Lounge, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

Fiddlehead Hollow (bluegrass) at Stone’s Throw Pizza, Richmond, 6 p.m. Free.

Grace Palmer (singer-songwriter) at Hotel Vermont, Burlington, 4 p.m. Free.

Hamjob (rock) at Monopole, Plattsburgh, N.Y., 10 p.m. Free.

Happy Spangler, Swale, the Nancy Druids (indie rock) at Monkey House, Winooski, 8 p.m. $5/$10.

Jaded Ravins (Americana) at Whammy Bar, Calais, 7 p.m. Free.

Josh Jakab (singer-songwriter) at Taps Tavern, Poultney, 6 p.m. Free.

Mark Legrand & Sarah Munro, Wendigo (singer-songwriter, psych rock) at Bent Nails Bistro, Montpelier, 7:30 p.m. Free.

Michael Stridsberg (acoustic) at Gusto’s, Barre, 6 p.m. Free.

Milton Busker & the Grim Work (indie) at Jericho Café & Tavern, 7:30 p.m. Free.

Mirage (covers) at the Old Post, South Burlington, 8 p.m. Free.

The Natural Selection (covers) at On Tap Bar & Grill, Essex Junction, 5 p.m. Free.

Raised By Hippies (rock) at Red Square, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

Red Admiral (rock) at Stone Corral, Richmond, 7 p.m. Free.

Slightly Used (alternative) at Charlie-O’s World Famous, Montpelier, 9:30 p.m. Free.

Tyler Mast Band (folk rock) at Foam Brewers, Burlington, 8 p.m. Free.

SAT.21

Coane, Rowell & Schabner (folk) at Whammy Bar, Calais, 7 p.m. Free.

The Conniption Fits (covers) at Gusto’s, Barre, 9 p.m. Free.

Dark Star Project (Grateful Dead tribute) at 14th Star Brewing, St. Albans, 6 p.m. Free.

Duncan MacLeod Trio (jazz) at Jericho Café & Tavern, 7:30 p.m. Free.

Frostbite Bath, Drunk Off Diesel, Phantom Suns, Imposters, Shabadu (rock) at Monopole, Plattsburgh, N.Y., 10 p.m. Free.

High Summer, Japhy Ryder (groove) at Zenbarn, Waterbury Center, 8 p.m. $12.

InCahoots (covers) at On Tap Bar & Grill, Essex Junction, 9 p.m. Free.

Paul and Tracie Cassarino (jazz) at Bleu Northeast Kitchen, Burlington, 7:30 p.m. Free.

The Royals (covers) at Pickle Barrel Nightclub, Killington, 9 p.m. Free.

Some Hollow (Americana) at Bent Nails Bistro, Montpelier, 7:30 p.m. Free.

Tim Brick (country) at Stone Corral, Richmond, 7 p.m. Free.

Troy Millette (Americana) at 1st Republic Brewing, Essex Junction, 6 p.m. Free.

VSO Jukebox (classical) at Higher Ground Showcase Lounge, South Burlington, 6 p.m. $15/$20.

Young Tradition Vermont (folk) at Stone’s Throw Pizza, Richmond, 6 p.m. Free.

SUN.22

Eggy (jam) at Pickle Barrel Nightclub, Killington, 7 p.m. $15/$20.

Joe K. Walsh, Darol Anger and Grant Gordy, Bloodroot Gap (bluegrass) at Zenbarn, Waterbury Center, 7 p.m. $18.

Phil Henry, Rust and Ruin (country, rock) at Stage 33 Live, Bellows Falls, 3 p.m. $7/$10.

Sunday Brunch Tunes (singersongwriter) at Hotel Vermont, Burlington, 10 a.m.

Sunday Night Jazz with Steve Goldberg & Friends (jazz) at Butter Bar and Kitchen, Burlington, 6 p.m. Free.

Wonderkid (live looping) at Foam Brewers, Burlington, 1 p.m. Free.

TUE.24

Bluegrass Jam (bluegrass) at Taps Tavern, Poultney, 7 p.m. Free.

Chris Peterman Quartet (jazz) at Lawson’s Finest Liquids, Waitsfield, 5 p.m. Free.

Dead Set (Grateful Dead tribute) at Nectar’s, Burlington, 7 p.m. $10.

Nancy Smith (acoustic) at Bent Nails Bistro, Montpelier, 7:30 p.m. Free.

WED.25

Bluegrass & BBQ (bluegrass) at Four Quarters Brewing, Winooski, 6:30 p.m. Free.

Crooked Coast (rock) at Nectar’s, Burlington, 9 p.m. Free.

Jazz Night with Ray Vega (jazz) at Hotel Vermont, Burlington, 8:30 p.m. Free.

Jazz Sessions with Randal Pierce (jazz open mic) at the 126, Burlington, 8:30 p.m. Free.

J.D. Tolstoi (funk, jam) at Bent Nails Bistro, Montpelier, 7:30 p.m. Free.

Live Jazz (jazz) at Leunig’s Bistro & Café, Burlington, 6:30 p.m. Free.

Lotus (jam) at Higher Ground Ballroom, South Burlington, 8 p.m. $25/$30.

Nostranders, Phantom Suns (rock) at Monkey House, Winooski, 8 p.m. $5/$10.

Wednesday Night Dead (Grateful Dead covers) at Zenbarn, Waterbury Center, 7 p.m. $5.

djs

THU.19

DJ Chaston (DJ) at Red Square Blue Room, Burlington, 11 p.m. Free.

DJ Cre8 (DJ) at Black Flannel Brewing & Distilling, Essex, 6 p.m. Free.

DJ Two Sev (DJ) at Red Square, Burlington, midnight. Free.

Mi Yard Reggae Night with DJ Big Dog (reggae and dancehall) at Nectar’s, Burlington, 9:30 p.m. Free.

Molly Mood (DJ) at Red Square, Burlington, 10 p.m. Free.

Vinyl Night with Ken (DJ) at Taps Tavern, Poultney, 6 p.m. Free.

Vinyl Thursdays (DJ) at Hotel Vermont, Burlington, 5 p.m. Free.

FRI.20

DJ Craig Mitchell (DJ) at Red Square Blue Room, Burlington, 9 p.m. Free.

DJ Dance Party (DJ) at the Depot, St. Albans, 9 p.m. $5.

DJ Kaos (DJ) at Gusto’s, Barre, 9 p.m. Free.

DJ Kata (DJ) at Red Square, Burlington, 10 p.m. Free.

SAT.21

’80s Night Dance Party (DJ) at Einstein’s Tap House, Burlington, 10 p.m. $5.

BASSment 015 with Oddpaco (DJ) at Orlando’s Bar & Lounge, Burlington, 9 p.m. Free.

DJ A-Ra$ (DJ) at Red Square, Burlington, midnight. Free.

DJ Adam Bristol (DJ) at Foam Brewers, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

DJ Raul (DJ) at Red Square Blue Room, Burlington, 6 p.m. Free.

DJ Rice Pilaf (DJ) at Foam Brewers, Burlington, noon. Free.

Matt Payne (DJ) at Red Square Blue Room, Burlington, 10 p.m. Free.

Molly Mood (DJ) at Red Square, Burlington, 10 p.m. Free.

MON.23

Mo’ Monday with DJs Craig Mitchell and Fattie B (DJ) at Monkey House, Winooski, 7 p.m. Free.

TUE.24

Local Dork (DJ) at Foam Brewers, Burlington, 6 p.m. Free.

WED.25

Queer Bar Takeover (DJ) at Charlie-O’s World Famous, Montpelier, 7 p.m. Free.

open mics & jams

WED.18

Open Mic (open mic) at Monopole, Plattsburgh, N.Y., 10 p.m. Free.

Open Mic with Danny Lang (open mic) at Taps Tavern, Poultney, 7 p.m. Free.

THU.19

Open Mic (open mic) at Whammy Bar, Calais, 6:30 p.m. Free.

Open Mic (open mic) at Orlando’s Bar & Lounge, Burlington, 8:30 p.m. Free.

Open Mic Night (open mic) at Parker Pie, West Glover, 6:30 p.m. Free.

SUN.22

Open Mic Night with Justin (open mic) at Charlie-O’s World Famous, Montpelier, 7:30 p.m.

WED.25

Open Mic (open mic) at Monopole, Plattsburgh, N.Y., 10 p.m. Free.

Open Mic with Danny Lang (open mic) at Taps Tavern, Poultney, 7 p.m. Free.

comedy

WED.18

BFC Comedy Fundraiser (comedy) at Vermont Comedy Club, Burlington, 6:30 p.m. $20.

Standup Comedy Open Mic (comedy) at Vermont Comedy Club, Burlington, 8:30 p.m. Free.

Whale Tales: An Evening of Comedic Storytelling (comedy) at Club Metronome, Burlington, 6 p.m. Free.

THU.19

Indie Team Night (comedy) at Vermont Comedy Club, Burlington, 6:30 p.m. Free.

Joe Pera (comedy) at Higher Ground Ballroom, South Burlington, 6:30 p.m. $35/$39.

Live Comedy (comedy) at Bent Nails Bistro, Montpelier, 7 p.m. Free.

Mothra! A Storytelling/ Improv Comedy Show (comedy) at Vermont Comedy Club, Burlington, 8 p.m. Free.

FRI.20

River Butcher (comedy) at Comedy Centre Comedy Club, Rutland, 7 & 9 p.m. $25.

SAT.21

Bob Marley (comedy) at Barre Opera House, 5:30 & 8 p.m. $38.50.

Marino Live Comedy (comedy) at Catamount ArtPort, St. Johnsbury, 7 p.m. $25.

River Butcher (comedy) at Comedy Centre Comedy Club, Rutland, 7 & 9 p.m. $25.

SUN.22

Bob Marley (comedy) at Barre Opera House, 7 p.m. $38.50.

TUE.24

Comedy Open Mic (comedy) at the 126, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

WED.25

Standup Comedy Open Mic (comedy) at Vermont Comedy Club, Burlington, 8:30 p.m. Free.

trivia, karaoke, etc.

WED.18

Trivia Night (trivia) at Stone Corral, Richmond, 7 p.m. Free.

THU.19

Karaoke Night (karaoke) at Zenbarn, Waterbury Center, 7 p.m. Free.

Trivia & Nachos (trivia) at Four Quarters Brewing, Winooski, 6 p.m. Free.

Trivia Night (trivia) at Nectar’s, Burlington, 6:30 p.m. Free.

Trivia Thursday (trivia) at Spanked Puppy Pub, Colchester, 7 p.m. Free.

FRI.20

Drag Me to the Shore (drag show) at Higher Ground Showcase Lounge, South Burlington, 8:30 p.m. $20/$25.

SAT.21

OUT in the 802 Presents: Drag Bingo (drag bingo) at Alfie’s Wild Ride, Stowe, 3 p.m. Free.

SUN.22

Karaoke (karaoke) at the Venetian Soda Lounge, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

MON.23

Trivia with Brain (trivia) at Charlie-O’s World Famous, Montpelier, 8 p.m. Free.

TUE.24

Karaoke with DJ Party Bear (karaoke) at Charlie-O’s World Famous, Montpelier, 9:30 p.m. Free.

Trivia Night (trivia) at the Depot, St. Albans, 7 p.m. Free.

Tuesday Night Trivia (trivia) at Vermont Comedy Club, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free.

WED.25

Trivia Night (trivia) at Stone Corral, Richmond, 7 p.m. Free. ➆

PURSUANT TO VSA 32 H739, Sec. 21(b) THE COMMISSIONER OF BUILDINGS AND GENERAL SERVICES IS HEREBY AUTHORIZED TO SELL THE BUILDING AND LAND LOCATED AT 14-16 BALDWIN STREET IN MONTPELIER PURSUANT TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF 29 V.S.A. §166(b).

This property is being publicly advertised until February 03, 2023

A BID PACKAGE containing information about the property and sale procedures may be obtained online at bgs.vermont.gov/propertymanagement/sale. Informational packets will NOT be distributed via facsimile or email. The property will be open for inspection by potential bidders on January 25, 2023, from 10:00 AM until NOON and 2:00 PM until 4:00 PM.

Bids must be received no later than 2:00 P.M. on February 03, 2023. Any bids which have not been: (a) delivered, and (b) time and date stamped by the Department of Buildings and General Services Property Management Division, 133 State Street, 5th Floor, Montpelier VT 05633-5801 by 2:00 P.M, February 03, 2023, will not be opened and shall be unilaterally rejected. All accepted bids will be reviewed to determine compliance with the stated requirements. The State shall complete its review and notify the winning bidder by February 10, 2023. The property shall be sold to the bidder who submits the highest bid conforming to the requirements contained in the Notice of Bid Requirements and Sale Procedures and subject to the conditions and requirements contained in 29 V.S.A. §166. The State reserves the right to reject any and all offers. Electronic bids will NOT be accepted.

Bids shall be sent or delivered to:

Thomas Chagnon, Real Estate Manager I Department of Buildings & General Services 133 State Street, 5th Floor, Montpelier, VT 05633-5801

Jennifer M.V. Fitch, Commissioner Buildings and General Services, Montpelier VT Dated January 03, 2023

35th Parallel, Evolutia

(SELF-RELEASED, CD, DIGITAL)

Percussionist Gabe Halberg and multiinstrumentalist Mac Ritchey first met in 2000, bonding over their love of Middle Eastern, Indian and North African folk music. The central Vermont duo wasted little time in forming 35th Parallel, releasing its debut record, The Green Vine, in 2003, followed in 2006 by Crossing Painted Islands. The two albums showcased Halberg and Ritchey’s almost telepathic interplay and intricate songwriting and featured ace guest musicians such as composer Michael Chorney and bassist Rob Morse.

Fast-forward 17 years, and 35th

Parallel are finally back with Evolutia, a stunning, sonically sprawling record that was well worth the wait. On the band’s website, Halberg and Ritchey explain the long interval between records as the result of their being meticulous producers who adopted the motto “Don’t push the river” when it came to their new work. Songs were written, jammed on, rewritten, recorded, reworked, then rerecorded over the course of years as the two musicians searched for the perfect sound.

Evolutia began with the duo’s meeting with Boston-based cellist and composer Naseem Alatrash, whom they performed alongside in 2013 at a concert in Cambridge, Mass. The three struck up an instant rapport, developing a fusion of sounds that became the bedrock of Evolutia, as Ritchey and Alatrash deftly

weave melodies and chord progressions atop Halberg’s powerful work on the tabla.

The first track, “Tanagra,” finds Alatrash laying down a gorgeous, virtuoso cello performance in between Ritchey’s evocative figures on his oud, a Middle Eastern lute instrument. This more reserved number gives way to the almost frantic “Gibu Master,” a breathtaking composition in which all three players push their abilities to the max. The song culminates in a mouthwatering jam featuring a trumpet solo from Brian Boyes of the Saturn People’s Sound Collective.

“Harp Sketch” is perhaps the most e ective display of Halberg and Ritchey’s musical connection. While Halberg lays down a soft but persistent beat, Ritchey introduces a melodic theme with his meticulously slow strings that carries through the tune, creating a sonic palette colored in equal parts by tension and release. Like many of the songs on Evolutia, this one has

a cinematic quality; these are tunes brimming with drama.

On “Breakfast With Dolores,” the band delivers a sort of bluegrass-viaMarrakech sound. Ritchey and Halberg play out a mazy rhythm track while Alatrash introduces an almost subliminal drone that runs through much of the song. As the tune comes to an end, Alatrash transforms the drone into a cavalcade of notes that seem to flutter from the speakers like a bird taking flight.

“Ogre Under the Bonsai Tree” is something of a thesis for the album. In five-plus minutes, the song touches on every highlight of the record as Halberg, Ritchey and Alatrash lead the listener through one corridor after another of their world-fusion sound. Each musician has a moment to shine, and when one soars, the others quickly follow suit.

Evolutia is a stunning record with three world-class musicians giving their all. The album is available on most streaming services and at 35thparallel.com.

CHRIS FARNSWORTH

Bark Dog, holding pattern

(SELF-RELEASED, DIGITAL)

Bennington-based musician Blair Jasper straddles the tenuous line between pop and experimental music on their latest release, holding pattern. Jasper, a self-described “nonbinary experimental musician” who uses they/ them pronouns, releases music under the moniker Bark Dog. The project serves as a wide canvas of sounds and genres that Jasper pulls together into a joyously tenacious sound. Occasionally that sound strays into a mess, but more often than not, holding pattern coalesces into one very weird yet incessantly interesting record.

The album starts with an electronic hit of dopamine: “sample and hold.” Not to be confused with the Neil Young rocker from Young’s own bizarre album Trans, Jasper’s “sample and hold” charges in with an EDM beat before breaking apart into a cauldron of bubbling synths. More than halfway through the song, the synths suddenly give way to a gentle indie rock number and Jasper’s echo-laden vocal.

The shift is so abrupt that its initial e ect is jarring. Jasper isn’t exactly just sticking song bits together with Krazy Glue, but the musician is clearly indulging their stranger instincts. On the project’s Facebook page, Jasper writes that the album is “the end result of me not being

afraid to try weird shit and just have fun writing songs.”

holding pattern is certainly a record without fear. Jasper vacillates between indie rock, electronica and experimental sounds with little rhyme or reason and no sign of an overall theme. Rather than derail the record, that sense of anythingcan-happen propels the 11 tracks. From the fucked-up club vibe of “paradigm shifted” — with Jasper using studio trickery to pull their voice in multiple directions over a glitchy, stop-start beat — to the Gus Dapperton-esque indie rocker “dinghy,” Bark Dog lurches from one sound to the next like a chaotic force.

“general idea” approaches Flaming Lips territory as Jasper introduces a psychedelic element to their songwriting. They layer their voice in waves atop an acoustic guitar before dropping programmed beats, tittering synths and vocal samples that create a kind of streamlined, cacophonous

backing track. On first listen, it all seems like a hodgepodge, a painting with too many clashing colors. However, repeat listening reveals the record’s loose yet intriguing architecture.

Nowhere is that e ect more evident than on the head-scratching opus “limiter.” The song’s first two and a half minutes are the audio equivalent of a car crash. Jasper takes a seemingly free-form drum track, distorts the ever-loving hell out of it, breaks it up into shards and lays it on top of a gritty synth drone. That destroyed beat fades out into a gently strummed acoustic guitar as Jasper’s monotone vocal creeps in, revealing a surprise folk song hiding inside an industrial track. It’s emblematic of a record determined to be itself, sometimes sacrificing order for a sense of endless possibility.

holding pattern is available at barkdog. bandcamp.com.

CHRIS FARNSWORTH

in...

on screen

The Whale ★★★ REVIEW

The discourse around The Whale tired me out months before the new film from Darren Aronofsky reached local screens. First, a slew of festival honors led to talk of star Brendan Fraser winning an Oscar. Next, some critics assailed the film, in which Fraser plays an extremely obese man with the aid of prosthetics, as a gimmick and a vilification of fat people. And finally, The Whale outperformed other highly touted films at the box o ce, leading to a spirited counter-discourse claiming that critics are out of touch.

After all that talk, it was a relief just to see the movie. I wish I had liked it more.

The deal

Adapted by Samuel D. Hunter from his 2012 play of the same name, the entire film takes place in the dingy Idaho apartment of Charlie (Fraser), who makes his living teaching English composition online. Mourning the death of his lover, Alan, Charlie has spent years self-medicating with food at the expense of his health.

Alan’s sister (Hong Chau), a nurse, warns Charlie that congestive heart failure will kill him in the next few days without medical attention. But Charlie refuses to go to the hospital. Instead, he arranges a meeting with his estranged teenage daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), determined to reconcile with her. Meanwhile, a young missionary (Ty Simpkins) keeps showing up at the door, determined to save Charlie’s soul.

Will you like it?

The Whale makes us feel trapped. We spend nearly the whole running time inside Charlie’s apartment, where the curtains are drawn, casting the interior into a brownish gloom. Aronofsky’s use of the boxy Academy aspect ratio intensifies the claustrophobia.

Yet we also get a sense of how the apartment feels to Charlie: less a prison cell than a burrow or cocoon, a refuge from the unforgiving world that drove Alan to suicide. There, Charlie can hide behind his laptop screen with the camera turned o , dispensing advice to students in the melodious tones of a model teacher. Nearly immobilized by his prosthetics, Fraser delivers a riveting performance largely through his voice — by turns gentle, humorous, lyrical and despairing.

Some are o ended by the very premise of The Whale: a morbidly obese man

presented as an emblem of self-destruction. The movie o ers some undeniably sensationalist scenes of Charlie eating himself to death, with the camera lingering on shots of him shoveling 3 Musketeers bars and pizza into his mouth. But The Whale also presents Charlie as a full human being, someone with whom the audience empathizes throughout. Like Nicolas Cage’s alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas, he is always more than his illness.

Then, however, the screenplay goes a step further and reveals Charlie as saintly, his imminent death as an act of selfmartyrdom. And that’s where Hunter’s character study completely lost me.

The weak links are the two younger characters, particularly Ellie. While the playwright clearly wants us to see her as a volatile, rebellious teen, lashing out because her father abandoned her at a tender age, he amps up her gratuitous cruelty to a cartoonish degree. When her mom (Samantha Morton) pronounces her “evil,” I couldn’t help but agree.

Yes, Ellie is the vengeful Captain Ahab to Charlie’s hapless white whale (Moby Dick is referenced throughout). But her characterization as a scheming bad seed is a problem, because the whole plot hinges

on Charlie’s determination to consider Ellie his legacy, the one good thing he’s done in his life. Through dramatic contrivance, her unworthiness becomes a measure of his worthiness: Charlie believes so passionately in the deep-down goodness of all human beings that he will happily forfeit his life to give his seemingly terrible daughter a better start in hers.

But, one wonders, was it really impossible for Charlie to see Ellie all these years? How did this act of Christ-like selfsacrifice become the only thing he could do for her? The extremity of the situation doesn’t ring true.

Fraser and Chau give such heartfelt performances, and Charlie’s shut-in existence is so relatable in this pandemic era, that it’s no surprise the movie makes many viewers weep. But its central plot mechanism feels mendacious, as if Hunter didn’t trust us to care about Charlie without making him a paragon of secular virtues. We’re asked to marvel at the contrast between his “disgusting” body (in his words) and his beautiful mind, as if we weren’t capable of recognizing his humanity without seeing him as a saint dying for others’ sins. While Charlie insists on believing the best of his daughter, The

MARGOT HARRISON margot@sevendaysvt.com

IF YOU LIKE THIS, TRY...

THE WRESTLER (2008; HBO Max, rentable): Aronofsky seems to have a knack for giving seemingly washed-up movie stars the role of a lifetime. Mickey Rourke earned an Oscar nomination playing a down-and-out professional wrestler in this dark character study.

BLACK SWAN (2010; Disney+, rentable): My personal favorite Aronofsky movie is yet another exploration of the extreme things that people can do to their bodies — in this case, a ballerina (Natalie Portman) determined to suffer for her art.

BREAKING THE WAVES (1996; Kanopy, HBO Max, rentable): ere’s a weird strain of masochism in some arthouse cinema. e Whale reminded me of this Lars von Trier drama in which Emily Watson gave an Oscarnominated performance as a saintly woman who puts herself through hell to please her husband.

Whale seems to assume the worst of its audience.

Fraser gives a moving performance as a shut-in English teacher in Aronofsky’s compelling but contrived drama.

NEW IN THEATERS

MISSING: Storm Reid plays a girl who must use digital sleuthing to find her mom (Nia Long), who disappeared on a Colombian vacation, in this thriller from Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick. (111 min, PG-13. Essex)

WHEN YOU FINISH SAVING THE WORLD: Jesse Eisenberg makes his directorial debut with this comedy-drama in which Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhard play a mother and teenage son struggling to understand each other. (88 min, R. Playhouse)

CURRENTLY PLAYING

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATERHHH1/2 Director James Cameron returns to Pandora for this sequel in which Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his family face a new threat. (192 min, PG-13. Big Picture, Bijou, Capitol, Essex, Majestic, Palace, Paramount, Roxy, Star, Stowe)

BABYLONHHH Two young people set out to succeed in 1920s Hollywood in this ensemble epic from Damien Chazelle (La La Land), starring Diego Calva, Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt and Jean Smart. (188 min, R. Palace, Stowe)

BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVERHHH1/2 In Marvel Comics’ fictional African kingdom, the Wakandans mourn King T’Challa and protect their nation from new threats. (161 min, PG-13. Majestic)

BROKERHHHH In South Korea, two men take advantage of a church drop-off for unwanted babies to sell the children for adoption in this acclaimed drama from Hirokazu Koreeda. (129 min, R. Catamount, Roxy, Savoy)

CORSAGEHHHH Vicky Krieps plays Empress Elisabeth of Austria in this irreverent period piece. Marie Kreutzer directed. (114 min, NR. Roxy)

THE DEVIL CONSPIRACYHH A biotech company has satanic plans for the shroud of Turin in this horror flick directed by Nathan Frankowski. (111 min, R. Majestic)

EMPIRE OF LIGHTHHH Olivia Colman plays the manager of a movie theater in the early ’80s who is changed by her friendship with a young immigrant (Micheal Ward) in Sam Mendes’ drama. (115 min, R. Savoy)

EOHHHH1/2 This Palme d’Or nominee from director Jerzy Skolimowski explores modern Europe from the point of view of a donkey. With Sandra Drzymalska and Isabelle Huppert. (86 min, NR. Savoy)

THE FABELMANSHHHH A teen in midcentury Arizona sets out to become a filmmaker in Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed autobiographical drama, starring Michelle Williams and Gabriel LaBelle. (151 min, PG-13. Palace, Welden; reviewed 12/14)

A MAN CALLED OTTOHH1/2 In the American adaptation of Fredrik Backman’s bestseller A Man Called Ove, Tom Hanks plays a widower in need of a new lease on life. Marc Forster directed. (126 min, PG-13. Big Picture, Bijou, Capitol, Essex, Majestic, Palace, Roxy, Star)

M3GANHHH1/2 A robotics engineer (Allison Williams) makes the bad decision to introduce her young niece to her new lifelike creation in this viral horror flick. (102 min, PG-13. Bijou, Capitol, Essex, Majestic, Palace, Roxy, Star, Welden)

ON SACRED GROUND: Vermont-raised Rebecca Harrell Tickell codirected this drama about a journalist (William Mapother) assigned to cover the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. (86 min, PG-13. Roxy)

PLANEHHH Gerard Butler plays a pilot who makes a successful crash landing only to find more trouble on the ground in this action thriller from JeanFrançois Richet. (107 min, R. Capitol, Essex, Majestic, Palace)

PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISHHHHH Antonio Banderas again voices the titular cool cat in this animated adventure in which Puss seeks to restore his nine lives. (100 min, PG. Bijou, Capitol, Essex, Majestic, Palace, Paramount, Star, Stowe, Welden)

SKINAMARINKHHH1/2 Two young children wake to find their parents gone and their home a prison in Kyle Edward Ball’s low-budget horror film, which is already gathering a cult following. (100 min, R. Essex)

THE WHALEHHH Brendan Fraser plays an obese, shut-in English teacher at a critical life juncture in this drama directed by Darren Aronofksky, based on Samuel D. Hunter’s play. (117 min, R. Essex, Majestic, Marquis, Roxy, Savoy; reviewed 1/18)

WHITNEY HOUSTON: I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODYHH1/2 This biopic from Kasi Lemmons traces the R&B singer’s rise to mega-stardom. Naomi Ackie stars. (146 min, PG-13. Marquis, Welden)

OLDER FILMS AND SPECIAL SCREENINGS

CESAR CHAVEZ (Catamount, Wed 25 only)

FATHOM’S BIG SCREEN CLASSICS: ROMAN HOLIDAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY (Essex, Sun & Wed 25 only)

THE INVISIBLE CLASS (Catamount, Thu only)

MONSIEUR LAZHAR (Catamount, Wed 18 only)

THE QUARRY PROJECT (Savoy, Wed 18 only)

OPEN THEATERS

(* = upcoming schedule for theater was not available at press time)

*BIG PICTURE THEATER: 48 Carroll Rd., Waitsfield, 496-8994, bigpicturetheater.info

*BIJOU CINEPLEX 4: 107 Portland St., Morrisville, 888-3293, bijou4.com

*CAPITOL SHOWPLACE: 93 State St., Montpelier, 229-0343, fgbtheaters.com

CATAMOUNT ARTS: 115 Eastern Ave., St. Johnsbury, 748-2600, catamountarts.org

ESSEX CINEMAS & T-REX THEATER: 21 Essex Way, Suite 300, Essex, 879-6543, essexcinemas.com

*MAJESTIC 10: 190 Boxwood St., Williston, 878-2010, majestic10.com

MARQUIS THEATER: 65 Main St., Middlebury, 388-4841, middleburymarquis.com

*MERRILL’S ROXY CINEMAS: 222 College St., Burlington, 864-3456, merrilltheatres.net

*PALACE 9 CINEMAS: 10 Fayette Dr., South Burlington, 864-5610, palace9.com

*PARAMOUNT TWIN CINEMA: 241 N. Main St., Barre, 479-9621, fgbtheaters.com

PLAYHOUSE MOVIE THEATRE: 11 S. Main St., Randolph, 728-4012, playhouseflicks.com

SAVOY THEATER: 26 Main St., Montpelier, 229-0598, savoytheater.com

STAR THEATRE: 17 Eastern Ave., St. Johnsbury, 748-9511, stjaytheatre.com

*STOWE CINEMA 3PLEX: 454 Mountain Rd., Stowe, 253-4678, stowecinema.com

WELDEN THEATRE: 104 N. Main St., St. Albans, 527-7888, weldentheatre.com

Note: These capsule descriptions are not intended as reviews. Star ratings come from Metacritic unless we reviewed the film (noted at the end of the description). Find reviews written by Seven Days critic Margot Harrison at sevendaysvt.com/ onscreen-reviews.

M3GAN

calendar

JANUARY 18-25, 2023

WED.18

business

CHAMBER ANNUAL MEETING: Local business owners gather over dinner to enjoy a show by musical comedian Joey Voices. Barre Opera House, 5-7:15 p.m. $50; preregister. Info, 229-5711.

QUEEN CITY BUSINESS NETWORKING

INTERNATIONAL GROUP: Local professionals make crucial contacts at a weekly chapter meeting. Burlington City Arts, 11:15 a.m.-1 p.m. Free. Info, 829-5066.

dance

VERMONT BURLESQUE

FESTIVAL: Vermont’s vaudeville community comes together for five days of performances, classes and parties celebrating the institution’s 10th anniversary. See vermontburlesquefestival. com for full schedule. Various Barre and Burlington locations, 5-8 p.m. Prices vary. Info, 276-6362.

film

See what’s playing at local theaters in the On Screen section.

‘AMAZON ADVENTURE 3D’: Viewers experience 19thcentury explorer Henry Bates’ journey through the Amazon rainforest. Northfield Savings Bank 3D Theater: A National Geographic Experience, ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, Burlington, noon, 2 & 4 p.m. $3-5 plus regular admission, $14.50-18; admission free for members and kids 2 and under. Info, 864-1848.

ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN

FILM SERIES: ‘ALBERT

FREY: THE ARCHITECTURAL

INTERPRETER — PART II’: A film explores the revelatory career of Swiss midcentury architect Frey. Virtual option available. Burlington City Hall Auditorium, 6-7:30 p.m. Free. Info, 865-7166.

‘MONSIEUR LAZHAR’: An Oscar-nominated drama follows a Montréal middle school class grieving its beloved teacher and the Algerian substitute who helps them heal. Discussion follows. Catamount Arts Center, St. Johnsbury, 6 p.m. Free. Info, 748-2600.

‘MYSTERIES OF THE UNSEEN WORLD 3D’: Sparkling graphics take viewers on a mindbending journey into phenomena that are too slow, too fast or too small to be seen by the naked eye. Northfield Savings Bank 3D Theater: A National Geographic Experience, ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, Burlington, 11 a.m., 1 & 3 p.m. $3-5 plus regular admission, $14.50-18; admission free for members and kids 2 and under. Info, 864-1848.

‘THE QUARRY PROJECT’: A 40-minute film captures last summer’s sold-out, site-specific dance theater performance at Wells Lamson quarry. Q&A follows. Savoy Theater, Montpelier, 6-8 p.m. $5 suggested donation. Info, 229-0598.

‘SEA MONSTERS 3D’: An adventurous dolichorhynchops travels through the most dangerous oceans in history, encountering plesiosaurs, giant turtles and the deadly mosasaur along the way. Northfield Savings Bank 3D Theater: A National Geographic Experience, ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, Burlington, 11:30 a.m., 1:30 & 3:30 p.m. $3-5 plus regular admission, $14.50-18; admission free

for members and kids 2 and under. Info, 864-1848.

‘WINGS OVER WATER 3D’: Sandhill cranes, yellow warblers and mallard ducks make their lives along rivers, lakes and wetlands. Northfield Savings Bank 3D Theater: A National Geographic Experience, ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, Burlington, 10:30 a.m., 12:30, 2:30 & 4:30 p.m. $3-5 plus regular admission, $14.50-18; admission free for members and kids 2 and under. Info, 864-1848.

food & drink

COOK THE BOOK: Home chefs make a recipe from one of the library’s novels and share the dish at a potluck. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, noon-1 p.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

games

PUZZLE SWAP: Folks of all ages looking for a new challenge trade their old puzzles, accompanied by a picture and stored in a resealable bag. ADA accessible. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 2:30-5 p.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

WINTER TRIVIA ROUND 3: VERMONT SYMBOLS: Vexillologists and beyond bust out their knowledge in the hopes of advancing to the championship round. Courtesy of the Vermont Historical Society. 7-8 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 479-8500.

health & fitness

CHAIR YOGA: Waterbury Public Library instructor Diana Whitney leads at-home participants in gentle

stretches supported by seats. 10 a.m. Free. Info, 244-7036.

COMMUNITY CANDLELIT YOGA: Yogis of all levels find peace and community in a cozy scene. Wise Pines, Woodstock, 5:30-6:45 p.m. Donations accepted. Info, 432-3126.

language

IRISH LANGUAGE CLASS: Celticcurious students learn to speak an Ghaeilge in a supportive group. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

PAUSE-DÉJEUNER: DAVID VERMETTE: A scholar of Franco-American migration speaks to the Alliance Française of the Lake Champlain Region about this forgotten aspect of New England history. Noon-1 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, eriktrinkaus1@gmail.com.

SPANISH CONVERSATION: Fluent and beginner speakers brush up on their español with a discussion led by a Spanish teacher. Presented by Dorothy Alling Memorial Library. 5-6 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, programs@damlvt.org.

lgbtq

LGBTQ WINTER PRIDE FESTIVAL: Queer and trans skiers and winter enthusiasts descend on Stowe for a long weekend of slopes and spectacular parties. See winterrendezvous.com for full schedule. Various Stowe locations, 8 p.m. $35-55; $165-235 for festival pass. Info, info@winterrendezvous. com.

THRIVE QTPOC MOVIE NIGHT: Each month, Pride Center of Vermont virtually screens a movie centered on queer and trans people of color. 6:30 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, thrive@pridecentervt.org.

music

ZACH NUGENT UNCORKED: The sought-after guitarist plays a weekly loft show featuring live music, storytelling and special guests. Shelburne Vineyard, 6-9 p.m. Free. Info, 985-8222.

outdoors

SMUGGS 55+ SKI CLUB: Seniors who love to ski, snowboard and snowshoe hit the slopes after coffee and pastries. Smugglers’ Notch Resort, Jeffersonville, 9 a.m.-noon. $30 for season pass. Info, president@smuggs55plus.com.

sports

MIDDLEBURY’: Based on interviews with students of color, this hopeful play imagines an academic environment where everyone is treated equitably. Dance Theatre, Mahaney Arts Center, Middlebury College, 7-8:30 p.m. Free. Info, 443-6433.

words

‘THE MOST COSTLY JOURNEY’: COMMUNITY BOOK DISCUSSION: Alan Berolzheimer of Vermont Humanities leads a riveting conversation about the 2022 Vermont Reads pick. St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, 7-8 p.m. Free. Info, 748-8291.

VIRTUAL POETRY OPEN MIC: Wordsmiths read their work at an evening with local performance poet Bianca Amira Zanella. Presented by Phoenix Books. 7 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 855-8078.

THU.19 business

HIRING2DAYVT VIRTUAL JOB FAIR: The Vermont Department of Labor gives job seekers a chance to meet with employers from around the state. 11 a.m.-noon. Free. Info, 828-4000.

JANUARY MIXER & BOVAT AWARD PRESENTATION: Franklin County Regional Chamber of Commerce members ring in the new year and present the Timothy Bovat Civic Involvement Award to St. Albans local Karyn Rocheleau. People’s Trust, 25 Kingman St., St. Albans, 5:30-7:30 p.m. $5. Info, 524-2444.

crafts

KNIT FOR YOUR NEIGHBORS: Yarnsmiths create hats and scarves to be donated to the South Burlington Food Shelf. All supplies provided. ADA accessible. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 3-6 p.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

KNITTING GROUP: Knitters of all experience levels get together to spin yarns. Latham Library, Thetford, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 785-4361.

dance

VERMONT BURLESQUE FESTIVAL: See WED.18, 6-9 p.m.

education

All submissions must be received by Thursday at noon for consideration in the following Wednesday’s newspaper.

Find our convenient form and guidelines at sevendaysvt.com/postevent

Listings and spotlights are written by Emily Hamilton Seven Days edits for space and style. Depending on cost and other factors, classes and workshops may be listed in either the calendar or the classes section. Class organizers may be asked to purchase a class listing.

Learn more about highlighted listings in the Magnificent 7 on page 11.

film

music + nightlife

GREEN MOUNTAIN TABLE TENNIS CLUB: Ping-Pong players swing their paddles in singles and doubles matches. Rutland Area Christian School, 7-9 p.m. Free for first two sessions; $30 annual membership. Info, 247-5913.

MICHELOB ULTRA SKI BUM RACE SERIES: Teams of amateur skiers and snowboarders test their skills and speed at one of 10 downhill bouts. Killington Resort, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. $60; $250 per team. Info, events@killington.com.

theater

‘FREEDOM DREAMING: ENVISIONING AN ANTIRACIST

MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES AND COUNTER NARRATIVES IN VERMONT’S FOOD SYSTEM: K through 12 educators learn tools for teaching students about their local foodways and the labor and environmental issues involved. Vermont Historical Society, Barre, noon-4 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, jcirillo@shelburnefarms.org.

film

See what’s playing at local theaters in the On Screen section.

‘AMAZON ADVENTURE 3D’: See WED.18.

‘THE INVISIBLE CLASS’: The local chapter of Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness marks the statewide

Homelessness Awareness Day with a screening of this 2020 documentary. Catamount Arts Center, St. Johnsbury, 6 p.m. Free. Info, 748-2600.

‘MYSTERIES OF THE UNSEEN WORLD 3D’: See WED.18.

‘SEA MONSTERS 3D’: See WED.18.

UPSTREAM–DOWNSTREAM: A RIVER RESILIENCE FILM

FESTIVAL & PANEL DISCUSSION: North Branch Nature Center celebrates Vermont’s waterways with screenings of several local short films, followed by a discussion with aquatic experts. Pavilion Building, Montpelier, 6:30-9 p.m. Free. Info, 229-6206.

‘WINGS OVER WATER 3D’: See WED.18.

games

UNPLUGGED GAME NIGHT: Players nosh on pizza and play one of the library’s many board games (or one of their own).

Latham Library, Thetford, 5-7 p.m. Free; preregister for pizza. Info, librarian@thetfordlibrary.org.

health & fitness

MARTIN PAZZANI: The mountaineer and entrepreneur shares scientific evidence and stories from his own life suggesting that hiking promotes a longer, healthier life. Presented by Green Mountain Club. 7-8 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, gmc@greenmountainclub.org.

lgbtq

LGBTQ WINTER PRIDE FESTIVAL: See WED.18, 5:30 & 10 p.m.

music

GREENSKY BLUEGRASS: The folk phenomenons play hits from their latest album. The Flynn, Burlington, 8 p.m. $45.25-52.50. Info, 863-5966.

outdoors

AUDUBON WEST RUTLAND

MARSH BIRD WALK: Enthusiastic ornithologists go on a gentle hike and help out with the monthly marsh monitoring. Meet at the boardwalk on Marble Street. West Rutland Marsh, 8 a.m. Free. Info, birding@rutlandcountyaudubon. org.

politics

THOUGHT CLUB: Artists and activists convene to engage with Burlington‘s rich tradition of radical thought and envision its future. Democracy Creative, Burlington, 6-7:30 p.m. Free. Info, tevan@democracycreative.com.

VERMONT JUDICIARY COMMISSION ON DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION

COMMUNITY FORUM: Vermonters provide feedback about disparities in the justice system and how to fix them. Virtual option available. Bennington Criminal and Family Courthouse, 4-5 p.m. Free. Info, scott.griffith@vermont.gov.

talks

JON MATHEWSON: A presentation titled “What’s New in Dorset

FAMI LY FU N

Check out these family-friendly events for parents, caregivers and kids of all ages.

• Plan ahead at sevendaysvt.com/family-fun Post your event at sevendaysvt.com/postevent.

WED.18

burlington

BABYTIME: Librarians bring out books, rhymes and songs specially selected for young ones. Pre-walkers and younger.

Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 11-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

CRAFTERNOON: Crafts take over the Teen Space, from origami to stickers to fireworks in a jar. Ages 11 through 18.

Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 4-5 p.m. Free. Info, 540-2546.

STEAM SPACE: Kids explore science, technology, engineering, art and math activities. Ages 5 through 11. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 5-6:30 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

chittenden county

AFTERSCHOOL ACTIVITY: STEAM FUN: Little engineers and artists gather for some afternoon excitement. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 2-3 p.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

LEGO BUILDERS: Elementary-age imagineers explore, create and participate in challenges. Ages 8 and up, or ages 6 and up with an adult helper. ADA accessible. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 3-4:30 p.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

PLAY TIME: Little ones build with blocks and read together. Ages 1 through 4. Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 1010:45 a.m. Free. Info, 878-6956.

TEEN NIGHT: FOOD FOR THOUGHT: The Teen Advisory Board meets over pizza to brainstorm ideas for library programming. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 5-6 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 878-4918.

barre/montpelier

CHESS CLUB: Kids of all skill levels get one-on-one lessons and play each other in between. Ages 6 and up. KelloggHubbard Library, Montpelier, 3:30-5 p.m. Free. Info, 223-3338.

FAMILY GAME NIGHT: After community dinner, families stay on for a friendly round of board games or cards. Jaquith Public Library, Marshfield, 6:15-7:15 p.m. Free. Info, 426-3581.

HOMESCHOOL BOOK DISCUSSION: Middle-grade home students talk about Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi. Kellogg-Hubbard Library, Montpelier, 1-2:30 p.m. Free. Info, 223-3338.

MAGIC THE GATHERING & CRAFTS: Kids play card games or get artsy at a weekly get-together. Ages 8 through 15. Jaquith Public Library, Marshfield, 3-6 p.m. Free. Info, 426-3581.

mad river valley/ waterbury

TEEN ART CLUB: Crafty young’uns ages 12 through 18 construct paper jellyfish lanterns to bring underwater ambience

JAN. 21 | FAMILY FUN

to their bedrooms. Waterbury Public Library, 6-7:30 p.m. Free. Info, 244-7036.

upper valley

PEABODY AFTERSCHOOL FUN FOR GRADES 1-4: Students make friends over crafts and story time. George Peabody Library, Post Mills, 3:30-4:30 p.m. Free. Info, 333-9724.

THU.19

Small Craft Advisory

PRESCHOOL STORY TIME: Energetic youngsters join Miss Meliss for stories, songs and lots of silliness. KelloggHubbard Library, Montpelier, 10:30 a.m. Free. Info, 223-3338.

stowe/smuggs

WEE ONES PLAY TIME: Caregivers bring kiddos 3 and younger to a new sensory learning experience each week. Morristown Centennial Library, Morrisville, 10 a.m. Free. Info, 888-3853.

mad river valley/ waterbury

PRESCHOOL PLAY & READ: Outdoor activities, stories and songs get 3- and 4-year-olds engaged. Waterbury Public Library, 10:30 a.m. Free. Info, 244-7036.

FRI.20

chittenden county

TEEN GENRE BOOK CLUB: Young adults read any historical book they wish, then get together to discuss and vote on next month’s genre. Ages 12 and up. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 5-5:45 p.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

barre/montpelier

WINTER STORY TIME & PLAYGROUP: Participants ages 6 and under hear stories, sing songs and eat tasty treats between outdoor activities. Jaquith Public Library, Marshfield, 10:30 a.m. Free. Info, 426-3581.

upper valley

STORY TIME: Preschoolers take part in stories, songs and silliness. Latham Library, Thetford, 11 a.m. Free. Info, 785-4361.

northeast kingdom

ACORN CLUB STORY TIME: Kids 5 and under play, sing, hear stories and take home a fun activity. St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, 10-11 a.m. Free; preregister; limited space. Info, 745-1391.

SAT.21

burlington

LEARN, EARN,

AND

PROSPER (LEAP): OPPORTUNITIES FOR

BLIND AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED YOUTH IN VERMONT: LEAP educators and students tell their own stories and break down the application process. Presented by Vermont Family Network. 1-2 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 876-5315.

burlington

MAKE AND TAKE SOUP: Chefs ages 11 through 18 celebrate National Soup Month by making portable stew mixes in mason jars. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 3:30-4:30 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

PRESCHOOL YOGA: Colleen from Grow Prenatal and Family Yoga leads little ones in songs, movement and other fun activities. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 11-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

chittenden county

CASUAL CRAFTING FOR KIDS: Creative kids chase their bliss toward whatever

Creative kids and their caregivers can make friends and build community at a new free arts and crafts program by Rural Arts Collaborative. Each week, youths ages 6 through 12 embark on a new activity while parents meet up on the second floor for coffee, conversation and their own crafty classes, if they wish. Younger siblings get their own play area, too. This week, kids build fun and funky masks with visiting artist Soloman Lew, then learn and perform a dance in their new headgear with instructor Amber Combs.

FAMILY PLAYSHOP: Kids from birth through age 5 learn and play at this school readiness program. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 10-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

SATURDAY CREATIVE FAMILIES

INITIATIVE: ‘TIME OUT’ Saturday, January 21, 10-11:30 a.m., at Grass Roots Art and Community Effort in Hardwick. See website for future dates. Free. Info, info@ruralartsvt.org, ruralartsvt.org.

project they want to make. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 4:305:30 p.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

KIDS’ BOOK CLUB FOR KIDS K-2 AND THEIR PARENTS: Little bookworms and their caregivers learn to love reading together through sharing, crafts and writing activities. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 4-5:30 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, nliuzzi@southburlingtonvt.gov.

PRESCHOOL MUSIC WITH LINDA BASSICK: The singer and storyteller extraordinaire leads little ones in indoor music and movement. Birth through age 5. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 10:30-11 a.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

PRESCHOOL PLAYTIME: Pre-K patrons play and socialize after music time. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 11-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

PRESCHOOL STORY TIME: Books, songs, rhymes, sign language lessons and math activities make for well-educated youngsters. Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 10-10:30 a.m. Free. Info, 878-6956.

barre/montpelier

FUSE BEAD CRAFTERNOONS: Youngsters make pictures out of colorful, meltable doodads. Ages 8 and up. KelloggHubbard Library, Montpelier, 3:30-5 p.m. Free. Info, 223-3338.

TRICIA LEVENSELLER AND LAURIE

FOREST: Teen fantasy readers meet and chat with the bestselling authors of Daughter of the Pirate King and The Black Witch respectively. Phoenix Books, Burlington, noon-1:30 p.m. Free. Info, 448-3350.

chittenden county

JUICEBOX: Jukebox String Quartet introduces kids to classical music with an interactive program about how feelings and songs go together. Ages 10 and under. Higher Ground, South Burlington, 4-5 p.m. $5-10. Info, 652-0777.

KIDS’ CHESS CLUB: Clever kiddos ages 5 and up learn the ins and outs of the King’s Game. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 10:30-11:30 a.m. Free; preregister. Info, nliuzzi@southburlingtonvt.gov.

History” dives deep into recent discoveries about the town’s founding, the Quabbin reservoir and more. Dorset Historical Society, noon-1 p.m. Free. Info, 867-0331.

tech

AUDIO RECORDING 101: Media Factory educators teach aspiring podcasters and producers all there is to know about recording and editing sound. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 1-3 p.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

words

‘VERMONT

BOOK DISCUSSION

GROUP: Kellogg-Hubbard Library patrons unpack A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last by Stephen Levine. 6:30 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 223-3338.

INQUISITIVE READERS BOOK CLUB: Bookworms discuss a new horizon-expanding tome each month. St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, 6-7 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, henningsmh@ yahoo.com.

JAN. 21 | HOLIDAYS

ALMANAC: STORIES

FROM & FOR THE LAND, VOL. III’: Contributors Edith Forbes and Chuck Wooster, alongside editors Virginia Barlow and Patrick White, get together for an evening of storytelling. Norwich Bookstore, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 649-1114.

FOMO?

Find even more local events in this newspaper and online: art

Find visual art exhibits and events in the Art section and at sevendaysvt.com/art.

film

See what’s playing at theaters in the On Screen section.

music + nightlife

Find club dates at local venues in the Music + Nightlife section online at sevendaysvt.com/ music.

Learn more about highlighted listings in the Magnificent 7 on page 11.

LIVE POETRY AT THE FRONT: CARA ARMSTRONG & BIANCA STONE: Two local wordsmiths read from their work. The Front, Montpelier, 6:30-8 p.m. Free. Info, 505-5596.

FRI.20 agriculture

2023 NORTHEAST GRAZING AND LIVESTOCK

CONFERENCE: Vermont Grass Farmers and other regional associations get together for two days of virtual talks, seminars and networking. 9 a.m.-3 p.m. $20; preregister. Info, 989-0534.

dance

ENGLISH COUNTRY DANCE: Locals get their Jane Austen on at a British ball where all the dances are run through beforehand. Wear casual, comfortable clothes. Newcomers’ lesson, 6:30 p.m. Elley-Long Music Center, Saint Michael’s College, Colchester, 7-9:30 p.m. $10-15; preregister. Info, val.medve@gmail.com.

VERMONT BURLESQUE FESTIVAL: See WED.18, 7:15-10:30 p.m. etc.

AMERICA’S TOP PSYCHIC MEDIUM MATT FRASER: A celebrity seer makes audiences laugh, cry and maybe even believe.

Noodling Around

Adventure Dinner rings in the Year of the Rabbit with a bountiful banquet cooked by chef Breana Lai Killeen of Killeen Crossroads Farm. Drawing on her Chinese heritage, Killeen serves up an abundance of Lunar New Year delights, from dumplings and longevity noodles to unlimited pots of tea. Between courses, guests can practice their Chinese characters at the calligraphy station and make a festive keepsake to take home. Cocktails, mocktails, local beer and natural wine are available for purchase all night long.

LUNAR NEW YEAR BANQUET FEAST

Saturday, January 21, 6-9 p.m., at Vergennes Opera House. $88; preregister; limited space. Info, 248-224-7539, adventuredinner.com.

Paramount Theatre, Rutland, 7:30 p.m. $55-100. Info, 775-0903.

THE ART OF TAROT: Teens and adults get a reading, learn what the cards mean and design their own cards with help from a local artist.

Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 5:45-7:15 p.m. Free. Info, 878-6955.

fairs & festivals

YANKEE SPORTSMAN’S CLASSIC: Hunting and fishing enthusiasts browse the wares of countless exhibitors during a long weekend of seminars, demos, talks and more.

Champlain Valley Exposition, Essex Junction, noon-6 p.m. $5-11; free for kids under 3. Info, 238-7501.

film

See what’s playing at local theaters in the On Screen section.

‘AMAZON ADVENTURE 3D’: See WED.18.

‘MYSTERIES OF THE UNSEEN WORLD 3D’: See WED.18.

‘SEA MONSTERS 3D’: See WED.18.

‘WINGS OVER WATER 3D’: See WED.18.

food & drink

FULL BARREL COOPERATIVE BREWERY POP-UP TAP ROOM: The Queen City’s first co-op brewery pours pints and growlers of wintry flavors such as chocolate orange stout and Pitkin’s pumpkin. 12-22 North Street, Burlington, 5-7 p.m. Free. Info, fullbarrelcoop@gmail.com.

games

MAH-JONGG: Tile traders of all experience levels gather for a game session. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 1-3 p.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

health & fitness

GUIDED MEDITATION

ONLINE: Dorothy Alling Memorial Library invites attendees to relax on their lunch

breaks and reconnect with their bodies. Noon-12:30 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, programs@ damlvt.org.

lgbtq

LGBTQ WINTER PRIDE FESTIVAL: See WED.18, 6:30 & 9 p.m.

music

MCCAFFREY

& ROONEY

PRESENT: CHRIS BRASHEAR: An all-star songster and multiinstrumentalist takes the stage for a night of toe-tapping folk, country and bluegrass sounds. Seven Stars Arts Center, Sharon, 7-9 p.m. $20-24. Info, 763-2334.

tech

TECH HELP: Experts answer questions about phones, laptops, e-readers and more in one-on-one sessions. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 10 a.m.-noon. Free; preregister; limited space. Info, 846-4140.

theater

‘YOGA WITH JILLIAN’: Audience members are invited to bring their mats to this immersive theater experience about one yoga teacher’s valiant attempts to stay positive despite it all. Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center, Burlington, 7-8 p.m. $15-20. Info, michole@projectytheatre.org.

words

NAOMI NOVIK: In conversation with Vermont author Katherine Arden, the bestselling writer discusses The Golden Enclaves, the final novel in her Scholomance trilogy. Burlington City Hall Auditorium, 7 p.m. $10; preregister. Info, 448-3350.

SAT.21

agriculture

2023 NORTHEAST GRAZING AND LIVESTOCK CONFERENCE: See FRI.20, 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m.

community

ETHAN ALLEN’S BIRTHDAY

BASH: Townsfolk celebrate the Vermont founder’s 285th — but he doesn’t look a day under 284! — with food, a raffle and some fun history presentations. Federated Church of Castleton, 1-2 p.m. Free. Info, 855-3660.

dance

MONTPELIER CONTRA DANCE: To live tunes and gender-neutral calling, dancers balance, shadow and do-si-do the night away.

N95, KN94, KN95 or 3-ply surgical masks required. Capital City Grange, Berlin, beginners’ lesson, 7:40 p.m; social dance, 8-11 p.m. $5-20. Info, 225-8921.

VERMONT BURLESQUE FESTIVAL: See WED.18, 2 p.m.-midnight.

education

ENDING THE SILENCE: Volunteers learn how their experiences with mental illness can help educate teens about mental health and suicide prevention. Virtual option available. NAMI Vermont, Williston, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Free. Info, 876-7949, ext. 102.

etc.

ERIKA BRUNER: The local veterinarian demystifies the process of deciding when it’s time to let

an elderly animal go. KelloggHubbard Library, Montpelier, 10:30 a.m.-noon. Free. Info, 223-3338.

fairs & festivals

YANKEE SPORTSMAN’S CLASSIC: See FRI.20, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.

film

See what’s playing at local theaters in the On Screen section.

‘AMAZON ADVENTURE 3D’: See WED.18.

‘FEDORA’: A new production of Umberto Giordano’s thrilling drama about a princess who falls for her fiancé’s murderer streams live from the Metropolitan Opera. Catamount Arts Center, St. Johnsbury, 12:55 p.m. $16-25. Info, 748-2600.

MEDIA FACTORY

ORIENTATION: Once aspiring filmmakers have taken this virtual tour of the Media Factory Studio, they have access to the full suite of gear and facilities. 1-2 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 651-9692.

‘MYSTERIES OF THE UNSEEN WORLD 3D’: See WED.18.

‘SEA MONSTERS 3D’: See WED.18.

‘WINGS OVER WATER 3D’: See WED.18.

WOODSTOCK VERMONT FILM SERIES: ‘BITTERBRUSH’: Two young women spend their last summer herding cattle on a remote range in Idaho in this touching documentary. Billings Farm & Museum, Woodstock, 3 p.m. $12-15. Info, 457-2355.

food & drink

CAPITAL CITY WINTER FARMERS

MARKET: Root veggies, honey, maple syrup and more change hands at an off-season celebration of locally grown food. Caledonia Spirits, Montpelier, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Free. Info, manager@ montpelierfarmersmarket.com.

CUB SCOUT PACK 539

SPAGHETTI DINNER & FUND RAISER: Meals of pasta and meatballs fund the local scout troop. St. Peter’s Catholic Church, Vergennes, 4:30-7 p.m. $12. Info, vtpack539@gmail.com.

JANE AUSTEN TEA: Regency revelers jam out at a Victorian-style tea party complete with scones, clotted cream, finger sandwiches and tea cakes, while learning about the teatime traditions of Austen’s time. Governor’s House

in Hyde Park, 2-4:30 p.m. $40; preregister. Info, 888-6888.

games

BEGINNER DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: Waterbury Public Library game master Evan Hoffman gathers novices and veterans alike for an afternoon of virtual adventuring. Teens and adults welcome. Noon-4 p.m. Free. Info, 244-7036.

BOARD GAME BRUNCH: The Friendly Tabletop Gamers of Essex and Beyond host a morning game-play session for teens and adults. ADA accessible. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 10 a.m.-1:55 p.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

CHESS CLUB: Players of all ages and abilities face off and learn

SAT.21 » P.68

SAT.21 « P.67

new strategies. ADA accessible. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

PUZZLE SWAP: Folks of all ages looking for a new challenge trade their old puzzles. Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Free. Info, 878-6955.

SURREALIST GAMES AND PREPARED PIANO

PERFORMANCE: Roger Clark Miller of the post-punk band Mission of Burma hosts an evening of unique ivory tickling and group word and drawing activities. Epsilon Spires, Brattleboro, 7-9:30 p.m. $15. Info, 401-261-6271.

holidays

LUNAR NEW YEAR BANQUET

FEAST: Adventure Dinner and chef Breana Lai Killeen usher in the Year of the Rabbit with an overflowing table of Chinese delights, including dumplings, noodles and tea. See calendar spotlight. Vergennes Opera House, 6-9 p.m. $88; preregister; limited space. Info, 248-224-7539.

lgbtq

LGBTQ WINTER PRIDE FESTIVAL: See WED.18, 3, 8 & 9 p.m.

music

‘ROUNDS GALORE’: Community members beat the midwinter blues with a participatory singing activity featuring round songs from around the world. Seven Stars Arts Center, Sharon, 2-3:30 a.m. $15-25. Info, 763-3999.

PEREGRINE ROAD: A folksy duo plays original songs and cozy Celtic classics. Colonel Williams Inn, Marlboro, 7:30-9 p.m. $10-20. Info, rachel@rachelbellmusic.com.

PLAY EVERY TOWN: Prolific pianist David Feurzeig and guest cellist Linda Galvan continue a four-year, statewide series of shows in protest of high-pollution worldwide concert tours. Donations benefit 350 Vermont. First Congregational Church of Thetford, 3 p.m. Free; donations accepted. Info, 321-614-0591.

REID PARSONS: With impressive fingerpicking chops and dulcet alto vocals, the local blueswoman brings some soul to Americana tunes. Shelburne Vineyard, 6-8:30 p.m. Free. Info, 985-8222.

theater

‘YOGA WITH JILLIAN’: See FRI.20.

words

WRITERS’ WERTFREI: Authors both fledgling and published gather to share their work in a judgment-free environment. Virtual option available. Waterbury Public Library, 10 a.m.noon. Free; preregister. Info, judi@ waterburypubliclibrary.com.

SUN.22

dance

VERMONT BURLESQUE FESTIVAL: See WED.18, 8 a.m. & 6-9 p.m.

etc.

2023 VWA RUTLAND BRIDAL SHOW: Local matrimony professionals put their wares and services on display for engaged couples and their wedding parties. Franklin Conference Center, Rutland, 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. $6-7. Info, 459-2897.

fairs & festivals

YANKEE SPORTSMAN’S CLASSIC: See FRI.20, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

film

See what’s playing at local theaters in the On Screen section.

‘AMAZON ADVENTURE 3D’: See WED.18.

‘MYSTERIES OF THE UNSEEN WORLD 3D’: See WED.18.

‘RIGHT TO HARM’: Sustainable Woodstock virtually screens this documentary on the public health impact of factory farming and the government’s failure to regulate it. -27. Free. Info, 457-2911.

‘SEA MONSTERS 3D’: See WED.18.

‘WINGS OVER WATER 3D’: See WED.18.

WOODSTOCK VERMONT FILM SERIES: ‘BITTERBRUSH’: See SAT.21.

food & drink

WINTER FARMERS MARKET: Shoppers sip a local beer while browsing local bites at this wintertime hub for local growers, bakers and crafters. Four Quarters Brewing, Winooski, noon-3 p.m. Free. Info, 391-9120.

health & fitness

KARUNA COMMUNITY MEDITATION: A YEAR TO LIVE (FULLY): Participants practice keeping joy, generosity and gratitude at the forefront of their minds. Jenna’s House, Johnson, 10-11:15 a.m. Free; donations accepted. Info, mollyzapp@live.com.

holidays

LUNAR NEW YEAR FESTIVAL & POTLUCK: The Asian Cultural Center of Vermont throws a shindig for all ages featuring paper lantern making, Chinese songs, Korean rope tug, Vietnamese dragon dancing and beyond.

Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, 1 p.m. Free. Info, 257-0124.

music

HILARI FARRINGTON, BENEDICT KOEHLER & SARAH BLAIR: A fiddler, a harpist and a piper walk into an opera house ... and take audiences on a sometimes lively, sometimes haunting tour of Irish and Irish American reels and airs.

Plainfield Town Hall Opera House, 4-6 p.m. $20 suggested donation. Info, 498-3173.

JAN. 25 | FILM

The Meat of the Matter

Forty years ago, the late rock star Meat Loaf filmed Dead Ringer, a comedic pseudodocumentary meant to accompany the release of his album of the same name. Then arcane legal issues kept the film from being released, and it’s only been screened two or three times since its completion. Now, Vermont International Film Festival offers Vermonters the chance to see one of the cinema world’s rarest films and take in the joyful story of Meat Loaf, his civilian doppelgänger and the raucous world of 1980s rock.

‘DEAD

RINGER’

Wednesday, January 25, 7-9 p.m., at Essex Cinemas & T-Rex Theater. $8-12. Info, 660-2600, vtiff.org.

RANI ARBO & DAISY MAYHEM: Four-part harmonies, eclectic percussion and unforgettable songs are the hallmarks of this New England-based folk quartet. Next Stage Arts Project, Putney, 4 p.m. $22-25. Info, 387-0102.

theater

‘ANASTASIA’: Broadway comes to Burlington once more with a production of the epic story of a lost Russian princess. The Flynn, Burlington, 7:30 p.m. $65-98. Info, 863-5966.

words

DEAN WHITLOCK: The local longtime author reads from his short story collection, Iridescent Dreams: 20 Tales of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Latham Library, Thetford, 4-5 p.m. Free. Info, 785-4361.

MON.23

business

FEMALE FOUNDERS SPEAKERS

SERIES: MOTHERHOOD: Alyssa Blask Campbell of Seed & Sew, Carina Hamel of Bivo and Mieko Ozeki of Radiance Studios and Vermont Womenpreneurs share their experiences as mothers and business leaders. Hotel Vermont, Burlington, 5:30 p.m. $15. Info, sam@vcet.co.

crafts

FIBER ARTS FREE FOR ALL: Makers make friends while working on their knitting, sewing, felting and beyond. Artistree Community Arts Center Theatre & Gallery, South Pomfret, 6-8 p.m. Free. Info, theknittinkittenvt@ gmail.com.

KNIT FOR YOUR NEIGHBORS: See THU.19.

dance

WORK IN PROGRESS

SHOWING: FUTURE FOLKLORE: Choreographer Miguel Alejandro Castillo and musician Daniella Barbarito draw on Venezuelan traditions to imagine a fictional folklore festival. Dance Theatre, Mahaney Arts Center, Middlebury College, 7:30-8:30 p.m. Free. Info, 443-6433.

film

See what’s playing at local theaters in the On Screen section.

‘AMAZON ADVENTURE 3D’: See WED.18.

‘MYSTERIES OF THE UNSEEN WORLD 3D’: See WED.18.

‘RIGHT TO HARM’: See SUN.22.

‘SEA MONSTERS 3D’: See WED.18. ‘WINGS OVER WATER 3D’: See WED.18.

food & drink

MEZA BOSNIAN CUISINE TAKEOUT: Mediha Goretic cooks her traditional nosh, such as phyllo beef pastries, bean soup,

cabbage salad and baklava, for pickup. Tiny Community Kitchen, Burlington, 4-5 p.m. $4-20. Info, meza2020bc@gmail.com.

health & fitness

ADVANCED TAI CHI: Experienced movers build strength, improve balance and reduce stress. Holley Hall, Bristol, 11 a.m.-noon. Free; donations accepted. Info, jerry@ skyrivertaichi.com.

LONG-FORM SUN 73: Beginners and experienced practitioners learn how tai chi can help with arthritis, mental clarity and range of motion. Holley Hall, Bristol, 11 a.m.-noon. Free; donations accepted. Info, wirlselizabeth@ gmail.com.

YANG 24: This simplified tai chi method is perfect for beginners looking to build strength and balance. Congregational Church of Middlebury, 3:30-5:30 p.m. Free; donations accepted. Info, wirlselizabeth@gmail.com.

language

ENGLISH CONVERSATION CIRCLE: Locals learning English as a second language gather in the Digital Lab to build vocabulary and make friends. ADA accessible. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, noon-1 p.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

ITALIAN BOOK CLUB: Intermediate and experienced Italian speakers read and discuss Un Nome da Regina by Marina Pilati Lusuardi. ADA accessible. South Burlington Public Library

& City Hall, 10:15-11:15 a.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

lgbtq

NONBINARY SOCIAL GROUP: Genderqueer, agender, gender nonconforming and questioning Vermonters gather for a virtual tea time. Presented by Pride Center of Vermont. 6:30-8 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, trans@ pridecentervt.org.

music

‘JOURNEY TO THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL’: Local singer Jill Clough throws a benefit performance for her upcoming thru-hike. Seven Stars Arts Center, Sharon, 7-9 p.m. Donations. Info, 763-2334.

politics

LEGISLATIVE FORUM: State representatives discuss the upcoming session with their constituents. Virtual option available. ADA accessible. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 6:30-8 p.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

theater

‘ANASTASIA’: See SUN.22.

words

ADDISON COUNTY WRITERS COMPANY: Poets, playwrights, novelists and memoirists of every experience level meet weekly for an MFA-style workshop. Swift House Inn, Middlebury, 6-8 p.m. Free. Info, jay@zigzaglitmag.org.

MONDAY BOOK GROUP: Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah inspires a lively conversation. Jaquith Public Library, Marshfield, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 426-3581.

POETRY SOCIETY OF VERMONT’S 75TH ANNIVERSARY: Poets read from the PSOV’s journal, the Mountain Troubadour, as well as their solo work, to celebrate three-quarters of a century of wordsmithing. Kellogg-Hubbard Library, Montpelier, 6:30 p.m. Free. Info, 223-3338.

FOMO?

Find even more local events in this newspaper and online: art

Find visual art exhibits and events in the Art section and at sevendaysvt.com/art.

film

See what’s playing at theaters in the On Screen section.

music + nightlife

Find club dates at local venues in the Music + Nightlife section online at sevendaysvt.com/ music.

Learn more about highlighted listings in the Magnificent 7 on page 11.

TUE.24

agriculture

10-YEAR CELEBRATION OF VERMONT’S WORKING LANDS

ENTERPRISE INITIATIVE: Farmers, advocates, legislators and community members celebrate a decade of state-funded agriculture and forestry. Vermont Statehouse Cafeteria, Montpelier, 4:30-6:30 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 223-6091.

community

CURRENT EVENTS DISCUSSION GROUP: Brownell Library hosts a virtual roundtable for neighbors to pause and reflect on the news cycle. 10-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 878-6955.

dance

SWING DANCING: Local Lindy hoppers and jitterbuggers convene at Vermont Swings’ weekly boogie-down. Bring clean shoes. Beginner lessons, 6:30 p.m. Champlain Club, Burlington, 7:309 p.m. $5. Info, 864-8382.

film

See what’s playing at local theaters in the On Screen section.

‘AMAZON ADVENTURE 3D’: See WED.18.

‘MYSTERIES OF THE UNSEEN WORLD 3D’: See WED.18.

‘THE PRINCESS BRIDE’: “Inconceivable!” A young woman and her true love battle the evils of a mythical kingdom to be reunited in this 1987 fairy-tale film. Film House, Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center, Burlington, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 540-3018.

‘RIGHT TO HARM’: See SUN.22.

‘SEA MONSTERS 3D’: See WED.18.

‘WINGS OVER WATER 3D’: See WED.18.

health & fitness

SUN 73 TAI CHI: An outdoor, allweather group meets weekly for gentle, therapeutic movement. Ida Boch Park, Bradford, 10 a.m. Free. Info, gscottgrahamstephens@ gmail.com.

language

FRENCH CONVERSATION GROUP: Francophones and

French-language learners meet pour parler la belle langue Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 5-6:30 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

music

LARRY & JOE: An adventurous duo fuses Venezuelan and Appalachian folk music. Richmond Congregational Church, 7-9 p.m. $15-25. Info, 434-4563.

NORTH COUNTRY CHORUS REHEARSALS: New singers are invited to join the Alan Rowedirected choir for its spring season. Registration fee due February

7. Morse Center for the Arts, St. Johnsbury Academy, 7:15-9 p.m. $20-40. Info, 748-5027.

talks

THE MAJESTIC BEAUTY OF THE GRAND TETONS: Longtime local birders Sue and Marv Elliott take listeners on an adventure through their recent mountain journey. Grace Congregational Church, Rutland, 7-8:30 p.m. Free. Info, birding@rutlandcountyaudubon. org.

tech

TECH HELP IN FRANÇAIS, SWAHILI AND LINGALA: Fluent speakers answer questions about phones, laptops, e-readers and more in group sessions. Presented by South Burlington Public Library. 5-6 p.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

words

BROWN BAG BOOK CLUB: Readers digest When All Is Said by Anne Griffin over lunch. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 12:30-1:30 p.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

J. M. COETZEE BOOK

DISCUSSION: The Burlington Literature Group reads and unpacks the South African Australian novelist’s Age of Iron and Disgrace over six weeks. 6:30-8 p.m. Free. Info, info@ nereadersandwriters.com.

WED.25

activism

MIGRANT JUSTICE: A guest speaker from the local labor rights organization educates patrons about the experience of Vermont farm workers. Deborah

Rawson Memorial Library, Jericho, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 899-4962.

business

QUEEN CITY BUSINESS NETWORKING INTERNATIONAL GROUP: See WED.18.

community

BUILDING SUPPORTIVE COMMUNITIES: Vermont Public and Vermont Family Network host a virtual panel of experts on the topic of building inclusive environments for people with autism. 7 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 876-5315.

CURRENT EVENTS: Neighbors have an informal discussion about what’s in the news. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 10:30 a.m.-noon. Free. Info, 878-4918.

dance

NATIONAL CHOREOGRAPHY MONTH CHALLENGE: Vermont Dance Alliance hosts a virtual check-in for those attempting to create choreo every day in January. Attendance at two gatherings required to participate in February 10 showcase. 7:30-8:45 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, alxcbb@gmail.com.

FAMI LY FU N

stowe/smuggs

MUSICAL STORY TIME: Song, dance and other tuneful activities supplement picture books for kids 2 through 5. Morristown Centennial Library, Morrisville, 11 a.m. Free. Info, 888-3853.

upper valley

ASTRONOMY DAY 2023: After a day of hands-on fun for starry-eyed folks of all ages, the museum stays open after dark for astronomy presentations and telescope viewing. Montshire Museum of Science, Norwich, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Regular admission, $15-18; free after 5 p.m. and for kids under 2. Info, 649-2200.

JASON CHIN: The Caldecott Medalwinning author and illustrator launches his new scientific picture book, The Universe in You: A Microscopic Journey. Norwich Bookstore, 11 a.m. Free. Info, 649-1114.

northeast kingdom

SATURDAY CREATIVE FAMILIES

INITIATIVE: ‘TIME OUT’: The Rural Arts Collaborative leads artsy activities for creative kids ages 6 through 12 while parents socialize over tea and coffee on the second floor. See calendar spotlight. Grass Roots Art and Community Effort, Hardwick, 10-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, info@ ruralartsvt.org.

SUN.22 burlington

etc.

LIFE STORIES WE LOVE TO TELL: Prompts from group leader Maryellen Crangle inspire true tales, told either off the cuff or read from prewritten scripts. Presented by Dorothy Alling Memorial Library. 2-3:30 p.m. Free; preregister; limited space. Info, 878-4918.

film

See what’s playing at local theaters in the On Screen section. ‘AMAZON ADVENTURE 3D’: See WED.18.

BOOK FLICKS: Bibliophiles enjoy the 2013 Leonardo DiCapriostarring adaptation of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 6-8 p.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

‘CESAR CHAVEZ’: Michael Peña stars as the famed labor leader who unionized California farm workers and helped organize the Delano grape strike of 1965 through 1970. Catamount Arts Center, St. Johnsbury, 6 p.m. Free. Info, 748-2600.

‘DEAD RINGER’: The late rock star Meat Loaf and his civilian doppelgänger reckon with fame in this fictionalized documentary that has only been screened two or three

times since its completion. See calendar spotlight. Essex Cinemas & T-Rex Theater, Essex Junction, 7-9 p.m. $8-12. Info, 660-2600.

‘MYSTERIES OF THE UNSEEN WORLD 3D’: See WED.18.

‘RIGHT TO HARM’: See SUN.22. ‘SEA MONSTERS 3D’: See WED.18.

‘UNDER THE CLOAK OF DARKNESS’: A documentary about Vermont’s migrant Mexican farm workers brings labor issues to light. Waterbury Public Library, 6:30 p.m. Free. Info, 244-7036. ‘WINGS OVER WATER 3D’: See WED.18.

games

WINTER TRIVIA ROUND 4: FAMOUS VERMONTERS: History buffs bust out their knowledge in the hopes of advancing to the championship round. Courtesy of the Vermont Historical Society. 7-8 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 479-8500.

health & fitness

CHAIR YOGA: See WED.18. COMMUNITY CANDLELIT YOGA: See WED.18.

INFUSING YOGA & WRITING INTO YOUR PRACTICE OF SELF-CARE: Kristen Miranda leads a workshop that fuses the practices of mindful

barre/montpelier

movement with meditative writing exercises. BYO journal and mat. Presented by KelloggHubbard Library. 6-8 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 223-3338.

language

IRISH LANGUAGE CLASS: See WED.18.

music

MUSIC OF ANOTHER WORLD: THE KULTURBUND ORCHESTRAS: This first in a series of presentations on the music made under the constraints of the Third Reich focuses on a Berlin symphony. ADA accessible. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 1:152:30 p.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

ZACH NUGENT UNCORKED: See WED.18.

outdoors

NATURALIST JOURNEYS 2023: JILL PELTO: A climatologist and painter explains how art can communicate science concepts. Presented by North Branch Nature Center. 6:30-7:30 p.m. Free. Info, 229-6206.

SMUGGS 55+ SKI CLUB: See WED.18.

sports

GREEN MOUNTAIN TABLE TENNIS CLUB: See WED.18.

MICHELOB ULTRA SKI BUM RACE SERIES: See WED.18.

tech

RECORDING AUDIO: Attendees learn the ins and outs of capturing sound in the field, from microphones to booms to dealing with potential pitfalls on location. RETN & VCAM Media Factory, Burlington, 3-5 p.m. Free; donations accepted; preregister. Info, 651-9692.

theater

‘’BOV WATER’: Dartmouth College alum Celeste Jennings weaves together the stirring stories of four generations of Black women in a new play. Barrette Center for the Arts, White River Junction, 7:30 p.m. $17.75-67.75. Info, 296-7000.

words

CRYSTAL WILKINSON: The NAACP Image Award-winning author of Perfect Black, The Birds of Opulence and more reads from her work. Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, 7-8 p.m. Free. Info, 635-2727.

LYNN STEGER STRONG: The acclaimed author reads from Flight, her new novel about the tensions that arise between siblings during their first Christmas without their mother. Norwich Bookstore, 7 p.m. Free. Info, 649-1114. ➆

MUSIC WITH MIKAHELY: Original tunes furnish an all-ages concert from the Malagasy multi-instrumentalist. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 3:30-4 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

barre/montpelier

WINTER DISCOVERY HIKE FOR FAMILIES: Trail trekkers put on their “deer ears” and connect with the natural world. Families with kids ages 6 and up. North Branch Nature Center, Montpelier, 10:30 a.m.noon. Free; preregister. Info, 229-6206.

MON.23

KIDS IN THE KITCHEN: Chefs in training and their caretakers make dinner with a trained dietitian. Presented by Dorothy Alling Memorial Library and Brownell Library. 4-5 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 878-4918.

burlington

STORIES WITH SHANNON: Bookworms ages 2 through 5 enjoy fun-filled reading time. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 11-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

chittenden county

TEEN NIGHT: DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: Local wizards and warlocks ages 12 and up play a collaborative game of magic and monsters. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 5-6 p.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

TEEN WRITERS WORKSHOP: Prompts and discussions inspire teenage wordsmiths. Kellogg-Hubbard Library, Montpelier, 4-5:30 p.m. Free. Info, 223-3338.

northeast kingdom

ACORN CLUB STORY TIME: See FRI.20, 2-2:30 p.m.

TUE.24

burlington

HYGGE NIGHT: Teens embrace the Nordic concept of coziness and contentment with an evening of games, reading, crafts and warm drinks. Ages 11 through 18. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 5-7 p.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

SING-ALONG WITH LINDA BASSICK: Babies, toddlers and preschoolers sing, dance and wiggle along with Linda. Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, 11-11:30 a.m. Free. Info, 863-3403.

chittenden county

CRAFTYTOWN!: From painting to printmaking and collage to sculpture, creative kids explore different projects and mediums. Ages 8 and up, or ages 6 and up with an adult helper. ADA accessible. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 3-4:30 p.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

KEKLA MAGOON: The award-winning author launches her newest YA novel, The Minus-One Club, which follows a grieving Black teen in his search for community and meaning after his sister’s death. Phoenix Books, Essex, 7 p.m. Free; preregister. Info, 872-7111.

LEGO ROBOTICS: BOAT TRIP: Lego lovers explore the world of coding in a four-part series. Attendance at all four sessions is highly encouraged. Grades 1 through 4. Brownell Library, Essex Junction, 3:15-4:45 p.m. Free; preregister; limited space. Info, 878-6956.

PLAYGROUP & FAMILY SUPPORT: Families with children under age 5 play and connect with others in the community. Winooski Memorial Library, 10-11 a.m. Free. Info, 655-6424.

PRESCHOOL STORY TIME: Little ones enjoy a cozy session of reading, rhyming and singing. Birth through age 5. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 10:30-11 a.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

TODDLERTIME: Kids ages 1 through 3 and their caregivers join Miss Alyssa for a lively session of stories, singing and wiggling. South Burlington Public Library & City Hall, 10:30-11 a.m. Free. Info, 846-4140.

barre/montpelier

PRESCHOOL STORY TIME: See THU.19.

stowe/smuggs

CRAFTERNOON: A new project is on the docket each week, from puppets to knitting to decoupage. Ages 6 and up. Morristown Centennial Library, Morrisville, 3:30 p.m. Free. Info, 888-3853.

PRESCHOOL STORY TIME: Kiddos ages 3 through 5 share in stories, crafts and rhymes. Morristown Centennial Library, Morrisville, 10:30 a.m. Free. Info, 888-3853.

northeast kingdom

RED CLOVER BOOK CLUB: Readers ages 6 through 10 discuss a book and do an art activity each week. Siblings welcome. St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, 1:30 p.m. Free. Info, 745-1391.

WED.25

burlington

BABYTIME: See WED.18.

CRAFTERNOON: See WED.18.

STEAM SPACE: See WED.18.

chittenden county

AFTERSCHOOL ACTIVITY: CRAFT: Handy kiddos get creative after class. Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, 2-3 p.m. Free. Info, 878-4918.

COMICS CLUB!: Graphic novel and manga fans in third through sixth grades meet to discuss current reads and do fun activities together. Hosted by Brownell Library. Essex Teen Center, Essex Junction, 2:30-3:30 p.m. Free. Info, 878-6956.

LEGO BUILDERS: See WED.18.

PLAY TIME: See WED.18.

barre/montpelier

CHESS CLUB: See WED.18.

FAMILY GAME NIGHT: See WED.18.

MAGIC THE GATHERING & CRAFTS: See WED.18.

upper valley

PEABODY AFTERSCHOOL FUN FOR GRADES 1-4: See WED.18. K

Now hear this!

Seven Days is now recording select stories from the weekly newspaper for your listening pleasure.

Listen to these stories and more:

Vermont’s Childcare System Isn’t Working for Providers or Parents. They Hope Help Is on the Way. 28 MINS.

A Call-Taker Advises the Anxious During a Shift on Vermont's Suicide-Prevention Hotline 16 MINS.

A Soccer Fan Tries to Enjoy a World Cup With Blood on Its Hands 10 MINS.

Suresh Garimella Has Helped UVM Emerge Stronger From the Pandemic. But Who Is He, Anyway? 31 MINS.

Life Stories: Musician Pete Sutherland Was a ‘Unifying Force’ 15 MINS.

Book Review: ‘The New Power Elite,’ Heather Gautney 11 MINS.

How Family-Owned Vermont Rail System Became the Little Economic Engine That Could 33 MINS.

A Burlington Chef with Abenaki Heritage Makes His Own Harvest Meal 12 MINS.

Med School Students Say Dissecting Donated Bodies Provides Lessons Beyond Anatomy 13 MINS.

Berlin Cop Who Murdered His Ex Previously Spoke of Killing Her, Colleague Says 11 MINS.

With a Surge of Skiers, Stowe Struggles to Manage Traffic Jams and Parking Woes 10 MINS.

Indoor Fun and Games Go Beyond Bowling at Colchester’s Refurbished Spare Time 12 MINS.

Warning Shots: Burlington’s Immigrant Community Seeks Solutions to the Gun Violence That Is Claiming Youths 32 MINS.

Essay: A Standup Comic Riffs on Grief and Comedy 7 MINS.

Life Stories: Willem Jewett ‘Was a Real Doer’ 11 MINS.

How does it work?

Go to sevendaysvt.com/aloud and click on the article you want to hear.

When the article loads, scroll down past the first photo and find the prompt to “Hear this article read aloud.”

Press play! You can pause at any time, skip ahead, rewind and change the speaking speed to suit your needs.

classes

THE FOLLOWING CLASS LISTINGS ARE PAID ADVERTISEMENTS. ANNOUNCE YOUR CLASS FOR AS LITTLE AS $16.75/WEEK (INCLUDES SIX PHOTOS AND UNLIMITED DESCRIPTION ONLINE). SUBMIT YOUR CLASS AD AT SEVENDAYSVT.COM/POSTCLASS.

artAFTERSCHOOL DRAWING CLUB: Come explore your love of drawing and nature with your classmates and friends! Each session will be inspired by a new theme, from animals to insects to flowers, guided by the group’s interests. Along the way, participants will try different art materials — and even make some themselves — with time to work on individual projects. All that’s needed is curiosity and creativity! The Drawing Club will follow the HUUSD schedule and weather cancellations (announced for any students who aren’t in that district). No specific number of sessions is required; sign up for the dates that work for you! Every Mon., Jan. 23- Feb. 20, 3:30-4:30 p.m. Cost: $25/session; materials fee incl. all art & natural history materials provided. Please register no later than the previous Thu. so Rachel can prepare your child’s materials. Location: Grange Hall Cultural Center, 317 Howard Avenue, Waterbury Center. Info: info.acrossroads@gmail.com or 244-4168.

DAVIS STUDIO ART CLASSES: Discover your happy place in one of our weekly classes. Making art boosts emotional well-being and brings joy to your life, especially when you connect with other art enthusiasts. Select the ongoing program that’s right for you. Now enrolling youths and adults for classes in drawing, painting and fused glass. Location: Davis Studio, 916 Shelburne Rd., S. Burlington. Info: 425-2700, davisstudiovt.com.

WATERCOLOR & COLLAGE CLASS: Join us for a relaxed, social time making art. Classes are small; limit is 5 students. You will be guided in an artistic process combining watercolor and collage. Includes all art supplies, a delicious bagged lunch from Breadloaf Kitchen and a complementary glass of mead for participants 21-plus years of age. Sat., Feb. 11, 10:30 a.m. Cost: $150/5-hour class. Location: Golden Rule Mead, 8 Elm St., Middlebury. Info: Alice Eckles, 310-9364, aleckles@gmail.com, aliceecklesstudio.com.

empowerment

WISE EDUCATION & PARENTING: Join Creative Lives director Maureen Burford to study and implement A Framework for Wise Education. This powerful, holistic approach is based on author Ellen Tadd’s pioneering discoveries of the human energy system (or

chakra system) and its fundamental role in human development. Participants will discover precise, detailed strategies for mitigating anxiety; building inner happiness, self-esteem, and emotional equilibrium; and developing focus, wise insight, and the self-discipline required to actualize potential. Every Tue. starting Jan. 17, 7-8:30 p.m. Cost: $490 for online learning portal access, 14 hours class time, mentoring, resources, peer support. Location: Creative Lives, PO Box 23, Thetford. Info: Maureen Burford, 272-5950, mburford@creativelives.org, creativelives.org.

kids

EARTH REPAIR HOMESCHOOL: Curriculum incorporates nature awareness, earth science, biology, botany, chemistry, natural history, mycology, art, writing, math and sociology, with orientation toward justice and equity. Commoncore standards are addressed. The aim is to empower youths through robust, accessible education, training and mentoring on how ecoliteracy can nurture a healthy Earth community. Ages 9-13. Classes are every Mon., Feb. 6-Apr. 3, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Registration closes Jan. 25. Location: Burlington Cohousing Community, Centennial Woods & local ecosystems, Burlington. Send email w/ “Earth Repair Homeschool” in the subject line to receive registration packet. Info: Jess Rubin, mycoevolve.net/ yepeth@gmail.com

language

ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE: Registration for winter French language classes is now open! The Alliance Française of the Lake Champlain Region offers French language classes from beginner through advanced levels. Winter session begins January 9. Go to our website to learn about our offerings. Location: Alliance Française, Burlington. Info: Micheline Tremblay, education@aflcr.org, aflcr.org.

martial arts

AIKIDO: THE POWER OF HARMONY: Discover the dynamic, flowing martial art of aikido. Learn how to relax under pressure and cultivate core power, aerobic fitness and resiliency. Aikido techniques emphasize throws, pinning techniques and the growth of internal power. The circular movements emphasize blending movements rather than striking. Visitors should watch a class before joining. Starting on Tue., Jan. 17, at 6 p.m. for adults; youths, 4:30 p.m. Membership rates incl. unlimited classes. Contact us for info about membership rates for adults, youths & families.

Location: Aikido of Champlain Valley, 257 Pine St., Burlington. Info: Benjamin Pincus, 951-8900, bpincus@burlingtonaikido.org, burlingtonaikido.org.

GMMAC INCLUSIVE MARTIAL ARTS: Green Mountain Martial Arts Collaborative (GMMAC) offers martial arts that will strengthen your body and your mind. We foster a collaborative community for a diverse range of individuals. Our practices include Muay Thai, Brazilian jiu jitsu, Filipino and Thai combat arts. First class is always free! Membership, drop-in, private training. See our website for rates. Location: Green Mountain Martial Arts Collaborative, 274 N. Winooski Ave. #3, Burlington. Info: 316-8896, info@greenmoun tainmartialarts.com, greenmoun tainmartialarts.com.

music

DJEMBE & TAIKO DRUMMING: JOIN US!: New classes (outdoors mask optional/masks indoors). Taiko Tue. and Wed.; Djembe Wed.; Kids & Parents Tue. and Wed. Conga classes by request! Schedule/register online. Location: Taiko Space, 208 Flynn Ave., Suite 3G, Burlington. Info: 999-4255, spaton55@gmail.com, burlingtontaiko.org.

instrument. With the guidance of the teacher, you will learn lifelong skills. Jan. 18 & 25, 6-8 p.m. Cost: $200/4 hours ($50 per hour).

Location: GGP Studio, 171 Orr Rd., Jericho. Info: Georgette GarbesPutzel, 735-7912, georgett@ garbesputzel.com, garbesputzel. com.

well-being

ENDING THE SILENCE : Volunteer training opportunity for those with a mental health condition who wish to share their story with others. National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) of Vermont is holding a training for their Ending the Silence program. ETS is a presentation for middle and high school students about ending stigma. Sat., Jan. 21, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. 3-hour class. Location: NAMI Vermont office, 600 Blair Park Rd., Suite #301, Williston.

Info: Anne Marie Lavalette, 8767949-102, alavalette@ namivt.org, namivt.org/ programs/ending-the-silence.

yoga

Generator

GENERATOR is a combination of artist studios, classroom, and business incubator at the intersection of art, science, and technology. We provide tools, expertise, education, and opportunity – to enable all members of our community to create, collaborate, and make their ideas a reality.

PIERCE, SIFT, FIRE: ENAMELED PENDANT WORKSHOP: Learn the process of fusing powdered glass to metal using torch-firing. First, we will design and saw a copper pendant, then apply several layers of enamel on both sides of the pendant to add color. The result is a smooth, colored surface.

The pendant can be worn using cotton cord. Sat., Jan. 28 & Sun., Jan. 29, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Location: Generator, Burlington. Info: education@generatorvt.com.

JAPANESE LANGUAGE CLASSES: The Japan America Society of Vermont will offer four levels of interactive Japanese language Zoom classes in spring 2023, starting the week of January 30. Please join us for an introduction to speaking, listening, reading and writing Japanese, with an emphasis on the conversational patterns that occur in everyday life. Level 1: Tue., Level 2: Mon., Level 4: Thu., Level 5: Wed. Cost: $200/1.5-hour class for 10 weeks. Location: online. Info: Japan America Society of Vermont, 865-9985, jasvlanguage@gmail.com, jasv.org/v2/language.

SPANISH CLASSES FOR ALL AGES: Premier native-speaking Spanish professor Maigualida Rak is giving fun, interactive online lessons to improve comprehension and pronunciation and to achieve fluency. Audiovisual material is used. “I feel proud to say that my students have significantly improved their Spanish with my teaching approach.” — Maigualida Rak. Location: online. Info: 881-0931, spanishtutor. vtfla@gmail.com, facebook.com/ spanishonlinevt.

MIXED MARTIAL ARTS: Boxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai kickboxing and personal training/ fitness in one place! Beginners to seasoned competitors, we have a program for you. Family discounts available. Safesport-, IBJJF- and USA Boxing-certified instructors. Go at your own pace in an inclusive environment. First class is free! Mon.-Fri. 5-8:30 p.m. Cost: $15/day pass or membership. Location: Combat Fitness MMA, 276 E. Allen St. #8, Winooski. Info: Vincent Guy, 655-5425, vteguy25@gmail.com, combatfitnessmma.com.

VERMONT BRAZILIAN JIU-JITSU: We offer a legitimate Brazilian jiu-jitsu training program for men, women and children in a friendly, safe and positive environment. Julio Cesar “Foca” Fernandez Nunes; CBJJP and IBJJF seventh-degree Carlson Gracie Sr. Coral Belt-certified instructor; teaching in Vermont, born and raised in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil! A two-time world masters champion, fivetime Brazilian jiu-jitsu national champion, three-time Rio de Janeiro state champion and Gracie Challenge champion. Accept no limitations! 1st class is free. Location: Vermont Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, 55 Leroy Rd., Williston. Info: 598-2839, julio@bjjusa.com, vermontbjj.com.

nature

BECOME A LEADER FOR WILDERNESS: Great Old Broads for Wilderness is looking for new volunteer Broadband chapter leaders in Vermont to advocate for our wilderness and public lands. If you’re ready to become a leader for wilderness, join us for four days of free, inspirational and fun training. Deadline to apply is Feb. 20. Apply today! Mar. 27-31. Travel not incl. Travel scholarships avail. Location: Synergia Ranch, Santa Fe, N.M. Info: Great Old Broads for Wilderness, Lisa Pool, 970-385-9577, lisa@ greatoldbroads.org, greatold broads.org.

performing arts

BURLESQUE FESTIVAL CLASSES: The 10-year anniversary celebration featuring more than 120 burlesque performers, musicians, comedians, artists and variety acts! Learn the basics of burlesque, working with fans, belly dancing, miming for burlesque, Italian-style bump and grind, and more! Jan. 22. Location: Hilton Burlington, Burlington. Tickets avail. on sevendaystickets.com.

REACH YOUR FULL POTENTIAL!: Alexander technique is well known to performers. It is a low-impact approach to awareness and mindfulness in action to bring the best out of your own body, mind and

YOGA NIDRA IN THE SALT CAVE: This workshop combines the deep healing and restoration of two complementary wellness practices: yoga nidra, and the salt cave. Explore how relaxing and rejuvenating these two practices can be when combined together. Yoga nidra is a sleep-based guided meditation that allows students to relax deeply and heal their body on the physical, emotional and mental levels. Yoga nidra takes us into deep relaxation, and then while in this state we use a variety of techniques to train our mind to be still and balance out the tensions we accumulate in daily life. One session of Yoga nidra is equal to 3 or 4 hours of sleep. Dry salt therapy of the salt cave — also known as halotherapy — benefits adults and children as well as athletes and animals. Halotherapy is beneficial for overall wellness by removing the toxicity from the respiratory system, improving the function and appearance of the skin, and boosting the immune system. You will be welcomed to the salt cave and begin with a gentle stretch before relaxing your body on a mat over a bolster. Then you will be guided on a yoga nidra meditation for approximately 45 minutes. Wake up refreshed, rejuvenated and with new tools to move through the world with less stress and more peace. Bring a blanket to cover yourself and warm cozy layers and socks for this restful and restorative practice. There will be no refunds issued once payment is made for this workshop. Thank you for supporting our small businesses and being a part of our community. Xoxo. Sun., Jan. 29, 10 a.m.

Cost: $60. Location: Purple Sage, 21 Essex Way, Suite 224, Essex. Tickets avail. at sevendaystickets.com.

Society

Leia

AGE/SEX: 11-month-old spayed female

ARRIVAL DATE: November 10, 2022

SUMMARY: Leia is a sweet and sensitive girl looking for a patient home that understands her needs. It takes her some time to warm up to new people, but she loves her people and finds comfort in routine and consistency. A fearful dog may take a bit of management and patience, but Leia is sure to reward you with her affections! Leia is young and still exhibits many adolescent dog behaviors. She’ll need guidance on what’s appropriate to chew and will need to start on a consistent, positive-based house-training plan.

CATS/DOGS/KIDS: Leia will do best having another social, confident dog in her new home. She lived with cats and did well but would occasionally try to play and chase. Due to her timid nature, we are looking for a quiet home without children.

Visit the Humane Society of Chittenden County at 142 Kindness Court, South Burlington, Tuesday through Friday from 1 to 5 p.m. or Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Call 862-0135 or visit hsccvt.org for more info.

YOUTH PROGRAMS AT HSCC!

We host a variety of education programs for kids ages 5 to 15 to teach our youth about animals through the lens of empathy, kindness and understanding. Visit hsccvt.org/education-andoutreach to learn more and register!

Sponsored by:

Humane

of Chittenden County

CLASSIFIEDS

on the road

CARS/TRUCKS

CASH FOR CARS

We buy all cars! Junk, high-end, totaled: It doesn’t matter. Get free towing & same-day cash. Newer models, too. Call 1-866-5359689. (AAN CAN)

DONATE YOUR CAR FOR KIDS

Fast, free pickup. Running or not. 24-hour response. Maximum tax donation. Help fi nd missing kids! Call 1-855-504-1540. (AAN CAN)

2010 PRIUS FOR SALE

Carefully maintained, new all-season tires, new front brakes. 137K miles. No rust. Asking $8,000. Contact avidvi@ msn.com or 802-5786502 to take Bluebird for a spin.

housing

FOR RENT

APT. AVAIL. NOW 2-BR, 1-BA upstairs apt. in Old North End duplex. Avail. mid-Jan. or Feb. 1. Off-street parking. Fenced backyard. Indoor cat OK. $1,700/mo. Info: 323-821-5941.

HILL SECTION IN-LAW, PETS OK

Fully furnished 2-BR, 1-BA, private entrance. Large fenced backyard. Close to UVM, hospital, downtown, I-89. All utils. incl. Mo.-to-mo. lease. $2,800. Call 802238-8102. Avail now.

SMALL HOUSE IN WORCESTER

New house w/ woodstove, kitchen, BA, shower/claw-foot bathtub, sparkling mountain spring water. 1 spacious, large octagonal room as BR/LR. No dogs, +

housing ads: $25 (25 words) legals: 52¢/word buy this stuff: free online

utils. Contact: dunja@ workshopsfora betterlife.com.

HOUSEMATES

HOMESHARE IN

SERENE NNE

Peaceful New North End homeshare w/ a professional in her 60s who enjoys music, animal rights & social justice. $550/mo., all incl. Walking a gentle, small dog 4 times/week. Spacious BR. 863-5625, homesharevermont. org for application. Interview, refs., background check req. EHO.

HORSE LOVERS

Unique horse/ homeshare opportunity. Beautiful mountain chalet. Many extras. 4/20 friendly. 1/2 mile off Rt. 2, Plainfi eld. Currently furnished. Info: 802-454-8405.

REALLY MUST LOVE DOGS!

Share a beautiful, spacious Burlington home w/ an artistic, community-minded woman seeking an open-minded, accepting housemate to provide occasional loving help w/ dogs. $650/mo., all incl. Furnished BR, private BA. Off-street parking. 863-5625 or homesharevermont. org for application. Interview, refs., background check req. EHO.

OFFICE/ COMMERCIAL

OFFICE/RETAIL SPACE AT MAIN STREET LANDING on Burlington’s waterfront. Beautiful, healthy, affordable spaces for your business. Visit mainstreetlanding.com & click on space avail. Melinda, 864-7999.

services: $12 (25 words) fsbos: $45 (2 weeks, 30 words, photo) jobs: michelle@sevendaysvt.com, 865-1020 x121

print deadline: Mondays at 3:30 p.m. post ads online 24/7 at: sevendaysvt.com/classifieds questions? classifieds@sevendaysvt.com 865-1020 x120

WATER DAMAGE TO YOUR HOME?

ser vices

CLEANING

COMMERCIAL/ RESIDENTIAL CLEANING

Elite cleaning has room for a few more clients.

If you or anybody you know needs their business space or rentals cleaned, feel free to reach out to 802-5592833 or elitecleaningllc. vt@gmail.com.

EDUCATION

ATTN: ACTIVE DUTY & MILITARY VETS

Begin a new career & earn your degree at CTI! Online computer & medical training avail. for veterans & families.

To learn more, call 866-243-5931, Mon.-Fri. 8 a.m.-6 p.m. ET. Computer w/ internet is req. (AAN CAN)

ENTERTAINMENT

READERS WANTED

Tired of “formula fiction” & genre-driven tales? Character-driven literary fiction set in Vermont & Québec. See the books at cerealnovel.com.

FINANCIAL/ LEGAL

CREDIT CARD DEBT RELIEF!

Reduce payment by up to 50%. Get 1 low affordable payment/mo. Reduce interest. Stop calls. Free no-obligation consultation. Call 1-855761-1456. (AAN CAN)

HEALTH/ WELLNESS

MASSAGE FOR MEN BY SERGIO

EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY

All real estate advertising in this newspaper is subject to the Federal Fair Housing Act of 1968 and similar Vermont statutes which make it illegal to advertise any preference, limitations, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, handicap, presence of minor children in the family or receipt of public assistance, or an intention to make any such preference, limitation or a discrimination. The newspaper will not knowingly accept any advertising for real estate, which is in violation of the law. Our

readers are hereby informed that all dwellings advertised in this newspaper are available on an equal opportunity basis. Any home seeker who feels he or she has encountered discrimination should contact:

HUD Office of Fair Housing 10 Causeway St., Boston, MA 02222-1092 (617) 565-5309 — OR —

Vermont Human Rights Commission 14-16 Baldwin St. Montpelier, VT 05633-0633 1-800-416-2010 hrc@vermont.gov

Time for a massage to ease those aches & pains. Contact me for an appointment: 802-3247539, sacllunas@gmail. com.

PSYCHIC COUNSELING

Psychic counseling, channeling w/ Bernice Kelman, Underhill. 40+ years’ experience. Also energy healing, chakra balancing, Reiki, rebirthing, other lives, classes & more. 802-899-3542, kelman.b@juno.com.

HOME/GARDEN

BATH & SHOWER UPDATES

In as little as 1 day! Affordable prices. No payments for 18 mos. Lifetime warranty & professional installs. Senior & military discounts avail. Call 1-866-370-2939. (AAN CAN)

COVERED HOME REPAIRS

Don’t pay for covered home repairs again!

American Residential Warranty covers all major systems & appliances. 30-day risk free/$100 off popular plans. Call 855-7314403. (AAN CAN)

DOUBLE DIAMOND PAINT

New year, new paint color for the home! Professional painters avail. Interior & exterior. 20+ years’ experience. Call now for free estimate! 802-760-0584.

INTERIOR PAINTING SERVICE

South Burlington-based painter seeking interior projects. Quality work, insured w/ solid refs. On the web at vtpainting company.com or call Tim at 802-373-7223.

NEED AN ELECTRICIAN?

Provost Son and Daughters Electric is your go-to for all your electrical needs! Call 802-891-9958 or send us an email to provostsdelectric@ gmail.com.

SAFETY UPDATES FOR BATHROOMS

BathWraps is looking for calls from homeowners w/ older homes who are looking for a quick safety update. ey do not remodel entire bathrooms but update bathtubs w/ new liners for safe bathing & showering. ey specialize in grab bars, nonslip surfaces & shower seats. All updates are completed in 1 day. Call 866-531-2432. (AAN CAN)

Call for a quote for professional cleanup & maintain the value of your home. Set an appt. today. Call 833-6641530. (AAN CAN)

MOVING/ HAULING

LONG-DISTANCE MOVING

Call today for a free quote from America’s most trusted interstate movers. Let us take the stress out of moving!

Call now to speak to 1 of our quality relocation specialists: 1-855-7874471. (AAN CAN)

buy this stuff

ELECTRONICS

CANON EOS 5D MARK IV

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV

DSLR camera w/ 24105mm f4L II lens. $1,000. Info: danneystore@gmail. com.

NIKON Z 7II CAMERA

Nikon Z 7II mirrorless digital camera. $1,700. Info: danneystore@ gmail.com.

MISCELLANEOUS

4G LTE HOME INTERNET Get GotW3 w/ lightningfast speeds + take your service w/ you when you travel! As low as $109.99/mo. 1-866-5711325. (AAN CAN)

BCI WALK-IN TUBS Now on sale! Be 1 of the 1st 50 callers & save $1,500! Call 844-5140123 for a free in-home consultation. (AAN CAN)

DISH TV $64.99

$64.99 for 190 channels + $14.95 high-speed internet. Free installation, Smart HD DVR incl., free voice remote. Some restrictions apply. Promo expires Jan. 21, 2023. 1-866-566-1815. (AAN CAN)

DIRECTV SATELLITE TV Service starting at $74.99/mo.! Free install. 160+ channels avail. Call now to get the most sports & entertainment on TV. 877-310-2472. (AAN CAN)

SPECTRUM INTERNET AS LOW AS $29.99

Call to see if you qualify for ACP & free internet. No credit check. Call now! 833-955-0905. (AAN CAN)

PETS

ADORABLE CHOC. MIX PUPPIES!

Adorable 8-week-old chocolate Lab mix puppies ready to go. 3 males left: 1 chocolate & 2 black, $400. Serious inquiries, text 802-309-1440.

WANT TO BUY

PAYING TOP CASH FOR MEN’S SPORT WATCHES

Breitling, Omega, Patek Philippe, Heuer, Daytona, GMT, Submariner & Speedmaster. Call 888-320-1052. (AAN CAN)

MUSIC music BANDS/ MUSICIANS

ROOT7 A CAPPELLA

AUDITIONS

Root7 is auditioning new voices! We are a group of a cappella singers; our repertoire includes songs by Pink, James Bay, Rusted Root, Lauren Daigle, Jason Mraz & more. Information about our group is avail. at facebook.com/root7vt. If you are interested in auditioning, please contact us at root7acappella@gmail. com for instructions.

INSTRUCTION

GUITAR INSTRUCTION Berklee graduate w/30 years’ teaching experience offers lessons in guitar, music theory, music technology, ear training. Individualized, step-by-step approach. All ages, styles, levels. Rick Belford, 864-7195, rickbelford.com.

WANT MORE PUZZLES?

Try these online news games from Seven Days at sevendaysvt.com/games.

NEW ON FRIDAYS:

Put your knowledge of Vermont news to the test.

CALCOKU

BY JOSH REYNOLDS

DIFFICULTY THIS WEEK: ★★★

Fill the grid using the numbers 1-6, only once in each row and column. e numbers in each heavily outlined “cage” must combine to produce the target number in the top corner, using the mathematical operation indicated. A one-box cage should be filled in with the target number in the top corner. A number can be repeated within a cage as long as it is not the same row or column.

SUDOKU

BY JOSH REYNOLDS

DIFFICULTY THIS WEEK: ★★★

Place a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each 9-box square contains all of the numbers one to nine. e same numbers cannot be repeated in a row or column.

ANSWERS ON P.76

ON A MISSION

ANSWERS ON P.76 »

See how fast you can solve this weekly 10-word puzzle.

NEW EVERY DAY:

Guess today’s 5-letter word. Hint: It’s in the news!

802-865-1020, EXT. 142.

ACT 250 NOTICE MINOR APPLICATION 4C032917V 10 V.S.A. §§ 6001 - 6111

On January 5, 2023, Glenn & Ronalyn Cummings, 65 Lakewood Court, Colchester, VT 05446 filed application number 4C0329-17V for a project generally described as construction of a 16,100 SF warehouse building and associated parking area on an undeveloped 2.38 acre parcel of land (Lot 22) in Phase II of the Saxon Hill Industrial Park. The project is located at 22 Corporate Drive in Essex, Vermont. This application can be viewed online by visiting the Act 250 Database: (https://anrweb.vt.gov/ANR/Act250/Details. aspx?Num=4C0329-17V).

No hearing will be held, and a permit will be issued unless, on or before January 31, 2023, a party notifies the District 4 Commission in writing of an issue requiring a hearing, or the Commission sets the matter for a hearing on its own motion. Any person as defined in 10 V.S.A. § 6085(c)(1) may request a hearing. Any hearing request must be in writing, must state the criteria or sub-criteria at issue, why a hearing is required, and what additional evidence will be presented at the hearing. Any hearing request by an adjoining property owner or other person eligible for party status under 10 V.S.A. § 6085(c)(1)(E) must include a petition for party status under the Act 250 Rules. To request party status and a hearing, fill out the Party Status Petition Form on the Board’s website: https://nrb. vermont.gov/documents/party-status- petitionform, and email it to the District 4 Office at: NRB. Act250Essex@vermont.gov. Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law may not be prepared unless the Commission holds a public hearing.

For more information contact Stephanie H. Monaghan at the address or telephone number below.

Dated this January 11, 2023.

By: /s/ Stephanie H. Monaghan Stephanie H. Monaghan District Coordinator 111 West Street Essex Junction, VT 05452

PUZZLE ANSWERS

802-261-1944

stephanie.monaghan@vermont.gov

ADVERTISEMENT FOR BIDS: TOWN OF COLCHESTER 2023 SIDEWALK SPOT REPAIRS

The Town is requested separate sealed bids for the 2023 Sidewalk Spot Repairs Project for concrete sidewalk repairs at various locations, which generally includes the sidewalk panel milling at 11 locations and the installation of approximately 380 square feet of replacement and new concrete sidewalk panels, subgrade materials, and associated items in accordance with these contract documents and the Town of Colchester Department of Public Works Specifications and Standards, effective date of November 12, 2019.

Questions related to the bid package are due to Lea Sanguinetti in writing by end of day on Wednesday, February 8th, 2023. Bids will be received by Lea Sanguinetti, Assistant Town Engineer at the Town of Colchester, 781 Blakely Road, Colchester, VT 05446 until 2:00 p.m. on Friday, February 17th, 2023 and then at said office publicly opened and read aloud.

Each Bid must be accompanied by a certified check payable to the Owner for five percent (5%) of the total amount of the Bid. A Bid Bond may be used in lieu of a certified check.

A Performance Bond and a Payment Bond each in an amount equal to one hundred percent (100%) of the contract price will be required. (40 CFR §31.36(h))

All bidders must notify Lea Sanguinetti on their intent to bid so they can be placed on a Bidders List to receive any issued addenda or other pertinent information. Please notify the Town if email is not an acceptable method for receiving information and provide alternate means of contact. Please contact Lea Sanguinetti at lsanguinetti@colchestervt.gov.

For the complete Bid & Contract Documents, please visit the Town website at: https://www. colchestervt.gov/bids.aspx

FROM P.75

ADVERTISEMENT FOR BIDS: TOWN OF COLCHESTER LINE STRIPING 2023

The Town is requesting separate sealed bids for roadway line striping of various roads around Town. The scope of work includes a combination of line striping of the centerline and edgeline for a combined total of 469,140 linear feet. Work to be performed in accordance with the technical specifications provided in the Appendix, and the Town of Colchester Department of Public Works Specifications and Standards, effective date of November 12, 2019. All work for this project must be completed by Friday, June 16, 2023.

Questions related to the bid package are due to Lea Sanguinetti in writing by Monday, January 30, 2023. Bids will be received by Lea Sanguinetti, Assistant Town Engineer at the Town of Colchester, 781 Blakely Road, Colchester, VT 05446 until 2:00 p.m. on Friday, February 10, 2023 and then at said office publicly opened and read aloud.

Each BID must be accompanied by a certified check payable to the OWNER for five percent (5%) of the total amount of the BID. A BID bond may be used in lieu of a certified check.

All bidders must notify Lea Sanguinetti on their intent to bid so they can be placed on a Bidders List to receive any issued addenda or other pertinent information. Please notify the Town if email is not an acceptable method for receiving information and provide alternate means of contact. Please contact Lea Sanguinetti at lsanguinetti@colchestervt.gov.

For the complete Bid & Contract Documents, please visit the Town website at: https://www. colchestervt.gov/bids.aspx

BURLINGTON DEVELOPMENT REVIEW BOARD

Tuesday, February 7, 2023, 5:00 PM

PUBLIC HEARING NOTICE

In Person (at 645 Pine Street) Meeting

1. ZAP-22-9; 94 Glen Road (RL, Ward 6S) Joel FitzGerald / Barbara & Stephen George Appeal of

zoning approval (ZP-22-508) to install new shed, expand driveway, and establish an in home office.

Plans may be viewed upon request by contacting the Department of Permitting & Inspections between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Participation in the DRB proceeding is a prerequisite to the right to take any subsequent appeal. Please note that ANYTHING submitted to the Zoning office is considered public and cannot be kept confidential. This may not be the final order in which items will be heard. Please view final Agenda, at www.burlingtonvt.gov/dpi/drb/agendas or the office notice board, one week before the hearing for the order in which items will be heard.

BURLINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT: ENERGY PERFORMANCE CONTRACTING SERVICES REQUEST FOR PRE-QUALIFICATIONS AND PROPOSALS

Burlington School District seeks proposals from interested Energy Services Companies (Contractor) to conduct a technical energy audit of facilities and to implement an Energy Performance Contract. The intent is to identify and implement capital improvements that reduce energy and related costs in District facilities in a manner that allows annual cost savings to be applied to the annual payments for improvements. The criteria and the full Request for Proposal and Qualifications documents are available upon request.

The School Board reserves the right to reject any and all Proposals, to re-advertise, and to waive any and or all informalities.

Pre-qualification statement & submission information:

Burlington Public School District Requests

Contractors submit Letters of Interest and prequalification statements in electronic format not later than 4:00 pm Friday, February 10, 2023 to the office of the Burlington School District Property Services. Contact Lyall Smith at lsmith@bsdvt.org to obtain the full RFQ and pre-qualification criteria.

CITY OF WINOOSKI PUBLIC HEARING

FROM P.75

The Winooski City Council will hold a Public Hearing on Monday, January 23, 2023 at 6:00 p.m. in the Claire Burke Council Chambers (City Hall). The Public Hearing will be to consider the proposed FY24 Budget. To view the FY24 Budget and full annual meeting day information visit www. winooskivt.gov

• Attend online: https://us06web.zoom. us/j/84364849328

• Attend by phone: 1 646 558 8656

• Webinar ID: 843 6484 9328

• Attend in-person: Winooski City Hall (27 West Allen Street)

Jennifer Willingham City Clerk January 10, 2023

NOTICE OF FIRST & SECOND PUBLIC HEARINGS ON PROPOSED CHARTER CHANGE FOR MARCH 7, 2023

City of Winooski

Due to State Law (17 V.S.A. Section 2645) two public hearings will be held so residents can learn more about the voter-backed petition below that may result in a change to the Winooski’s City Charter. These meetings are open to all.

Thursday, January 26, 2023 at 6:00 p.m. at Claire Burke Council Chambers-Remote and In- Person Attend online: https ://us06web.zoom. us/j/84364849328

Attend by phone: 1 646 558 8656 Webinar ID: 843 6484 9328

Attend in person: Winooski City Hall (27 West Allen Street)

Saturday, February 4, 2023 at 11:00 at the O’Brien Community Center 32 Mallett’s Bay Avenue (In-Person only)

Show and tell. View and post up to 6 photos per ad online.

Open 24/7/365. Post & browse ads at your convenience.

Extra! Extra! There’s no limit to ad length online.

WINOOSKI JUST CAUSE EVICTION CHARTER CHANGE-VOTER BACKED PETITION- 3/7/23

Shall the Charter of the City of Winooski, Acts of 2013, No. M-9, as amended, be further amended to give the City Council the power to provide by ordinance protections for residential tenants from evictions without ‘just cause’ by adopting and adding a new subsection 304(b)(13) to read as follows:

“304(b)(13)(A) To provide by ordinance protections for residential tenants, as defined in Chapter 137 of Title 9 of the Vermont Statutes Annotated, from eviction without ‘just cause,’ where just cause shall include, but is not limited to:

(1) a tenant’s material breach of a written rental agreement, (2) a tenant’s violation of state statutes regulating tenant obligations in residential rental agreements, (3) non-payment of rent, and (4) a tenant’s failure to accept written, reasonable, good faith renewal terms.

(B) Such ordinance shall exclude from ‘just cause’ the expiration of a rental agreement as sole grounds for termination of tenancy. In addition to the exemptions in Chapter 137 of Title 9, the ordinance shall exempt from this provision, subject to mitigation provisions, sublets and in-unit rentals as well as the following properties but not limited to:

(1) owner-occupied duplexes, and triplexes; (2) those being withdrawn from the rental market, including properties to be occupied by the owner or an immediate family member as a primary residence; and (3) those in need of substantial renovations which preclude occupancy.

(C) Such ordinance shall include provisions that: (1) mitigate potential negative impacts on tenants and property owners, including but not limited to requirements of adequate notice and reasonable relocation expenses, (2) provide for a reasonable probationary period after initial occupancy, and (3) limit unreasonable rent increases to prevent de facto evictions or nonrenewal, although this shall not be construed to limit rents beyond the purpose of preventing individual evictions.

(D) The ordinance shall define what is ‘reasonable’ and ‘adequate notice’ in defining just cause and shall require that landlords provide notice of just cause and other legal requirements as part of the rental agreement.”?

NOTICE OF SELF STORAGE LIEN SALE, JERICHO MINI STORAGE 25 NORTH MAIN STREET, JERICHO, VT 05465.

The contents of the following self storage units will be sold at public auction, by sealed bid, on January 30, 2023 at 12:00 PM.

Your claim must include copies of all billing documents in support of your claim.

Dated: January 13, 2023

Michael T. Russell Pease Mountain Law PO Box 279 Hinesburg, VT 05461-0279

Name of Publication: Seven Days Publication Date: January 18, 2023

PRIVATE AUCTION OF STORAGE UNIT CONTENTS

In accordance with VT Title 9 Commerce and Trade Chapter 098: Storage Units 3905.

Enforcement of Lien, Champlain Valley Self Storage, LLC shall host a live auction of the following units on or after 9am 2/11/23:

Location: 2211 Main St. Colchester, VT 05446

William Himan, unit #1011: household goods

Shavon Greene, unit #673: household goods

Location: 78 Lincoln St. Essex Junction, VT 05452

Valentino Anderson, unit #102: household goods

Paul Santiago-Doane, unit #007: household goods

Auction pre-registration is required, email info@ champlainvalleyselfstorage.com to register.

PUBLIC HEARING - COLCHESTER DEVELOPMENT REVIEW BOARD

Pursuant to Title 24 VSA, Chapter 117, the Development Review Board will hold a public hearing on February 8, 2023 at 7:00pm to hear the following requests under the Development Regulations. Meeting is open to the public and will be held at 781 Blakely Road.

a) VAR-23-02 3G LLC: Variance application requesting restoration of the nonconforming use of the structure as a seasonal dwelling unit that was previously abandoned per §2.12 of the Development Regulations. Subject property is located at 793 East Lakeshore Drive, Account #67-019003-0030000.

b) FP-23-16 WHITTENS LANDING HOMEOWNERS ASSOCATION: Final Plat application to amend a previously approved planned unit development to increase the size of the previously approved footprint lots for Units 1 – 3, 6, 10, 11 – 14, and 16 – 19 to capture existing patio areas and deck steps, and/or allow for patios in the future, and reduce the Planned Unit Development buffer to accommodate this modification. Subject property is located at 0 Fox Run, Account #07-075003-0000000.

January 18, 2023

STATE OF VERMONT SUPERIOR COURT PROBATE DIVISION CHITTENDEN UNIT DOCKET NO.: 22-PR-05756

In re ESTATE of Mark Lykens

NOTICE TO CREDITORS

802-524-9546 x12, jessica.lykens@yahoo.com

Name of Publication: Seven Days Publication Date: 1/18/2023

Name of Probate Court: Vermont Superior Court, Chittenden Unit, Probate Division Address of Probate Court: 175 Main St, Burlington VT 05401

STATE OF VERMONT SUPERIOR COURT PROBATE DIVISION-CHITTENDEN UNIT DOCKET NO. 22-PR-06828

NOTICE TO CREDITORS

To the Creditors of: JOHN RINELLI, late of Shelburne, Vermont.

I have been appointed to administer this estate. All creditors having claims against the decedent or the estate must present their claims in writing within four (4) months of the first publication of this notice. The claim must be presented to me at the address listed below with a copy sent to the Court. The claim may be barred forever if it is not presented within the four (4) month period.

Date: January 10, 2023

Signature of Fiduciary: /s/ Ivan Goldstein, Administrator

Ivan Goldstein, Adm’r Estate of John Rinelli 65 Lakeview Terrace Burlington, VT 05401

Telephone: (802) 863-2640 Email: frank@kochmanlaw.com

Name of Publication: Seven Days

Publication Date: 1/18/23

Name of Probate Court: Vermont Superior Court Chittenden Unit Probate Division

Address of Probate Court: 175 Main Street, Burlington, VT 05401

TOWN OF WESTFORD DEVELOPMENT REVIEW BOARD NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

Pursuant to 24 V.S.A. Chapter 117 and the Westford Land Use & Development Regulations, the Westford Development Review Board will hold a public hearing at the Westford Public Library (1717 Rte 128) & via ZOOM on Monday, February 13, 2023 at 7:00 PM to review the following application:

Site Plan Public Hearing –Thibault Property

Applicant: Jim Bradley, Project Manager @ Hayward Design Build (approx. 66.4 acres) located on Pettingill Road in the Rural 10 Zoning District. The applicant is requesting site plan approval for the construction of an accessory structure more than 1,000 sq ft in size.

Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/943541504 51?pwd=SGhDaEdSMW8vRjhNS2hiUHdTK0RFdz09

Or Dial +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)

Meeting ID: 943 5415 0451 Passcode: 4zcnzW

For more information call the Town Offices at 878-4587 Monday–Thursday 8:30am–4:30pm & Friday 8:30a.m.-1:00 p.m.

Matt Wamsganz, Chairman Dated January 12, 2023

NOTICE TO CREDITORS

I represent LCR Enterprises, Inc. The company sold substantially all of its assets on December 31, 2022 and is currently in the process of winding up its business. I have been authorized by the company to administer that winding up. If you would like to submit a claim for amounts due to you from LCR Enterprises, Inc., you may do so by sending your claim in writing to:

Pease Mountain Law PLLC P.O. Box 279

Hinesburg, VT 05461-0279

Your claim must commence within 5 years after publication of this notice. If your claim is not received within that 5-year period it will be barred pursuant to 11 V.S.A. §4108.

To the creditors of: Mark Lykens, late of Essex, Vermont.

I have been appointed to administer this estate. All creditors having claims against the decedent or the estate must present their claims in writing within four (4) months of the date of the first publication of this notice. The claim must be presented to me at the address listed below with a copy sent to the Court. The claim may be barred forever if it is not presented within the four (4) month period.

Dated: January 5, 2023

Signature of Fiduciary: /s/

Executor/Administrator: Jessica Lykens Jesse Bugbee, Esq., 2 North Main Street, Suite Three, St. Albans, VT 05478,

Andrea Scott #256 Jordan Jerome #13 Tonya Cunningham #46 Units will be opened for viewing for auction, sale by sealed bid to the highest bidder, cash only. Contents of entire storage unit will be sold as one lot.

Support Groups

A CIRCLE OF PARENTS FOR MOTHERS OF COLOR

Please join our parent-led online support group designed to share our questions, concerns & struggles, as well as our resources & successes! Contribute to our discussion of the unique but shared experience of parenting. We will be meeting weekly on Wed., 10-11 a.m. For more info or to register, please contact Heather at hniquette@pcavt.org, 802-498-0607, pcavt.org/ family-support-programs.

A CIRCLE OF PARENTS FOR SINGLE MOTHERS

Please join our parent-led online support group designed to share our questions, concerns & struggles, as well as our resources & successes! Contribute to our discussion of the unique but shared experience of parenting. We will be meeting weekly on Fri., 10-11 a.m. For more info or to register, please contact Heather at hniquette@pcavt.org, 802-498-0607, pcavt.org/ family-support-programs.

A CIRCLE OF PARENTS W/ LGBTQ+ CHILDREN

Please join our parent-led online support group designed to share our questions, concerns & struggles, as well as our resources & successes! Contribute to our discussion of the unique but shared experience of parenting. We will be meeting weekly on Mon., 10-11 a.m. For more info or to register, please contact Heather at hniquette@pcavt.org, 802-498-0607, pcavt.org/ family-support-programs.

AL-ANON

For families & friends of alcoholics. Phone meetings, electronic meetings (Zoom), & an Al-Anon blog are avail. online at the Al-Anon website. For meeting info, go to vermontalanonalateen.org or call 866-972-5266.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

Do you have a drinking problem? AA meeting sites are now open, & online meetings are also available. Call our hotline at 802 864-1212 or check for in-person or online meetings at burlingtonaa. org.

ALL ARTISTS SUPPORT GROUP

Are you a frustrated artist? Have you longed for a space to “play” & work? Let’s get together & see what we can do about this! Text (anytime) or call 802-777-6100.

ALZHEIMER’S ASSOCIATION SUPPORT GROUPS

Support groups meet to provide assistance & info on Alzheimer’s disease & related dementias. They emphasize shared experiences, emotional support & coping techniques in care for a person living w/ Alzheimer’s or a related dementia. Meetings are free & open to the public. Families, caregivers & friends may attend. Please call in advance to confirm the date & time. The Williston Caregiver Support Group meets in person on the 2nd Tue. of every mo., 5-6:30 p.m., at the Dorothy Alling Memorial Library in Williston; this meeting also has a virtual option at the same time; contact is support group facilitators Molly at dugan@ cathedralsquare.org or Mindy at moondog@burlingtontelecom.net. The Middlebury Support Group for Individuals w/ Early Stage Dementia meets the 4th Tue. of each mo. 3 p.m., at the Residence at Otter Creek, 350 Lodge Rd., Middlebury; contact is Daniel Hamilton, dhamilton@residenceottercreek. com or 802-989-0097. The Shelburne Support Group for Individuals w/ Early Stage Dementia meets the 1st Mon. of every mo., 2-3 p.m., at the Residence at Shelburne Bay, 185 Pine Haven Shores, Shelburne; contact is support group facilitator Lydia Raymond, lraymond@residenceshelburnebay.com. The Telephone Support Group meets the 2nd Tue. monthly, 4-5:30 p.m. Prereg. is req. (to receive dial-in codes for toll-free call). Please dial the Alzheimer’s Association’s 24-7 Helpline, 800-272-3900, for more info. For questions or additional support group listings, call 800-272-3900.

ARE

CONTACT CLASSIFIEDS@SEVENDAYSVT.COM

OR 802-865-1020 X110 TO UPDATE YOUR

SUPPORT GROUP

Winooski, Burlington. Contact Jennifer, 917-568-6390.

BABY BUMPS SUPPORT GROUP FOR MOTHERS & PREGNANT WOMEN

Pregnancy can be a wonderful time of your life. But it can also be a time of stress often compounded by hormonal swings. If you are a pregnant woman, or have recently given birth & feel you need some help w/ managing emotional bumps in the road that can come w/ motherhood, please come to this free support group led by an experienced pediatric registered nurse. Held on the 2nd & 4th Tue. of every mo., 5:30-6:30 p.m. at the Birthing Center, Northwestern Medical Center, St. Albans. Info: Rhonda Desrochers, Franklin County Home Health Agency, 527-7531.

BETTER BREATHERS CLUB

American Lung Association support group for people w/ breathing issues, their loved ones or caregivers. Meets on the 1st Mon. of every mo., 11 a.m.-noon at the Godnick Center, 1 Deer St., Rutland. For more info call 802-776-5508.

BRAIN INJURY SUPPORT GROUP

Vermont Center for Independent Living offers virtual monthly meetings, held on the 3rd Wed. of every mo., 1-2:30 p.m. The support group will offer valuable resources & info about brain injury. It will be a place to share experiences in a safe, secure & confidential environment. To join, email Linda Meleady at lindam@vcil.org & ask to be put on the TBI mailing list. Info: 800-639-1522.

BRAIN INJURY ASSOCIATION OF VERMONT

Montpelier daytime support group meets on the 3rd Thu. of every mo., at the Unitarian Church ramp entrance, 1:30-2:30 p.m. St. Johnsbury support group meets on the 3rd Wed. of every mo., at the Grace United Methodist Church, 36 Central St., 1-2:30 p.m. Colchester evening support group meets on the 1st Wed. of every mo., at the Fanny Allen Hospital in the Board Room Conference Room, 5:30-7:30 p.m. White River Jct. meets on the 2nd Fri. of every mo., at Bugbee Sr. Ctr. from 3-4:30 p.m. Call our helpline at 877-856-1772.

CANCER SUPPORT GROUP

The Champlain Valley Prostate Cancer Support Group will be held every 2nd Tue. of the mo., 6-7:45 p.m. via conference call. Newly diagnosed? Prostate cancer reoccurrence? General discussion & sharing among survivors & those beginning or rejoining the battle. Info, Mary L. Guyette RN, MS, ACNS-BC, 274-4990, vmary@aol.com.

CELEBRATE RECOVERY

Overcome any hurt, habit or hang-up in your life w/ this confidential 12-step, Christ-centered recovery program. We offer multiple support groups for both men & women, such as chemical dependency, codependency, sexual addiction & pornography, food issues, & overcoming abuse. All 18+ are welcome; sorry, no childcare. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; we begin at 7 p.m. Essex Alliance Church, 37 Old Stage Rd., Essex Junction. Info: recovery@essexalliance.org, 878-8213.

CELEBRATE RECOVERY

Celebrate Recovery meetings are for anyone struggling w/ hurt, habits & hang-ups, which include everyone in some way. We welcome everyone at Cornerstone Church in Milton, which meets every Fri. from 7-9 p.m. We’d love to have you join us & discover how your life can start to change. Info: 893-0530, julie@mccartycreations. com.

CENTRAL VERMONT CELIAC SUPPORT GROUP

Last Thu. of every mo., 7:30 p.m. in Montpelier. Please contact Lisa Mase for location: lisa@ harmonizecookery.com.

CEREBRAL PALSY GUIDANCE

CODEPENDENTS ANONYMOUS

CoDA is a 12-step fellowship for people whose common purpose is to develop healthy & fulfilling relationships. By actively working the program of Codependents Anonymous, we can realize a new joy, acceptance & serenity in our lives. Meets Sun. at noon at the Turning Point Center, 179 S. Winooski Ave., Suite 301, Burlington. Tom, 238-3587, coda.org.

DECLUTTERERS’ SUPPORT GROUP Are you ready to make improvements but find it overwhelming? Maybe 2 or 3 of us can get together to help each other simplify. 989-3234, 425-3612.

DISCOVER THE POWER OF CHOICE! SMART Recovery welcomes anyone, including family & friends, affected by any kind of substance or activity addiction. It is a science-based program that encourages abstinence. Specially trained volunteer facilitators provide leadership. Sun. at 5 p.m. The meeting has moved to Zoom: smartrecovery.zoom.us/j/92925275515. Volunteer facilitator: Bert, 399-8754. You can learn more at smartrecovery.org.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SUPPORT

Steps to End Domestic Violence offers a weekly drop-in support group for female-identified survivors of intimate partner violence, including individuals who are experiencing or have been affected by domestic violence. The support group offers a safe, confidential place for survivors to connect w/ others, to heal & to recover. In support group, participants talk through their experiences & hear stories from others who have experienced abuse in their relationships. Support group is also a resource for those who are unsure of their next step, even if it involves remaining in their current relationship. Tue., 6:30-8 p.m. Childcare is provided. Info: 658-1996.

EMPLOYMENT-SEEKERS SUPPORT GROUP Frustrated w/ the job search or w/ your job? You are not alone. Come check out this supportive circle. Wed. at 3 p.m., Pathways Vermont Community Center, 279 N. Winooski Ave., Burlington. Info: Abby Levinsohn, 777-8602.

FAMILY & FRIENDS OF THOSE EXPERIENCING MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

This support group is a dedicated meeting for family, friends & community members who are supporting a loved one through a mental health crisis. Mental health crisis might include extreme states, psychosis, depression, anxiety & other types of distress. The group is a confidential space where family & friends can discuss shared experiences & receive support in an environment free of judgment & stigma w/ a trained facilitator. Wed., 7-8:30 p.m. Downtown Burlington. Info: Jess Horner, LICSW, 866-218-8586.

FAMILY RESTORED: SUPPORT GROUP FOR FRIENDS & FAMILIES OF ADDICTS & ALCOHOLICS Wed., 6:30-8 p.m., Holy Family/St. Lawrence Parish, 4 Prospect St., Essex Junction. For further info, please visit thefamilyrestored.org or contact Lindsay Duford at 781-960-3965 or 12lindsaymarie@gmail.com.

FCA FAMILY SUPPORT GROUP

meeting group found on Facebook at Fiercely Flat VT. Info: stacy.m.burnett@gmail.com.

FOOD ADDICTS IN RECOVERY ANONYMOUS (FA) Are you having trouble controlling the way you eat? FA is a free 12-step recovery program for anyone suffering from food obsession, overeating, under-eating or bulimia. Local meetings are held twice a wk.: Mon., 4-5:30 p.m., at the Unitarian Universalist Church, Norwich, Vt.; & Wed., 6:30-8 p.m., at Hanover Friends Meeting House, Hanover, N.H. For more info & a list of additional meetings throughout the U.S. & the world, call 603-6301495 or visit foodaddicts.org.

G.R.A.S.P. (GRIEF RECOVERY AFTER A SUBSTANCE PASSING)

Are you a family member who has lost a loved one to addiction? Find support, peer-led support group. Meets once a mo. on Mon. in Burlington. Please call for date & location. RSVP mkeasler3@ gmail.com or call 310-3301 (message says Optimum Health, but this is a private number).

GRIEF & LOSS SUPPORT GROUP

Sharing your sadness, finding your joy. Please join us as we learn more about our own grief & explore the things that can help us to heal. There is great power in sharing our experiences w/ others who know the pain of the loss of a loved one & healing is possible through the sharing. BAYADA Hospice’s local bereavement support coordinator will facilitate our weekly group through discussion & activities. Everyone from the community is welcome. 1st & last Wed. of every mo. at 4 p.m. via Zoom. To register, please contact bereavement program coordinator Max Crystal, mcrystal@ bayada.com or 802-448-1610.

GRIEF SUPPORT GROUPS

Meet every 2nd Mon., 6-7:30 p.m., & every 3rd Wed. from 10-11:30 a.m., at Central Vermont Home Health & Hospice in Berlin. The group is open to the public & free of charge. More info: Diana Moore, 224-2241.

HEARING VOICES SUPPORT GROUP

This Hearing Voices Group seeks to find understanding of voice-hearing experiences as real lived experiences that may happen to anyone at anytime. We choose to share experiences, support & empathy. We validate anyone’s experience & stories about their experience as their own, as being an honest & accurate representation of their experience, & as being acceptable exactly as they are. Tue., 2-3 p.m. Pathways Vermont Community Center, 279 N. Winooski Ave., Burlington. Info: 802-777-8602, abby@pathwaysvermont.org.

HELLENBACH CANCER SUPPORT

Call to verify meeting place. Info, 388-6107. People living w/ cancer & their caretakers convene for support.

INTERSTITIAL CYSTITIS/PAINFUL BLADDER SUPPORT GROUP

YOU HAVING PROBLEMS W/ DEBT?

Do you spend more than you earn? Get help at Debtor’s Anonymous & Business Debtor’s Anonymous. Wed., 6:30-7:30 p.m., Methodist Church in the Rainbow Room at Buell & S.

Cerebral Palsy Guidance is a very comprehensive informational website broadly covering the topic of cerebral palsy & associated medical conditions. Its mission is to provide the best possible info to parents of children living w/ the complex condition of cerebral palsy. cerebralpalsyguidance.com/ cerebral-palsy.

Families Coping w/ Addiction (FCA) is an open community peer support group for adults (18+) struggling w/ the drug or alcohol addiction of a loved one. FCA is not 12-step-based but provides a forum for those living the family experience, in which to develop personal coping skills & to draw strength from one another. Our group meets every Wed., 5:30-6:30 p.m., live in person in the conference room at the Turning Point Center of Chittenden County (179 S. Winooski Avenue, Burlington), &/or via our parallel Zoom session to accommodate those who cannot attend in person. The Zoom link can be found on the Turning Point Center website (turningpointcentervt.org) using the “Family Support” tab (click on “What We Offer”). Any questions, please send by email to thdaub1@ gmail.com.

FIERCELY FLAT VT

A breast cancer support group for those who’ve had mastectomies. We are a casual online

Interstitial cystitis (IC) & painful bladder syndrome can result in recurring pelvic pain, pressure or discomfort in the bladder/pelvic region & urinary frequency/urgency. These are often misdiagnosed & mistreated as a chronic bladder infection. If you have been diagnosed or have these symptoms, you are not alone. For Vermontbased support group, email bladderpainvt@gmail. com or call 899-4151 for more info.

KINDRED CONNECTIONS PROGRAM OFFERED FOR CHITTENDEN COUNTY CANCER SURVIVORS

The Kindred Connections program provides peer support for all those touched by cancer. Cancer patients, as well as caregivers, are provided w/ a mentor who has been through the cancer experience & knows what it’s like to go through it. In addition to sensitive listening, Kindred Connections provides practical help such as rides to doctors’ offices & meal deliveries. The program has people who have experienced a wide variety of cancers. For further info, please contact info@ vcsn.net.

KINSHIP CAREGIVER SUPPORT GROUP

A support group for grandparents who are raising their grandchildren. Led by a trained representative & facilitator. Meets on the 2nd

Tue. of every mo., 6:30-7:45 p.m., at Milton Public Library. Free. For more info, call 802-893-4644 or email library@miltonvt.gov. Facebook.com/ events/561452568022928.

LGBTQ SURVIVORS OF VIOLENCE

The SafeSpace Anti-Violence Program at Pride Center of Vermont offers peer-led support groups for survivors of relationship, dating, emotional &/ or hate-violence. These groups give survivors a safe & supportive environment to tell their stories, share info, & offer & receive support. Support groups also provide survivors an opportunity to gain info on how to better cope w/ feelings & experiences that surface because of the trauma they have experienced. Please call SafeSpace at 863-0003 if you are interested in joining.

LIVING THROUGH LOSS

Gifford Medical Center is announcing the restart of its grief support group, Living Through Loss. The program is sponsored by the Gifford Volunteer Chaplaincy Program & will meet weekly on Fri., 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m., in Gifford’s Chun Chapel beginning on Aug. 6. Meetings will be facilitated by the Rev. Timothy Eberhardt, spiritual care coordinator, & Emily Pizzale MSW, LICSW, a Gifford social worker. Anyone who has experienced a significant loss over the last year or so is warmly invited to attend & should enter through the hospital’s main entrance wearing a mask on the way to the chapel. Meetings will be based on the belief that, while each of us is on a unique journey in life, we all need a safe place to pause, to tell our stories &, especially as we grieve, to receive the support & strength we need to continue along the way.

MARIJUANA ANONYMOUS

Do you have a problem w/ marijuana? MA is a free 12-step program where addicts help other addicts get & stay clean. Ongoing Wed., 7 p.m., at Turning Point Center, 179 S. Winooski, Suite 301, Burlington. 861-3150.

MYELOMA SUPPORT GROUP

Area Myeloma Survivors, Families & Caregivers have come together to form a Multiple Myeloma Support Group. We provide emotional support, resources about treatment options, coping strategies & a support network by participating in the group experience w/ people who have been through similar situations. 3rd Tue. of every mo., 5-6 p.m., at the New Hope Lodge on East Ave. in Burlington. Info: Kay Cromie, 655-9136, kgcromey@aol.com.

NAMI CONNECTION PEER SUPPORT GROUP MEETINGS

Weekly virtual meetings. If you have questions about a group in your area, please contact the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Vermont, program@namivt.org or 800-639-6480.

Connection groups are peer recovery support group programs for adults living w/ mental health challenges.

NAMI FAMILY SUPPORT GROUP

Weekly virtual & in-person meetings. Weekly virtual & in-person meetings. ASL interpreters available upon request. If you have questions about a group in your area, please contact the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Vermont, info@namivt.org or 800-639-6480. Family

Support Group meetings are for family & friends of individuals living w/ mental illness. If you have questions about a group in your area, please contact the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Vermont, info@namivt.org or 800-639-6480.

Family Support Group meetings are for family & friends of individuals living w/ mental illness.

NARCONON SUNCOAST DRUG & ALCOHOL REHABILITATION & EDUCATION

Narconon reminds families that overdoses due to an elephant tranquilizer known as Carfentanil have been on the rise in nearly every community nationwide. Carfentanil is a synthetic opioid painkiller 100 times more powerful than fentanyl & 1,000 times stronger than heroin. A tiny grain of it is enough to be fatal. To learn more about carfentanil abuse & how to help your loved one, visit narconon-suncoast.org/drug-abuse/ parents-get-help.html. Addiction screenings:

Narconon can help you take steps to overcome addiction in your family. Call today for a no-cost screening or referral: 1-877-841-5509.

NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS is a group of recovering addicts who live without the use of drugs. It costs nothing to join. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using. Info, 862-4516 or cvana.org. Held in Burlington, Barre & St. Johnsbury.

NARCANON BURLINGTON GROUP

Group meets every Mon. at 7 p.m., at the Turning Point Center, 179 S. Winooski Ave., Suite 301, in Burlington. The only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of addiction in a relative or friend. Info: Amanda H. 338-8106.

NEW (& EXPECTING) MAMAS & PAPAS! EVERY PRIMARY CAREGIVER TO A BABY!

The Children’s Room invites you to join our weekly drop-in support group. Come unwind & discuss your experiences & questions around infant care & development, self-care & postpartum healing, & community resources for families w/ babies. Tea & snacks provided. Thu., 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Bring your babies! (Newborn through crawling stage.) Located in Thatcher Brook Primary School, 47 Stowe St., childrensroomonline.org. Contact childrensroom@wwsu.org or 244-5605.

NORTHWEST VERMONT CANCER PRAYER & SUPPORT NETWORK

A meeting of cancer patients, survivors & family members intended to comfort & support those who are currently suffering from the disease.

2nd Thu. of every mo., 6-7:30 p.m., St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, 11 Church St., St. Albans. Info: stpaulum@myfairpoint.net. 2nd Wed. of every mo., 6-7:30 p.m., Winooski United Methodist Church, 24 W. Allen St., Winooski. Info: hovermann4@comcast.net.

OPEN EARS, OPEN MINDS

A mutual support circle that focuses on connection & self-exploration. Fri. at 1 p.m., Pathways Vermont Community Center, 279 N. Winooski Ave., Burlington. Info: Abby Levinsohn, 777-8602.

OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS (OA)

A 12-step program for people who identify as overeaters, compulsive eaters, food addicts, anorexics, bulimics, etc. No matter what your problem w/ food, we have a solution! All are welcome, meetings are open, & there are no dues or fees. See oavermont.org/meeting-list for the current meeting list, meeting format & more; or call 802-863-2655 anytime!

PONDERING GENDER & SEXUALITY

Pondering Gender & Sexuality is a twice-monthly facilitated mutual support group for folks of any identity (whether fully formed or a work in progress) who want to engage in meaningful conversations about gender, sexuality & sexual orientation, &/or the coming-out process. Discussions can range from the personal to the philosophical & beyond as we work together to create a compassionate, safe & courageous space to explore our experiences. The group will be held on the 2nd Sun. & 4th Tue. of every mo., 1-2:30 p.m., either virtually or at Pride Center of Vermont. Email pgs@pridecentervt.org for more info or w/ questions!

POTATO INTOLERANCE SUPPORT GROUP

Anyone coping w/ potato intolerance & interested in joining a support group, contact Jerry Fox, 48 Saybrook Rd., Essex Junction, VT 05452.

QUEEN CITY MEMORY CAFÉ

The Queen City Memory Café offers a social time & place for people w/ memory impairment & their friends & family to laugh, learn, & share concerns & celebrate feeling understood & connected. Enjoy coffee, tea & baked goods w/ entertainment & conversation. QCMC meets on the 3rd Sat. of every mo., 10 a.m.-noon, at the Thayer Building, 1197 North Ave., Burlington. 316-3839.

QUEER CARE GROUP

This support group is for adult family members & caregivers of queer &/or questioning youth. It is

Show and tell. View and post up to 6 photos per ad online.

Open 24/7/365. Post & browse ads at your convenience.

held on the 2nd Mon. of every mo., 6:30-8 p.m., at Outright Vermont, 241 North Winooski Ave. This group is for adults only. For more info, email info@ outrightvt.org.

READY TO BE TOBACCO-FREE GROUPS

Join a free 4-5-week group workshop facilitated by our coaches, who are certified in tobacco treatment. We meet in a friendly, relaxed & virtual atmosphere. You may qualify for a free limited supply of nicotine replacement therapy. Info: Call 802-847-7333 or email quittobaccoclass@uvmhealth.org to get signed up, or visit myhealthyvt. org to learn more about upcoming workshops!

RECOVERING FROM RELIGION Meets on the 2nd Tue. of every mo., 6-8 p.m., at Brownell Public Library, 6 Lincoln St., Essex Junction, unless there’s inclement weather or the date falls on a holiday. Attendees can remain anonymous if they so choose & are not required to tell their story if they do not wish to, but everyone will be welcome to do so. The primary focus of a Recovering From Religion support group is to provide ongoing & personal support to individuals as they let go of their religious beliefs. This transitional period is an ongoing process that can result in a range of emotions, as well as a ripple effect of consequences throughout an individual’s life. As such, the support meetings are safe & anonymous places to express these doubts, fears & experiences without biased feedback or proselytizing. We are here to help each other through this journey. Free.

SCLERODERMA FOUNDATION NEW ENGLAND Support group meeting held on the 4th Tue. of every mo., 6:30-8:30 p.m., Williston Police Station. Info, Blythe Leonard, 878-0732.

SEX & LOVE ADDICTS ANONYMOUS 12-step recovery group. Do you have a problem w/ sex or relationships? We can help. Shawn, 660-2645. Visit slaafws.org or saa-recovery.org for meetings near you.

SEX ADDICTS ANONYMOUS, MONTPELIER Do you have a problem w/ compulsive sexual behavior? A 12-step program has helped us. SAA Montpelier meets twice weekly at 6 p.m: Mon. virtual meeting, details at saatalk.info; Thu. faceto-face at Bethany Church, Montpelier, details at saa-recovery.org. Contact saa.vtrecovery@gmail. com or call 802-322-3701.

SEXUAL VIOLENCE SUPPORT HOPE Works offers free support groups to women, men & teens who are survivors of sexual violence. Groups are avail. for survivors at any stage of the healing process. Intake for all support groups is ongoing. If you are interested in learning more or would like to schedule an intake to become a group member, please call our office at 864-0555, ext. 19, or email our victim advocate at advocate@ sover.net.

STUTTERING SUPPORT GROUPS

If you’re a person who stutters, you are not alone! Adults, teens & school-age kids who stutter, & their families are welcome to join 1 of our 3 free National Stuttering Association (NSA) stuttering support groups at UVM (join by Zoom or in person). Adults: 5:30-6:30 p.m., 1st & 3rd Tue. monthly; teens (ages 13-17): 5:30-6:30 p.m., 2nd Thu. monthly; school-age children (ages 8-12) & parents (meeting separately): 4:15-5:15 p.m., 2nd Thu. monthly. Pomeroy Hall (489 Main St., UVM campus). Info: nsachapters.org/burlington, burlingtonstutters@gmail.com, 656-0250. Go, Team Stuttering!

SUICIDE SURVIVORS SUPPORT GROUP

For those who have lost a friend or loved one through suicide. Maple Leaf Clinic, 167 N. Main St., Wallingford, 446-3577. 6:30-8 p.m., on the 3rd Tue. of every mo.

SUICIDE HOTLINES IN VT Brattleboro, 257-7989; Montpelier (Washington County Mental Health Emergency Services), 2290591; Randolph (Clara Martin Center Emergency Service), 800-639-6360.

Extra! Extra! There’s no limit to ad length online.

SUPPORT GROUP FOR WOMEN who have experienced intimate partner abuse, facilitated by Circle (Washington Co. only). Please call 877-543-9498 for more info.

SURVIVORS OF SUICIDE

If you have lost someone to suicide & wish to have a safe place to talk, share & spend a little time w/ others who have had a similar experience, join us on the 3rd Thu. of every mo., 7-9 p.m., at the Faith Lighthouse Church, Route 105, Newport (105 Alderbrook). Please call before attending. Info: Mary Butler, 744-6284.

SURVIVORS OF SUICIDE: S. BURLINGTON

This group is for people experiencing the impact of the loss of a loved one to suicide. 1st Wed. of each mo., 6-7:30 p.m., at the Comfort Inn & Suites, 3 Dorset St., Burlington. Info: Heather Schleupner, 301-514-2445, raysoflifeyoga@gmail.com.

THE COMPASSIONATE FRIENDS SUPPORT GROUP

The Compassionate Friends international support group for parents, siblings & families grieving the loss of a child meets every 3rd Tue. of the mo., 7-9 p.m., at Kismet Place, 363 Blair Park Rd., Williston. Call/email Jay at 802-3731263, compassionatefriendsvt@gmail.com.

TOPS

Take Off Pounds Sensibly chapter meeting. Hedding United Methodist Church, Washington St., Barre. Wed., 5:15-6:15 p.m. For info, call David at 371-8929.

TRANS & GENDER-NONCONFORMING SUPPORT GROUP

As trans & GNC people in the world, we experience many things that are unique to our identities. For that reason, the Transgender Program hosts a support group for our community on the 1st & 3rd Wed. of every mo., 6:30-8 p.m., either virtually or at Pride Center of Vermont. The Trans & GNC Support group is for Vermonters at all stages of their gender journey to come together to socialize, discuss issues that are coming up in their lives & build community. We welcome anyone whose identity falls under the trans, GNC, intersex & nonbinary umbrellas, & folks questioning their gender identity. Email safespace@pridecentervt. org w/ any questions, comments or accessibility concerns.

TRANSGENDER EXTENDED FAMILY SUPPORT

We are people w/ adult loved ones who are transgender or gender-nonconforming. We meet to support each other & to learn more about issues & concerns. Our sessions are supportive, informal & confidential. Meetings are held at 5:30 p.m., the 2nd Thu. of each mo., via Zoom. Not sure if you’re ready for a meeting? We also offer 1-on-1 support. For more info, email rex@pridecentervt. org or call 802-318-4746.

VEGGIE SUPPORT GROUP

Want to feel supported on your vegetarian/vegan journey? Want more info on healthy veggie diets? Want to share & socialize at veggie potlucks & more in the greater Burlington area? This is your opportunity to join w/ other like-minded folks. veggy4life@gmail.com, 658-4991.

WOMEN’S CANCER SUPPORT GROUP

FAHC. Led by Deb Clark, RN. Every 1st & 3rd Tue., 5-6:30 p.m. Call Kathy McBeth, 847-5715.

Say you saw it in...

KNO W IT ALL

Every single story Seven Days has published in the past 24 hours. (Daily)

An editor’s pick of notable news, arts and food stories from the previous week. (Sundays)

The day’s most compelling Vermont stories condensed into seven convenient links. (Weekdays)

A sneak peek at our food news and restaurant reviews. (Tuesdays)

NOTES NO

Vermont real estate tips and DIY decorating inspiration. (Every other week)

Staff picks for weekend fun. (Thursdays)

Episode alerts from Eva Sollberger’s popular video series. (Every other week)

Local info, events and resources for busy parents. (Thursdays)

MICHELLE BROWN, 802-865-1020 X121, MICHELLE@SEVENDAYSVT.COM

School Nutrition Staff

Love to cook and looking for employment with school hours? Come join the innovative team at the Burlington School Food Project. We serve up healthy, wholesome and nutritious meals to all students in the Burlington School District. We offer competitive wages and benefits. Visit bsdvt.org for a job description & application. For more information and/or help with applying please reach out to Food Service Director Laura La Vacca: llavacca@bsdvt.org or call 802-864-8416

ATTENTION RECRUITERS:

Tourism Specialist

Part time, per diem: $16.25/hr

SOCIAL WORKER

Wake Robin, Vermont’s premier senior living community, is expanding again! We are seeking a full-time Social Worker to join our Health Services team.

The Social Worker is a key member of the Health Services team and reports to the Director of Health Services. The successful candidate must be able to identify and plan for the social and emotional needs of Wake Robin residents and their families. The Social Worker is responsible for ensuring that the medically related emotional and social needs of the residents are met and maintained on an individual basis in accordance with policies and procedures, and current state and federal regulations.

The Social Worker must demonstrate:

• Leadership skills, Effective communication

• Problem-solving, Staff management

• A demonstrated knowledge of geriatric care, as well as assessment skills and familiarity with a variety of health screening tools is required.

Education and Experience Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree (or advanced) in Social Work

• At least 2 years of case management in clinical or long-term care facility

• Experience working with geriatrics preferred

• Pay starts at $24.64

• Must be vaccinated for COVID

Apply at: lgiza@wakerobin.com

Wake Robin is an Equal Opportunity Employer

UAV/GIS TECHNICIAN

The Vermont Association of Conservation Districts (VACD) seeks qualified applicants for a full-time Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (sUAV)/GIS Technician position. The UAV/GIS Technician will be part of a team responsible for coordinating VACD’s sUAV program while also supporting Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) GIS Specialist in providing state-wide GIS, cartographic and business and mobile tool technical assistance to the NRCS Resource Team as well as conservation planning field staff. The sUAV/GIS Technician’s Home Office will be determined based upon the geographic location of selectee. There will regular opportunities to Telework.

The sUAV/GIS Technician will have a working knowledge of natural resources, agriculture, or water quality, coursework and proficiency with ArcPro and cartographic imagery, the ability to work independently and be comfortable with field work on farms. Experience operating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles including RTK Quadcopters and an understanding of data retrieval and processing are preferred. Having or working towards a FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certification is desired. A Bachelor’s degree with an interest in conservation is required. Starting salary is $18.06 per hour and includes yearly salary advances, health benefits, participation in an employer contribution 401K plan and a generous sick, holiday and vacation leave package.

Visit vacd.org for a detailed job description.

Send resume, cover letter & contact information for three references by January 24th to: Joanne Dion at joanne.dion@vacd.org or to VACD, PO Box 889, Montpelier, VT 05601.

Equal Opportunity Employer.

General Assembly

HR Associate Seasonal User Support Specialist

The Legislative support offices are currently hiring. The nonpartisan offices are an interesting, challenging, and exciting place to work.

You will be part of a highly professional and collegial team that is proud of, and enthusiastic about, the mission of the state legislature.

To apply, please go to 'Career Opportunities' at legislature.vermont.gov.

ELMORE STORE OPERATOR

The Elmore Community Trust (ECT) is seeking motivated and committed individuals to operate the historic Elmore Store in beautiful Elmore, Vermont starting May 1st, 2023. Perched on the shores of Lake Elmore, the store is one of the only commercial businesses and the primary central meeting place in town. The Elmore Store is a beloved and vital part of the community, housing the Post O ce, a pizza maker, two residential rental units, and providing a variety of goods and services to residents and travelers alike. In recent years it has also hosted numerous successful community and music events which have contributed tremendously to our rural town.

For more details about this opportunity, please visit: elmorecommunitytrust.org/ operator

The Williston I-89 Welcome Centers are looking to hire part-time and/or per diem employees with great customer service skills.

Duties will include some custodial tasks and physical tasks including snow removal. Must be able to lift up to 50 pounds. Hours of operation are 7am to 7pm. You must be able to work weekends & some holidays.

To apply or learn more about the position, email nicole@vermont.org

OFFICE OF THE DEFENDER GENERAL Financial Director – Montpelier

The Office of the Defender General is seeking a Financial Director & Administrative Services Manager to lead the department’s financial operations. This management position operates with considerable independence, reporting directly to the Defender General, and is responsible for all financial functions for the department.

In this role, you will be responsible for the department’s budget development and maintenance, including preparing annual budget projections, analyzing special patterns, advising the DG about needed adjustments, and projecting future needs.

You will also serve as the primary financial liaison for the department, including responding to inquiries from legislators and members of the criminal justice system. You will also have a significant supervisory role and will further support the department by taking responsibility for contract administration, property management, and overseeing procurement of goods and services, among other tasks.

The ideal candidate has excellent communication skills and is positive, self-motivated, assertive, and able to handle a diverse community of personalities and opinions. Prior management experience is preferred.

This is an exempt, full-time position with excellent State benefits. Salary: $61,963 - $97,156. EOE.

To apply, please email a cover letter and resume to Gina Puls, HR & Special Counsel, at gina.puls@vermont.gov.

VERMONT PUBLIC IS HIRING!

We are Vermont’s unified public media organization (formerly VPR and Vermont PBS), serving the community with trusted journalism, quality entertainment, and diverse educational programming.

Current openings include:

We believe a strong organization includes employees from a range of backgrounds with different skills, experience, and passions.

To see more openings & apply: vermontpublic.org/careers

Must be able to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination. Vermont Public is a proud equal opportunity employer.

Manufactured Home Improvement and Replacement Program

Home Repair Technical Assistance Specialist

The Home Repair Technical Assistance Specialist will primarily administer technical and application assistance to park residents who have unmet needs that affect habitability leading to unsafe and unhealthy housing living conditions and/ or displacement. This position requires supporting applicants through their financial assistance request process including followup support, referral and reporting services as needed.

Please visit cvoeo.org/careers to submit cover letter, resume, and three work references.

Customer Service Representative

Have you been looking for a challenging job with opportunities for growth and great benefits? Then at Champlain Broadband we have the job for you! Our Customer Sales and Service Representatives are responsible for customer service experience related to services for video, high speed internet and telephone for residential and commercial customers.

We are looking for people to provide an exceptional "Champlain Broadband customer experience" that is second to none.

Opportunities for advancement, a robust benefits package, and a friendly atmosphere await. Apply today for a chance to join the Champlain Broadband family! bit.ly/BTVtelecomCSR

Residential Treatment Team

We’re looking for passionate individuals to join the Residential Treatment team at Lund! We are looking to fill several roles:

Residential Counselors: Provide residential services including parent education and life skill support within the treatment setting to pregnant and parenting individuals and their children. Day, evening, full, and part-time positions available. $24/hour and $3,500 hiring bonus for full-time hires. Bachelor’s degree or student in human services preferred, but not required.

If

a good t for

visit vermontcf.org/careers for complete job description and instructions for applying.

Bookkeeper/ Finance Manager

The Winooski Natural Resources Conservation District (Winooski NRCD) is seeking to contract with an experienced bookkeeper to manage the organization’s accounting, record keeping, and financial reporting.

Since 1940, the Winooski Natural Resources Conservation District has promoted the wise use, sustainable development, and conservation of our District’s natural resources. We connect residents with education and technical assistance to implement on-the-ground projects to improve water quality, soil health, and wildlife habitat.

For full job description & information on how to apply: winooskinrcd.org/news-and-events/take-action/volunteer/jobs/

Food Service Specialist (full & part-time positions available): Support all aspects of food services within Lund’s residential treatment program. Responsibilities include meal planning, preparation, and food service to parents and children in our residential treatment program. Provide individual coaching, cooking and nutrition classes for clients and their children. $18-22/hour and $500 hiring bonus for full time positions. Food prep and service experience required.

Lund helps children thrive by empowering families to break cycles of poverty, addiction, and abuse. Lund offers hope and opportunity to families through education, treatment, family support and adoption. See full job descriptions and qualifications, learn more about job openings, and apply here: lundvt.org/about-lund/employment. E.O.E.

Community Engagement & Event Coordinator

Are you a natural community collaborator? Do you want a career that makes a meaningful and long-lasting difference? If so, become a part of a great team! We seek an organized, people-person to educate, inspire, and connect Burlington parents & caregivers with resources and skills to support healthy youth development.

ADULT EDUCATION MATH INSTRUCTOR

Full-time position available with benefits in Burlington, VT

The math instructor is responsible for providing individual and group instruction to adult learners at a variety of skill levels, from basic numeracy to algebra, geometry, and statistics. The instructor will use contextualized examples and differentiated instruction to engage students and help them gain the math skills they will need to reach both their immediate and long range goals. Project-based instruction is encouraged.

Salary based on education and experience, position will remain open until filled.

Full details: vtadultlearning.org/wp-content/uploads/ ABE-Math-Instructor-Burlington-VT.pdf

To apply, send a cover letter and resume electronically to: rcampbell@vtadultlearning.org

Vermont Adult Learning is an Equal Opportunity Employer

This position connects Burlington families to our ParentIN program by organizing and facilitating workshops and presentations and working with community partners. Demonstrated knowledge and experience with the following is required: communications, relationship building, cultural competency, protective and risk factors for youth substance use, and primary prevention strategies.

Additional skills and experience with the Burlington community as well as the following is preferred: public speaking, project management, and grant reporting. We are willing to train the right candidate.

This is a part-time, 25 hour/week position with a flexible schedule and a positive, supportive work environment. Compensation is $19-$21 hourly based on qualifications & experience. Must be available for occasional evening and weekend hours for events. Opportunity to work some hours remotely.

If interested, apply online at www.nfivermont.org/careers We are an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Are you a marketing whiz that wants to help make a di erence in Vermont?

We are seeking a Brand and Marketing O cer to increase awareness and strengthen the brand of the Community Foundation to make a greater impact in Vermont. e ideal candidate will bring stellar skills in branding, digital marketing, advertising, content development, and social media.

this sounds like

you,

Assistant Professor, Digital Media Production

For position details and application process, visit jobs. plattsburgh.edu and select “View Current Openings” SUNY College at Plattsburgh is a fully compliant employer committed to excellence through diversity.

LINE/GRILL COOK

Mad River Glen is currently seeking to hire cooks to join our Food & Beverage team. Schedules are flexible, work part or full-time, seasonal or year-round. Benefits include free skiing for you and your dependents, competitive pay and discounts at the mountain/participating local businesses.

Apply: madriverglen.com/employment

DEAN OF ADMINISTRATION

This position is the chief financial officer and principal advisor to the President on all matters related to the management and oversight of business and financial affairs of the college. The Dean of Administration is an integral member of the finance team for the Vermont State College System and has shared responsibility for system-wide budgeting and fiduciary matters. Part of the President’s executive leadership team, this position provides leadership, management, and a future-focused vision for finance, budgeting, student accounts, safety and security, and facilities. The Dean of Administration ensures CCV has the proper operational controls, procedures, and systems in place to maintain financial strength and operating efficiency.

We are looking for a dynamic and engaging executive to provide leadership, management, and a future-focused vision to ensure CCV is at the forefront as an educational innovator. We seek a proven leader, with a positive, no-nonsense approach and experience in managing business finances as well as operations.

If you are looking for a role that engages all aspects of an organization, manages day-to-day and global issues, and can provide leadership and a vision to accelerate CCV’s mission-driven role in education, please apply online at ccv.edu/learn-about-ccv/ employment/. This position is suitable for partial remote work; the incumbent may perform some work from home but will be expected to report to a CCV Center two or more days per week. Occasional in-state travel will be required.

CCV values individual differences that can be engaged in the service of learning. Diverse experiences from people of varied backgrounds inform and enrich our community. CCV strongly encourages applications from historically marginalized and underrepresented populations. CCV is an Equal Opportunity Employer, in compliance with ADA requirements, and will make reasonable accommodations for the known disability of an otherwise qualified applicant.

ADULT BASIC EDUCATION MATH & LANGUAGE ARTS INSTRUCTOR(S)

Part time, St. Albans, VT

The Adult Basic Education (ABE) Math Instructor teaches basic and high school level math skills including arithmetic, algebra, geometry and statistics. The ABE Language Arts Instructor teaches basic and high school level reading and grammar/writing skills. These skills are taught to a diverse group of adults with a wide range of backgrounds, skills, and learning styles. Instruction includes individual and group classes, both in-person and online. Instructors work closely with other VAL staff to create a dynamic, effective learning environment in which all students find success. Instructors are committed to providing high quality services to our students, and are expected to create engaging and effective lessons, projects, and courses for our students. Instructors also play a critical role in creating a welcoming, supportive environment for new and current students. Please send cover letter and resume to: rcampbell@vtadultlearning.org. To learn more, visit: vtadultlearning.org/about-us/#careers. Position open until filled. Vermont Adult Learning is an E.O.E.

Assessing & Finance Administrative Assistant

The Town of Shelburne seeks a full-time Administrative Assistant to support the Assessing Office and provide customer service for the Finance Department.

Responsibilities include: Maintaining the Grand List, providing support for the Town reappraisal, assisting the public with property tax and utility questions and receiving/processing tax and utility payments.

For a complete job description and list of qualifications: shelburnevt.org/237/HumanResources

Submit letter of interest and resume to: scannizzaro@ shelburnevt.org

CLERICAL SUPPORT

STAFF

Vermont Legal Aid seeks a highly organized team player, with a desire to further our mission, for a full-time position in Montpelier, VT.

We encourage applicants from a broad range of backgrounds, and welcome information about how your experience can contribute to serving our diverse client communities. Applicants are encouraged to share in their cover letter how they can further our goals of social justice and individual rights. We are an equal opportunity employer committed to a discrimination-and-harassment-free workplace. Please read our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion: vtlegalaid.org/commitment-diversity-inclusion

Responsibilities include general office management and secretarial duties (answering phones, client contact, data entry, typing, file/document/database management), as well as supporting the work of multiple attorneys and paralegals. Experience as a legal secretary or formal secretarial training is preferable. Proficiency with Microsoft Office suite required. Fluency in French, Spanish, Swahili, Kirundi, Somali, Arabic, Nepali, or Burmese is a plus.

See vtlegalaid.org/montpelier-support-staff-2023 for additional job description.

Base salary is $38,480 with salary credit given for relevant prior work experience. Four weeks paid vacation, retirement, and excellent health benefits. Application deadline is February 3, 2023. Send cover letter, resume, and contact information for three references as a single PDF file with the subject line “Support Staff Jan 2023” to David Koeninger, Deputy Director, c/o hiring@vtlegalaid.org. Please tell us how you heard about the position.

Resumes accepted until the position is filled. E.O.E.

AT WWW CCV EDU OR AT THE CCV LOCATION NEAREST YOU

R E G I S T E R N O W

Join Our Auto Auction Team

We want you to work with us at our bustling auto auction in Williston!

OPEN POSITIONS:

• Friday & Saturday Auto Auction Staff: Want to make a quick buck in your free time? We’re looking for multiple part-time auction day staff. Our needs range from computer savvy auction clerks to car enthusiast auction assistants - a huge plus if you can drive stick! Free coffee & snacks! Hours average 7AM-1PM at a competitive flat rate.

Thomas Hirchak Company is an at will employer. See details at: THCAuction.com

WANT TO APPLY?

If you are highly organized, love working with people, and want to make a di erence in Vermont, we have a position for you on our Philanthropy team.

e Donor Impact Specialist supports the Philanthropy team and the donors who have established charitable funds at the Foundation. By connecting fundholders to philanthropic resources and tools available through the Foundation, this person has a critical role in growing and maintaining philanthropic assets and for impact in our community. is position requires a reliable, highly adaptable individual who possesses excellent skills in communication, project management, and research and data analysis, and has a keen ability to nurture long-term relationships.

If this sounds like a good t for you, visit vermontcf.org/careers for complete job description and instructions for applying.

ADMISSION COUNSELOR OR ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF ADMISSION

The Admission Office at Saint Michael’s College invites applications for the Admission Counselor or Assistant Director of Admission position. The position involves cultivating relationships with inquiring students, visiting with them in their home regions and on-campus, evaluating their admission applications, and individually encouraging them to choose Saint Michael’s College during yield season. The Admission Counselor or Assistant Director of Admission will represent Saint Michael’s College to a variety of constituencies in a range of settings. Important functions include high school visits, college nights, college fairs, and alumni contacts. The successful candidate will join a highly motivated and supportive admission team and will have the opportunity to work collaboratively and independently in a fast-paced environment.

For a complete job description, benefits information, and to apply online, please visit: bit.ly/SMCACADAd

Basebox Manager

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Email Us: Eric@THCAuction.com

or drop by our auto office today at 298 James Brown Dr., Williston 802-878-9200 or 800-474-6132

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Office Manager & Programs Manager

River Arts in downtown Morrisville is looking for a full time Office Manager and Programs Manager with a passion for the arts and a keen interest in community development.  The Office Manager responsibilities include daily administrative tasks working in Salesforce, Squarespace, and Google Drive while supporting space rentals, our artisan gift shop, and assisting with marketing/ visibility of River Arts.

Our Programs Manager role is to create classes for youth/ adult/special events and hiring teaching artists while fostering community partnerships and offsite programming that connect River Arts to our community. Solid computer knowledge and strong interpersonal skills are a must for both positions in our vibrant, fast-paced office. Come and be a part of our team of fun, creative professionals today!

stephanie@riverartsvt.org

Mad River Glen is seeking a Basebox Manager to continue the long history of excellence in management of the Basebox and other food and beverage outlets at the Mad River Glen Cooperative. As the Basebox Manager, you will oversee all aspects of the Basebox and other Food and Beverage outlets for Mad River Glen. The Basebox Manager must understand the attributes of the Mad River Glen skiing experience and be willing to further the Cooperative’s mission by successfully directing the Basebox and food service operations of the Cooperative. The Basebox Manager reports directly to the General Manager, is a full-time, year-round position and includes a full benefits package.

Join the cooperative by applying today! Please email cover letter & resume to Matt Lillard, General Manager: matt@madriverglen. com. Or mail to PO Box 1089, Waitsfield, VT, 05673. Call Matt at 802-496-3551 ext. 114 for further details.

For full job description, visit: bit.ly/MadRiverGlenBASEBOX

NOW HIRING

NOW HIRING

CHIEF COORDINATOR

CHIEF COORDINATOR

NEK Broadband is seeking a Chief Coordinator This role will be responsible for ensuring that staff members, working groups, committees, and contractors are staying on-task and kept informed and coordinated This position serves a key role in keeping a geographically-diverse organization running smoothly The successful candidate will be someone who embraces the NEK Broadband mission, and thrives in a fast-paced, "startup" environment

NEK Broadband is seeking a Chief Coordinator. This role will be responsible for ensuring that staff members, working groups, committees, and contractors are staying on-task and kept informed and coordinated. This position serves a key role in keeping a geographically-diverse organization running smoothly. The successful candidate will be someone who embraces the NEK Broadband mission, and thrives in a fast-paced, "startup" environment.

GROW WITH US

GROW WITH US

VIEW THE FULL JOB DESCRIPTION AT NEKBROADBAND ORG/CAREERS TO APPLY SEND YOUR RESUME AND COVER LETTER TO CAREERS@NEKBROADBAND ORG

FULL JOB DESCRIPTION AT NEKBROADBAND.ORG/CAREERS TO APPLY, SEND YOUR RESUME AND COVER LETTER TO CAREERS@NEKBROADBAND.ORG

NEK Broadband is a Communications Union District (CUD) building Lightning Fast Local Internet throughout the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and Wolcott

NEK Broadband is a Communications Union District (CUD) building Lightning Fast Local Internet throughout the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont & Wolcott. Interviews will commence on January 18th, and applications will be accepted until January 31st (or until the position is filled).

Visit hardwickagriculture.org/jobs or scan the code to learn more!

CAE seeks a Business Manager to co-lead CAE Farm Connex, a dynamic distribution and logistics service that fills a critical need in Vermont's agricultural system

Salary range $55,000-$65,000/year full time with generous benefits.

Delaney Meeting & Event Management is hiring!

Delaney Event Management, one of the premier event management companies in Northern New England, is looking for a qualified professional to join our team as a full-time Meeting Planner.

This is an early career to mid-career level position and the ideal candidate will have at least some experience in project management and/or leadership role, as well as a strong work ethic and ability to integrate into an established group of event professionals on our team.

For more details regarding each position, check out our careers page: pcc.com/careers/ Unique benefits: AAA, cellphone, internet, 401(k), low-cost health insurance premiums & more. To apply, please email a cover letter and resume to jobs@pcc.com with the specific job title in the subject line.

This salaried, full-time position will include evening & weekend time at events and will also include travel in and out of Vermont. The first year of employment will include a comprehensive training and onboarding plan to ensure success.

For full job description, visit: delaneymeetingevent.com

Water Resources Superintendent

Town of Richmond

Behavior Interventionists

Mosaic Learning Center is seeking Behavior Interventionists (BI) who would enjoy working in a supportive and welcoming educational environment within our independent schools. The BI position requires strong communication skills, sense of curiosity, compassion, and attention to detail. Our BIs work directly with our students to provide individualized educational and therapeutic instruction in individual and group settings. Special Educators, Behavior Analysts, & Clinical Service providers support our BIs throughout the day.

This position requires skills working with children and young adults who exhibit mild to severe behavioral disorders and developmental disabilities.

Mosaic Learning Center offers a professional development opportunity to receive RBT training (Registered Behavior Technician).

TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT: Full-time, year round position working with multiple students.

Mosaic Learning Center is an EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER.

For more information or to submit your letter of interest and resume, please contact: heather@mosaiclearningcenter.com or call 802-658-9176

The Town of Richmond, VT is recruiting for a Water Resources Superintendent. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.

The Richmond Water Resources department has about 500 water and wastewater accounts serving about 1000 people. The wastewater facility has a very active septage receival program. The Superintendent manages three Water Resources Department employees.

The duties for the Water Resources Superintendent include, but are not limited to: Oversee all Water and Wastewater operations, staff management, develop and manage annual budget, emergency response, training of personnel, attend all Water and Sewer Commission meetings, ensure compliance with Town policies, State rules and regulations, OSHA regulations and labor laws.

The successful candidate must have a Grade IV Facility Operator’s Wastewater license and a Class III Water System Operator license. The candidate must also enjoy working independently and assisting the public with excellent follow-through and attention to detail.

Hiring salary for this position is dependent upon qualifications & experience with pay starting at $72,439 per year.

Please send cover letter, resume, and three current references to: “Town of Richmond Water Resources Superintendent Search”, P.O. Box 285, Richmond, VT, 05477. Items may also be emailed to jarneson@richmondvt.gov

Questions may be directed to Josh Arneson, Town Manager, at (802) 434-5170. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.

View Full Job Description: bit.ly/RichmondWATER

Greenhouse/ High Tunnel Construction Crew

Go to vineripe.net/ employment for more information.

Johnson Elementary School Nutrition

Johnson Elementary School seeks someone who loves to cook for kids to join our school nutrition team. This position performs a wide range of cooking tasks to prepare student meals, cook from scratch and follow standardized recipes. Must be willing to attend trainings in child nutrition and take online trainings.

Minimum of a high school diploma, or equivalent, plus one to two years of cooking experience preferred, but can train the right individual. Familiarity with public school hot lunch programs desirable. Must be able to lift up to 50 pounds. School year position, 7.5 hours daily.

Send resume with 3 references to: Karyl Kent, 736 VT Rt 15w Hyde Park VT 05655 or email kkent@luhs18.org

Creative FLORAL DESIGNER

Claussen's Florist is looking for a full-time, creative floral designer with 3+ years’ experience to join our team! If you love working with florals and plants, this is the right place for you!

Visit our website, claussens.com/careers.html for further details and to apply.

DISTRICT MANAGER

The Winooski Natural Resources Conservation District (NRCD) seeks to fill its full time District Manager position. The District Manager is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the District, ensuring adequate progress towards the goals and objectives of our 5 year strategic plan, providing supervision, mentorship and support to the other District staff, and implementing innovative projects and initiatives to advance our mission.

Since 1940, the Winooski Natural Resources Conservation District has promoted the wise use, sustainable development, and conservation of our District’s natural resources. We connect residents with education and technical assistance to implement on-the-ground projects to improve water quality, soil health, and wildlife habitat.

For full job description & information on how to apply: winooskinrcd.org/news-and-events/take-action/volunteer/jobs/

Employment Case Manager

Preschool Teacher

Early Learning Preschool Center is seeking a preschool teacher for our small, centerbased program located near downtown Burlington. Students are ages 3-5 years old. Candidate must have some college coursework and/or experience in education or a related field in order to meet state of Vermont requirements. This is a full-time position to begin at the end of January. We offer competitive wages, paid professional development and paid vacation and holidays in a warm and friendly atmosphere. Please send resume or education and work history if interested.

For more information: earlylearningpreschoolcenter.com Facebook.com/ EarlyLearningPreschoolCenter

The Jump On Board for Success (JOBS) case manager position is responsible for providing flexible and participant-centered case management services for teens and young adults. The case manager helps program participants develop the skills needed to live independently while focusing on employment and education goals. The position is ideal for someone with strong communication skills, knowledge of adolescent development, and an understanding of Vermont’s education, vocational training, and human services systems. Preference will be given to applicants with a relevant college degree and work experience with individuals with emotional or behavioral disabilities.

LRC is a team-oriented, non-profit organization based in Hyde Park. Consider joining the LRC team if you’re interested in a workplace that promotes employee well-being and is known for its inclusive and collaborative work environment. The hourly pay rate is between $21.33 and $22.44. A uniquely generous benefits policy provides $12,000 annually for each employee to pay for the benefits they need, such as: medical, dental, vision, and supplemental insurance, and retirement. Additional benefits include 27 paid days off and 17 paid holidays, pre-tax dependent care deductions, paid family medical leave, an annual training stipend, and life insurance.

To be considered for this position, applicants are asked to send a cover letter highlighting their relevant skills and experiences, and a resume, to: info@lrcvt.org

Applications will be accepted until position is filled. LRC is an E.O.E.

ADVANCED PRACTICE NURSE

CSC / Second Spring provides compassion, hope, and excellent clinical care for individuals who have serious psychiatric challenges. In many states, our patients would be confined to a hospital setting. CSC wraps them with a level of care and support that makes residential life in the community possible, and frequently creates highly-fulfilling experiences that are a bridge to greater independence.

CSC has a unique opening for an advanced practice nurse to become a key clinical leader for our mission-based non-profit. The APRN will serve as prescriber for our 27 residential patients, while collaborating with other clinical leaders and providing education and expertise supporting a broad range of staff. Primary care experience is valued, but not required. The role is supported by an excellent, experienced psychiatrist who works with CSC multiple hours per week (including rounds, 1:1 clinical supervision of APRN,

ATTENTION RECRUITERS:

Development Director

Help us grow! Are you a non-profit fundraising leader looking for your next adventure? Do you have a passion for Vermont and strengthening ties between land & lives?

We are seeking a Development Director with demonstrated expertise in non-profit fundraising who can:

• Lead and implement a coordinated fundraising strategy across multiple programs and funding sources

• Create effective approaches to engaging supporters and growing revenue

• Collaborate up, down, and sideways to advance fundraising goals

Learn more and apply at vlt.org/employment. The position will remain open until 2/13/23. The annual starting salary is $76,500 and includes a generous benefits package.

The Vermont Land Trust is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We honor and invite people of all backgrounds and life experiences to apply.

RESPITE SUPPORT NEEDED!

Do you like swimming, live music, singing, good food, or just getting out and having a good time? If you said yes to any or all of these things this may be the perfect opportunity for you!

An adventurous blind and hearing-impaired man in his 30s is looking for respite hours outside of his usual supports, during some evenings and weekends as needed. The main goal of this role would be assisting this man in engaging in new and fun experiences.

*Please be aware this is not a regular shift, it would be based on the needs of the individual.

Pay is $18/hour, having a valid driver’s license and access to a vehicle is required for accessibility purposes, and you must be fully vaccinated for COVID-19.

Reach out to 802-860-1366 to discuss more details and the hiring process.

Engaging minds that change the world

Seeking a position with a quality employer? Consider The University of Vermont, a stimulating and diverse workplace. We offer a comprehensive benefit package including tuition remission for ongoing, full-time positions.

Interlibrary Loan CoordinatorUniversity Libraries#S4080PO - The University Libraries is seeking an Interlibrary Loan Coordinator (Library Professional staff member) for our team. This position performs the operational and personnel functions of the Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery (ILL/ DD) department. The department initiates the borrowing and lending of research materials between UVM Libraries; academic and medical libraries and other institutions and libraries, for University faculty, staff, students and UVM Medical Center constituents. Responsibilities include research assistance for users, supervision of department staff, and oversight and modification of the department’s technical operations.

DISABILITY LAW ATTORNEY

Vermont Legal Aid seeks a full-time Disability Law Attorney to work out of our Rutland office.

We encourage applicants from a broad range of backgrounds, and welcome information about how your experience can contribute to serving our diverse client communities. Applicants are encouraged to share in their cover letter how they can further our goals of social justice and individual rights. We are an equal opportunity employer committed to a discrimination-and-harassment-free workplace. Please see our Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion: vtlegalaid.org/commitment-diversity-inclusion

Responsibilities include individual and systems advocacy in a variety of forums on behalf of persons with disabilities. Case work is primarily in the area of disability-based discrimination, special education, government benefit programs, guardianship, and other areas concerning individual rights.

Starting salary is $59,800+, with additional salary credit given for relevant prior work experience. Four weeks’ paid vacation and retirement, as well as excellent health benefits. Attorney applicants must be licensed to practice law in Vermont, eligible for admission by waiver, or planning to take the February Vermont or UBE bar exam. In-state travel in a personal vehicle required.

Application deadline is February 3, 2023. Your application should include a cover letter and resume, bar status, writing sample, and at least three professional references with contact information, sent as a single PDF. Send your application by e-mail to hiring@vtlegalaid.org with the subject line “DLP Staff Attorney January 2023.”

Please let us know how you heard about this position. See vtlegalaid.org/dlp-attorney-january-2023 for additional information and job description.

Join a growing team at an innovative, nationally-recognized organization charged with creating affordable housing, building community, preserving historic assets, and conserving our lands.

Finance Director

Work collaboratively across VHCB programs, oversee financial operations, ensure compliance with funding sources, and lead budget and audit processes. Contribute to meeting the housing needs of Vermonters and preserving our landscape!

Housing Stewardship Coordinator

Evaluate, monitor, and support the long-term sustainability of housing developments across the state. Bring your excellent analytical, communication, and problem-solving skills and assist the network of non-profit organizations creating housing for Vermonters and revitalizing our communities.

Clean Water Program Director

Are you knowledgeable and passionate about clean water, agriculture and land conservation? The Clean Water Program Director works with state and local partners on water quality projects in the Memphremagog Basin help achieve Vermont's clean water goals.

VHCB offers an excellent benefit package and is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Candidates from diverse backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply. To read the job descriptions and apply, visit vhcb.org/about-us/jobs. Positions will remain open until filled.

Candidates are required to submit a cover letter, résumé, and contact information for three references. The search will remain open until the position is filled. For best consideration, complete applications should be received no later than February 3, 2023.

For further information on this position and others currently available, or to apply online, please visit www.uvmjobs.com Applicants must apply for positions electronically. Paper resumes are not accepted. Open positions are updated daily. Please call 802-6563150 or email employment@uvm. edu for technical support with the online application.

LOOKING FOR A COOLER OPPORTUNITY?

The University of Vermont is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

Mollie Beattie Internship

The Vermont Natural Resources Council is looking for a summer intern to help coordinate initiatives related to forest and wildlife conservation, land use planning, sustainable community development, water quality, and, if qualified, VNRC’s legal program. This opportunity is open to a graduate level student—or a recent graduate with a natural resources or law degree— who intends to pursue a career in environmental science, natural resources policy or law. Visit vnrc.org to learn more!

Multiple Positions Now Open!

Hayward Tyler, a leading manufacturer of industrial pumps and motors in Colchester, is seeking candidates to fill the following positions:

MECHANICAL DESIGN & SUPPORT ENGINEER haywardtyler.com/job_listing/ mechanical-design-support-engineer/

MECHANICAL ENGINEER haywardtyler.com/job_listing/mechanical-engineer/

TECHNICAL SERVICES ENGINEER haywardtyler.com/job_listing/ technical-services-engineer/

SENIOR STAFF ACCOUNTANT haywardtyler.com/job_listing/senior-staff-accountant/

STAFF ENGINEER I: haywardtyler.com/job_listing/staff-engineer-i/ MECHANICAL DESIGNER haywardtyler.com/job_listing/mechanical-designer/

ELECTRO-MECHANICAL ENGINEER: haywardtyler.com/job_listing/ electro-mechanical-engineer/

LEAD AFTERMARKET DESIGN ENGINEER: haywardtyler.com/job_listing/ lead-aftermarket-design-engineer/

We offer a competitive salary and excellent benefits package. If you meet our requirements and are interested in an exciting opportunity, please forward your resume and salary requirements to:

Hayward Tyler, Inc. – Attn: HR Department 480 Roosevelt Highway PO Box 680, Colchester, VT 05446

Email: Careers@haywardtyler.com

Equal Opportunity Employer

SOFTWARE DEVELOPER

Union Mutual Insurance Company is currently looking for a Software Developer to join our team.

Primary focus is on Guidewire’s InsuranceNow platform that is a fully implemented and mature product. Our development team delivers a full suite of enhancements to our employees, agents, and insureds. The team is highly collaborative, and you will contribute to analysis, communication and programming efforts across a variety of web-based technologies. You will work alongside a wellestablished team of developers, dedicated testers, and business subject matter experts that encourages quality over quantity.

To apply, email resume and cover letter to resumeHR@unionmutual.com

ATTENTION RECRUITERS:

DIRECTOR OF FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION

The City of St. Albans is recruiting for a new member of the leadership team. The Director of Finance and Administration is responsible for all financial and administrative matters in the City. Primary focus areas include budget development and financial management; personnel management for both union and non-union employees; and integration of daily business management functions. City budgets total $13 million with 68 employees, 50 of whom are unionized. The City anticipates applicants with public sector management experience, and is open to non-traditional candidates as well. A detailed position description is available at stalbansvt.com/jobs.

The anticipated starting salary is between $90,000 and $115,000 depending on qualifications and experience and includes significant retirement and benefit programs.

Initial review of resumes is planned for January 30, 2023.

5h-CityofStAlbans011823.indd 1 1/12/23 4:56 PM

EOE. Positions are open until filled. To apply, send cover letter & resume to: 2v-MercyConnections011823 1 1/13/23 9:07 AM

SUPPORT & SERVICES AT HOME WELLNESS NURSE

Burlington Housing Authority (BHA) in Burlington, VT seeks a part time (15 hours per week – non benefited position)

MULTIPLE POSITIONS

OPEN

Travel is booming, and we are growing! Music Contact International, a group tour operator specializing in customized domestic and international performance travel, is seeking full-time team members: two Associate Tour Coordinators and one Associate Sales Manager. Join our team, and be part of a community of dedicated, bright, and well-traveled professionals!

For more details on the roles and application process, visit:

ASSOCIATE TOUR COORDINATOR: bit.ly/3uWPs9P

ASSOCIATE SALES MANAGER: bit.ly/3uWPs9P

Support and Services at Home (SASH) Wellness Nurse  to provide oversight of wellness care and coaching for SASH participants in accordance with Vermont’s Nurse Practice Act.  The Wellness Nurse is responsible for overseeing the well-being of participants and in coordinating health services with other members of the SASH team and other community providers. The Wellness Nurse supports a philosophy of aging in-place consistent with the mission of SASH.  This position also works with the SASH team on developing individual participant healthy living plans as well as community healthy living plans for the enrolled community at large.

Candidate must be currently licensed as a Registered Nurse in the State of Vermont.  Must possess at least two years of experience in a clinical setting, demonstrated leadership skills and the ability to exercise sound judgment.  Must also have knowledge of standard record keeping procedures (i.e., progress notes, HIPAA guidelines), excellent verbal and written communication skills, be able to work independently and as part of a team and possess strong organizational and time management skills.

BHA serves a diverse population of tenants and partners with a variety of community agencies. To most effectively carry out our vision of delivering safe and affordable housing to all, we are committed to cultivating a staff that reflects varied lived experiences, viewpoints, and educational histories. Therefore, we strongly encourage candidates from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and women to apply. Multilingualism is a plus!

If you are interested in this career opportunity, please send a cover letter and resume to: humanresources@burlingtonhousing.org

Human Resources, Burlington Housing Authority 65 Main St, Suite 101, Burlington, VT 05401

Burlington Housing Authority is an Equal Opportunity Employer www.burlingtonhousing.org

THE NURSE AIDE TRAINEE PROGRAM (LNA Training Track)

Have you always been a caretaker by nature? Perhaps you are a nursing student, former LNA, HHA or PCA? This is an opportunity to make a difference (and a paycheck), up close and personal, helping to take care of loved ones at Elderwood at Burlington. Apply today to our PAID Nurse Aide Trainee Program.

The Nurse Aide Trainee Program (LNA Training Track) provides insight into the direct care role by providing the opportunity to train alongside our clinicians, completing tasks for our resident population. Apply as a Nurse Aide Trainee and be slotted into the next available Nurse Aide Training Program to become a LNA.

Next class is starting soon!! Apply today so you will not be left out!

Nurse Aide Trainee (LNA Training Track) Overview:

• Elderwood's LNA Training course will last for approximately five weeks, 9 AM - 3 PM Mondays and Wednesdays (times may vary slightly). Until you are officially slotted for training, you will be designated on a specific shift as a Nurse Aide Trainee.

• First four weeks are classroom training; fifth week will be the clinical portion.

• Once you pass, your status (and pay) will be adjusted from Nurse Aide Trainee to LNA.

• Elderwood will pay for the LNA certification test as well as any applicable onboarding requirements, including but not limited to PPD and Physical for eligible candidates.

• Training is PAID - you will be clocked in as a Nurse Aide Trainee during training hours and get paid while you train!

Don't delay! Apply Now! elderwoodcareers.com/

To apply, please send a resume via email to City Manager Dominic Cloud at d.cloud@stalbansvt.com. Questions may be posed via phone or text at (802) 309–1775

The City of St. Albans is an equal opportunity employer that values diversity, equity, and inclusion. This position is open until filled.

ATTENTION RECRUITERS:

Accountant - Accounts Payable

BUUSD

The Barre Unified Union School District is looking for an AP Staff Accountant to join our team!!! We are excited to add a strong team player who is dependable and willing to learn. We are implemen�ng a new financial and human resources system and we are looking forward to working together on this!

Requirements: Associate's degree plus 2 to 3 years of relevant clerical and administra�ve experience, OR a combina�on of educa�on and experience.

Posi�on pays $23.00-30.00/hour based on experience, includes a full benefits package, and is located at the Barre Unified Union School District Central Office. Visit www.buusd.org/careers for more informa�on.

Shared Living Providers

Seeking a Shared Living Provider for 2 older adults (male & female) with intellectual disabilities who have lived together for the past 22 yrs. Minimal personal care for both-female is beginning dementia. No mobility concerns, no violent behavior, good with children & animals. A budget to pay others for time in the community for walks & seasonal activities. They assist with household chores & do puzzles. Clients cannot be left home alone but can be independent within the home. Must have 2 available bedrooms.

Compensation: Combined annual tax-free stipend is over $81,000.00 plus monthly room and board and contracted supports. Contact Sheila Spencer at sheilas@howardcenter.org or 802-343-3974.

Seeking Part-time Shared Living Provider in Chittenden County for a woman in her 30’s. Ideal candidate will be able to provide clear boundaries, clinical support while helping the client develop independent living skills and integrate into the community. Ideal candidate does not have young children. Compensation: $50,000 tax free annual stipend for part time schedule plus room and board. Contact mgeary@howardcenter.org or 802-488-6553

Seeking a Shared Living Provider for a 33-year-old man who loves video games and Magic the Gathering. He requires all day supervision but can be alone in his room or left at home for up to an hour. This position will require daily supervision and helping the client with meal preparation, some transportation, and emotional support. The ideal placement would be a person or couple without children in the home, but pets are fine.

Compensation: $48,000 tax-free annual stipend plus room and board and contracted supports. Contact ahornyak@howardcenter.org or 802-373-1144.

howardcenter.org • 802-488-6500

WHERE YOU AND YOUR WORK MATTER

When you work for the State of Vermont, you and your work matter. A career with the State puts you on a rich and rewarding professional path. You’ll find jobs in dozens of fields – not to mention an outstanding total compensation package.

AGRICULTURE WATER QUALITY SPECIALIST II & III – WILLISTON

The Agency of Agriculture is seeking two Ag Water Quality Specialists who will perform water quality inspections on farms to ensure regulatory compliance. Candidates must have environmental and agricultural knowledge and be skilled in writing, mapping, and database use. Two positions are available. For more information, contact Nate Sands at nathaniel.sands@vermont.gov. Department: Agriculture, Food & Markets. Location: Williston. Status: Full Time. Job Id #45995 for Level II & 45996 for Level III. Application Deadline: January 23, 2023.

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF PREVENTION SERVICES – BURLINGTON

The Vermont Department of Health’s Division of Substance Use Programs has an exciting opportunity to be part of leading substance use prevention services in Vermont. The Assistant Director of Prevention Services position serves in the critical role of providing support to the Director of Prevention Services to establish and implement a vision for substance use prevention statewide. For more information, contact Traci Sawyers at traci.sawyers@vermont.gov. Department: Health. Location: Burlington. Status: Full Time. Job Id #45367. Application Deadline: January 29, 2023.

PUBLIC HEALTH INSPECTION MANAGER – BURLINGTON

The Vermont Department of Health has an exciting opportunity to be on the front lines of protecting public health in Vermont. The successful candidate will provide leadership and management for the field team conducting a variety of public health inspections of food safety systems, general sanitation practices, and environmental conditions in the Food & Lodging Program. For more information, contact Elisabeth Wirsing at elisabeth.wirsing@vermont.gov. Department: Health. Location: Burlington. Status: Full Time. Job Id #46062. Application Deadline: February 9, 2023.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY & ACCESSIBILITY MANAGER – MONTPELIER

The Vermont Department of Labor is looking for someone with strong program development and management skills to build our statewide Equal Opportunity and Accessibility technical assistance and compliance program. We are looking forward to welcoming a new team member whose focus will be to increase equity in, and access to, our programs! For more information, contact Beth Meyer-Ehrich at beth.meyer-ehrich@vermont.gov. Department: Labor. Location: Montpelier. Status: Full Time. Job Id #45528. Application Deadline: January 29, 2023.

FEDERAL FUNDING PROGRAM SPECIALIST I/II/III – MONTPELIER

The VT Dept. of Public Service is pleased to announce an opportunity to join our team in advancing state energy policy as a Federal Funding Program Specialist to develop, implement, and oversee federally funded grant programs; undertake stakeholder engagement to inform program design; create budgets, establish program targets, and monitor results. This position is eligible for telework. Please Note: This position is being recruited at multiple levels. If you would like to be considered for more than one level, you MUST apply to the specific Job Requisition. For more information, contact Melissa Bailey at melissa. bailey@vermont.gov. Department: Public Service. Location: Montpelier. Status: Full Time, Limited Service. Job Id #46046 for level I, #46047 for level II, and #46012 for Level III. Application Deadline: February 16, 2023.

GRANT PROGRAMS MANAGER – MONTPELIER

The Dept. of Public Service is seeking a Grants Program Manager to join our team in advancing state energy policy. The Manager will: oversee federal funds and ensure compliance with policies and guidance; solicit applicants, evaluate proposals, and oversee the work of consultants, utilities, and other entities; manage awards including grant writing, program development, on-site compliance monitoring, financial audits management, and environmental review. The position is eligible for telework. For more information, contact Melissa Bailey at melissa.bailey@vermont.gov. Department: Public Service. Location: Montpelier. Status: Full Time, Limited Service. Job Id #46013. Application Deadline: February 16, 2023.

CORRECTIONS PROGRAM SERVICES CHIEF

CLINICAL SPECIALIST – WATERBURY

This position has the primary responsibility for the implementation of cognitive behavioral and life skill interventions. Services are both recommended and required for individuals under the supervision and/or incarcerated populations, particularly for those with convictions of felony interpersonal violence. This role acts as a peer member of a multi-disciplinary central team and is responsible for program development in both the Probation and Parole field offices and four Correctional Facilities. For more information, contact Kim Bushey at kim.bushey@vermont.gov. Department: Corrections. Location: Waterbury. Status: Full Time. Job Id #46087. Application Deadline: February 12, 2023.

Carbon & Transaction Specialist

Northeast Wilderness Trust (NEWT) is looking for a Carbon and Transaction Specialist that will manage all aspects of its growing carbon program. The Specialist will assist the Conservation Team with various due diligence tasks associated with conservation transactions, and will work closely with the Executive Director on carbon-related matters. Visit newildernesstrust.org to learn more.

ATTENTION RECRUITERS:

Staff Positions

Partners In Adventure is a nonprofit year-round program which provides activity based programs for young people with disabilities and friends, ages 7 and older. We have a variety of part-time opportunities available, and also summer day camp staff positions available for this coming summer (eight weeks MondayFriday 9-3:00 pm).

Applicants must be at least 18 years of age, experience working with people with disabilities is preferred. For more information please email Joan Martin, Executive Director at jmartin@partnersinadevnture.org

at HOPE, where your work will make a di erence!

Homeless Services Coordinator, Full Time: work with persons experiencing homelessness, assisting them to access services including mainstream benefits, health care, and more; increase income and resources; and overcome barriers to stable housing. Must have experience with persons who have substance use disorders and mental illness, as well as a familiarity with services.

Data Entry Specialist, Part-Time: enter datapoints into a CloudBased Homeless Information Management System. Must be detail oriented and accurate.

Resale Associate, Full or Part Time: assist with accepting donated goods for resale; pickups and deliveries; minor repairs; and cleaning. Must have excellent customer service and communication skills, ability to work as a team, and be able to stand, lift and carry items.

Compensation includes very competitive wages, medical, dental and life insurance, generous paid time o , matched retirement savings. We o er a supportive team environment, where you can feel good about coming to work each day. Equal Opportunity Employer.

Resume and cover letter to receptionist@hope-vt.org, or Personnel, 282 Boardman Street, Ste 1A, Middlebury

Town Treasurer – Ass’t. Town Clerk

The Town Treasurer position is responsible for the management of all the Town’s financial activities including:

• Receipt and investment of funds

• Acts as the Town’s collector of current taxes

• Collection of other funds receivable by the Town

• Oversee the Annual Budget process

• Manage the annual audit by the professional CPA firm

• Accounts Payable as approved by the Ferrisburgh Selectboard

• Human Resources administration

• Support for certain Town Clerk duties

A bachelor’s degree in accounting, public administration or a similarly applicable field is preferred or at least three years’ experience in the areas of municipal, public or private accounting including payroll, employee benefits, Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable. Experience in grant reporting is desired. This will be a 32 hour per week position with benefits. Salary commensurate with experience.

To apply please email or send a cover letter, resume and two references to:

Pam Cousino, Town Clerk, Town of Ferrisburgh 3279 US Route 7, Ferrisburgh, VT 05456, 802-877-3429

TownClerk@FerrisburghVT.org

Development & Alumni Relations Coordinator

DIRECTOR OF IT

Sheehey Furlong & Behm, an established, growing law firm located near the Burlington waterfront, is accepting applications for a Director of IT.

The Director of IT will:

• Manage, direct, and implement the firm’s IT operations and infrastructure,

• Provide efficient and effective technologies and technical support services to the end user,

Boat Launch Stewards

Vermont & New York

Spend summer 2023 by the water! Seeking multiple stewards to engage boaters, inspect watercraft, and deliver informational messages about invasive species on Lake Champlain.

More information: neiwpcc. org/about-us/careers/ To apply: send a cover letter & resume to jobs@neiwpcc.org.

• Provide technical support, tools and guidance to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the firm,

• Lead development and implementation processes for the organizations IT systems and department,

• Collaborate with firm leadership to establish the firm’s technical vision and lead all aspects of the firm’s technological development.

The ideal candidate will have experience in a law firm environment; however, it is not a requirement. Candidates should be familiar with Microsoft Office, document management systems, and email systems. Preference will be given to candidates familiar with O365, Worldox, Mimecast and other legal industry specific programs and tools such as Relativity, Juris, iPro, and Westlaw. Salary will be commensurate with experience and will include a comprehensive benefits package. Please forward your cover letter and resume to hiring@sheeheyvt.com.

The Keewaydin Foundation, located on the shores of Lake Dunmore, outside Middlebury, VT, is a small non-profit which operates three summer camps and an environmental education center. The Foundation’s programs provide unique opportunities for youth to develop self-confidence, character, and leadership while living simply in beautiful wilderness settings. The Foundation is now offering an opportunity to a detail-oriented, systems-driven individual to join the team as the Development and Alumni Relations Coordinator.

Reporting to the Director of Development, the Coordinator will manage the Foundation’s gift processing, including acknowledgment letters; perform data entry and maintain the general integrity and consistency of the Raiser’s Edge database; manage financial reporting and serve as liaison to the Foundation’s business office; provide support for on-line and print mailings; provide planning assistance for campaign events; and provide administrative support for the capital campaign.

Successful candidates will have a proven track record managing detailoriented systems, experience working with financial data using a complex database, an interest in and experience with event planning and management, and a willingness to join a high-functioning energetic and collaborative team. Facility with Excel and Raiser’s Edge is preferred. Good writing and organizational skills are a must.

This position offers a generous compensation package, including retirement, health care, and a significant tuition reduction for Foundation employee children who attend our renowned camps. This is an on-site position located at the Keewaydin Foundation office in Salisbury, VT. Some weekend & evening work is required.

To learn more about the Keewaydin Foundation, visit our website at keewaydin.org. To apply, please send a cover letter and resume to Debbie Andrews at deborahtandrews@comcast.net. E.O.E.

New Year, New Job? Come join us

Custodian & Head Custodian - 2nd Shi�

Barre City School seeks experienced custodians to keep the school looking great and running smoothly.

Qualifica�ons: HS diploma or equivalent. Experience waxing and stripping floors, using a scrubber, floor buffer, commercial vacuum and other floor machinery preferred. Head Custodian must have 2+ years supervisory experience and at least 2 years custodial experience.

- Head Custodian pays $21.58/hr plus $0.50/hr shi� differen�al when working 2nd shi� (3:30pm - 12am).

- Custodian pays $18.64/hr plus $0.50/hr shi� differen�al when working 2nd shi� (3pm - 11:30pm).

Posi�ons include full benefits package.

Visit buusd.org/careers for full job descrip�ons. Submit resume and 3 references to Jamie Evans - Facili�es Director, jevansbsu@buusd.org.

PART TIME PAYROLL & OFFICE ADMIN

About Us: Vermont Rail System has approximately 150 employees in various roles at locations in Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York. Our award-winning team of employees is recognized throughout the industry as some of the best in the profession, with a strong commitment to serving our freight and passenger customers safely and efficiently.

Job Description: This candidate will serve as the back-up for payroll processing and office administration. We are looking for someone with job stability and the demonstrated commitment to show continual work history.

Approximately 20 hours/week, Monday – Friday. Some flexibility with schedule.

Required Skills: Dependability, Strong attention to detail (payroll accuracy is critical), Familiarity with Excel/ spreadsheets, Analytical skills, Time management, ability to prioritize tasks, Knowledge of payroll principles, state/federal tax requirements.

Knowledge of Sage 50 Quantum Accounting and Sage HRMS payroll software are a plus, but not necessary.

Please send email resumes to: rgraham@vrs.us.com

EAR LY HEAD S TART HOME VISITOR CHITTENDEN COUNTY

Health Care Advocate

Vermont Legal Aid seeks candidates for a full-time legal helpline position within the Office of the Health Care Advocate (HCA) in our Burlington office. The advocate will provide legal help over the phone to Vermonters with health care or health insurance problems.

We encourage applicants from a broad range of backgrounds, and welcome information about how your experience can contribute to serving our diverse client communities. We are an equal opportunity employer committed to a discrimination- and harassment-free workplace. Please see our Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion: vtlegalaid.org/commitment-diversity-inclusion

Responsibilities include advising consumers on their rights, investigating and resolving problems, and maintaining a high caseload and detailed case records. The successful candidate must be able to work on a team and have excellent communication and research skills. Four years’ professional work experience or bachelor’s degree, or a comparable mix of education and experience desired. Full job description at vtlegalaid.org/hca-january-2023

Experience in advocacy, health care, health insurance, or human services is desirable but not required. Prior legal experience is not required.

Base salary is $44,200 with salary credit given for relevant prior work experience. Four weeks paid vacation, retirement, and excellent health benefits.

Application deadline is January 22, 2023. Your application should include a cover letter, resume, writing sample, and three references combined into one pdf, sent by e-mail to hiring@vtlegalaid.org with “HCA Position” in the subject line. Please tell us how you heard about this position.

Head Start is a federally-funded, national child and family development program which provides comprehensive services for pregnant women, children from birth to age five, and their families. Services for children promote school readiness, and include early education, health, nutrition, mental health, and services for children with special needs. Services for parents promote family engagement, and include parent leadership and social service supports.

As an Early Head Start Home Visitor, you will provide services in home-based settings to program participants to support prenatal education and services to promote healthy prenatal outcomes for pregnant women, provide or support the care of infants and toddlers so as to enhance their physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development, support parents in the care and nurturing of their infants and toddlers, and help parents move toward self-sufficiency and independent living, as needed. Motivated Home Visitors improve the trajectory of children’s lives, including children’s learning outcomes, living standards, and later academic and professional success. If you want to make a difference in the lives of young children and their families, consider joining the Head Start community.

: Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education or related education field, social work, human services, family services, or counseling; Home-Based CDA Credential or comparable credential, or equivalent coursework as part of an Associate’s or Bachelor’s degree; Demonstrated competency to plan and implement home-based learning experiences that ensure effective implementation of the home visiting curriculum and promote children’s progress and build respectful, culturally responsive, and trusting relationships with families; a commitment to social justice and to working with families with limited financial resources; excellent verbal and written communication (bilingual abilities a plus!), documentation, and record-keeping skills; valid driver’s license, clean driving record and access to reliable transportation; physical ability to carry out required tasks.

REQUIREMENTS

40 hours/week, 52 weeks/year. Starting wage upon completion of 60-working day period: $20.29- $25.04 /hour, depending on qualifications. Health plan and excellent benefits.

Please visit cvoeo.org/careers to submit cover letter, resume, and three work references

ATTENTION RECRUITERS:

BURLINGTON HOUSING AUTHORITY (BHA), located in Burlington, VT, is seeking candidates to continue BHA’s success in promoting innovative solutions that address housing instability challenges facing our diverse population of extremely low-income families and individuals. Join us and make a difference in our community!

RAPID REHOUSING SPECIALIST provides assistance to community members who are without housing and have barriers to locating and securing housing in the community. This grant funded position works closely with our Rental Assistance department and Chittenden County Coordinated Entry and is a part of a skilled team that focuses on assessment, intervention, and service coordination of at-risk households.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Responds to referrals from Coordinated Entry to assess need for housing search services and level of support needed to secure housing

• Provides direct retention services which may include home visits, supportive counseling, making referrals on behalf of household, accompanying member(s) of household to appointments, providing/coordinating transportation when needed, coordinating services which may benefit the household, and work to stabilize the housing as necessary

• Coordinates services which are beyond scope of housing search and makes appropriate referrals back to housing retention team or other agencies when necessary

• Supports households in meeting with landlords and attending showings in BHA’s service area

• Support the household’s awareness of resources, increase overall resiliency, and promote stability and proactivity over crisis management

• Collects and maintains required data and case notes in centralized database

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS: Bachelor’s degree required in human services or related field. Previous experience in direct service and advocacy preferred. Exhibits effective verbal and written communication skills. Knowledge of the social services network is preferred. Proficiency with Microsoft Office and internet navigation required. Excellent time-management skills and the ability to work independently are required.

To learn more about our organization, please visit: burlingtonhousing.org.

BHA serves a diverse population of tenants and partners with a variety of community agencies. To most effectively carry out our vision of delivering safe and affordable housing to all, we are committed to cultivating a staff that reflects varied lived experiences, viewpoints, and educational histories. Therefore, we strongly encourage candidates from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and women to apply. Multilingualism is a plus!

BHA offers a competitive salary, commensurate with qualifications and experience. We offer a premium benefit package at a low cost to employees. Benefits include medical insurance with a health reimbursement account, dental, vision, short and long term disability, 10% employer funded retirement plan, 457 retirement plan, accident insurance, life insurance, cancer and critical illness insurance and access to reduced cost continuing education. We also offer a generous time off policy including paid time off, sick, and 13 paid holidays. And sign on bonus of up to $2,000.

If interested, please submit your resume and cover letter to:

HUMANRESOURCES@BURLINGTONHOUSING.ORG

BHA is an Equal Opportunity Employer

GO HIRE.

Job Recruiters:

• Post jobs using a form that includes key info about your company and open positions (location, application deadlines, video, images, etc.).

• Accept applications and manage the hiring process via our applicant tracking tool.

• Easily manage your open job listings from your recruiter dashboard.

Job Seekers:

• Search for jobs by keyword, location, category and job type.

• Set up job alert emails using custom search criteria.

• Save jobs to a custom list with your own notes on the positions.

• Apply for jobs directly through the site.

Get a quote when you post online or contact Michelle Brown: 865-1020, ext. 121, michelle@sevendaysvt.com.

jobs.sevendaysvt.com

Seven Days is a great resource for job seekers and hiring managers alike. Its statewide distribution and content attract a large audience. We tried posting on other online platforms, but the reach was too narrow and didn’t yield the same results.

After running our employment ad, we received applications immediately. We ended up finding a great candidate very quickly with the qualifications and initiative to fit right into our small team.

Working with Michelle Brown was great. She is very e cient, and her advertising expertise was very helpful. We would absolutely recommend advertising with Seven Days!

AMY KIMMEL / ROB PERRY Deerfield Designs

fun stuff

HARRY BLISS

CALCOKU

JEN SORENSEN

KRISTEN SHULL

RYAN RIDDLE

CAPRICORN

(DEC. 22-JAN. 19)

Some insects are helpful to humans. For example, ladybugs devour aphids, which are highly destructive to crops. Damsel bugs eat the pests called leafhoppers, and lacewings feed on the pernicious nuisances known as mealybugs. I also remind you that some bugs are beautiful, such as butterflies, dragonflies and jeweled beetles. Keep these thoughts in mind, Capricorn, as you contemplate my counsel. Metaphorically speaking, you will have experiences with bugs in the next three weeks. But this won’t be a problem if you ally yourself with the good, helpful and beautiful bugs.

ARIES (Mar. 21-Apr. 19): Good news, Aries! During the next episode in the age-old struggle between the Impulsive You and the Farsighted You, I predict the latter will achieve a ringing victory. Hallelujah! I also foresee you overcoming the temptation to quit a project prematurely and instead pushing on to complete it. There’s more! You will refrain from knocking your head against an obstacle in the vain hope of toppling it. Instead, you will round up helpers to help you wield a battering ram that will produce the desired toppling.

TAURUS (Apr. 20-May 20): You may not have a clear picture of where you’ll be going in the next five years. The detailed master plan that your higher self devised for you before you were born might even be obscure. But I’m here to tell you that, in the coming weeks, a new lucidity can be yours. You can summon an acute instinct about which way is forward if only you will recognize the subtle ways it’s speaking to you. In fact, I believe you will regularly know what move you should make next so as to expedite your long-term evolution. Life will be rewarding you with mysterious step-by-step guidance. Now please write a short statement affirming your intention to love, honor and obey your intuition.

GEMINI (May 21-Jun. 20): Do you believe in the existence of guardian angels and spirit guides and ancestors who can intervene in your behalf from the other side of the veil? Do you wonder if maybe your invisible friends from childhood show up in your vicinity now and then to offer you support and kindness? Or how about the animals you loved earlier in your life but who have since passed away? Is it possible their souls have never left you but are available if you need their affection? Even if your rational mind tells you that none of these possibilities are authentic, Gemini, I suspect you will nevertheless be the beneficiary of their assistance in the coming weeks and months. Their influence will be even more potent if you proceed as if they are real.

CANCER (Jun. 21-Jul. 22): Among your potential strengths as a human being are empathy, sensitivity and emotional intelligence. You may or may not choose to develop these natural gifts. But if you do, they can be instrumental in helping you achieve the only kind of success that’s really meaningful for you — which is success that your heart and soul love as much as your head and your ego. According to my astrological analysis, you are moving into a phase of your cycle when you will have extra power to ripen your empathy, sensitivity and emotional intelligence — and thereby enhance your ability to achieve the kind of success that’s meaningful for you.

LEO (Jul. 23-Aug. 22): “Dear Rob the Astrologer: The computer firewall at my youth

hostel is blocking your website. I am being told you practice ‘Illegal Folklore and Insurrectionary Fairy Tales.’ What the hell? Can you do anything at your end to get me access to your wonderful horoscopes? Maybe cut back a bit on your Illegal Folklore and Insurrectionary Fairy Tales? Haha. Just kidding. I love that crazy stuff. — Deprived Leo in Ireland.” Dear Deprived: Many of you Leos have lately had problems getting all the Illegal Folklore and Insurrectionary Fairy Tales you need. I hope you will push hard to compensate. In my estimation, you currently have a strong need for dreamy stories that appeal to the Wild Child in you. They’re essential to your mental and spiritual health.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sep. 22): In his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life, Donald Miller acknowledges that fear can be a “guide to keep us safe.” Being afraid may indeed have its uses and benefits. But Miller adds that it’s also “a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life.” In my astrological opinion, Virgo, fear will be of service to you — a guide to keep you safe — about nine percent of the time in 2023. Around 83 percent of the time, it will be a manipulative emotion not worth acting on. For the other eight percent, it will be neither. Please plan accordingly.

LIBRA (Sep. 23-Oct. 22): Select two sticky situations in your world that you would love to reinvent. Let other annoyances and glitches just slide for now. Then cultivate a focused desire to do everything in your power to transform the two awkward or messy circumstances. Proceed as if you will have to do all the work yourself — as if nothing will change for the better unless you take full responsibility. If you’re absolutely sure this involves other people altering their behavior, consider the possibility that maybe your behavior needs to shift as well.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Three out of four toxic waste dumps in the US are located in predominantly African American or Latino communities. Two million tons of radioactive uranium tailings have been dumped on Native American lands. Three hundred thousand Latino farmworkers in the U.S. suffer from

pesticide-related sicknesses every year. These travesties make me furious. More importantly, my rage motivates me to mitigate these travesties, such as by educating my readers about them and donating money to groups crusading to fix the problems. In the coming weeks, Scorpio, I hope you will take advantage of your astrological potentials by using your anger constructively, too. Now is a favorable time for you to fight fiercely and tenderly for what’s right.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I predict that love will bring you many aha moments in 2023. You can’t fully prepare yourself for them — and that’s a good thing! The epiphanies will be brighter and deeper if they are unexpected. Your motivation to learn the available lessons will be wilder and stronger if you enjoy being surprised. So be ready for lots of entertaining rumbles and reverberations, Sagittarius. The adjustments you will be asked to make will often be strenuous and fun. The inspirations you will be invited to harvest will require you to outgrow some of your previous beliefs about the nature of intimacy and togetherness.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): What are “brain orgasms”? Can you seek them out and make them happen, or do you have to wait patiently for them to arrive in their own sweet time? When they occur, what should you do? Surrender into them with all your welcome fully unleashed? Or should you question whether they’re real, be suspicious of their blessings or dismiss them as irrelevant flukes? I encourage you to meditate on questions like these. That will raise your receptivity to the stream of brain orgasms that life will offer you in the coming weeks.

PISCES (Feb. 19-Mar. 20): My Piscean pagan friend Valie says God is stealthy yet blatant, like a green chameleon perched on a green leaf. After analyzing the astrological omens, I conclude that this is a helpful, all-purpose metaphor for you to use in the coming weeks. I encourage you to be alert for beauty that is hidden in plain sight. See if you can spy the miracles embedded within the ordinary. Ask life to pleasantly blow your mind over and over again. Here’s your phrase of power: open secret.

On January 7, hundreds of people brought their Christmas trees to Pine Island Community Farm in Colchester, where the post-holiday drop-off has become an annual tradition. e trees will feed a herd of goats belonging to Chuda Dhaurali, who provides fresh, local goat meat for Vermont's new American communities.

Eva Sollberger’s

WOMEN seeking...

LADY LOOKING FOR A PARTNER

I am a professional, pretty lady who is looking for a man who is looking to share the adventures of life with me. I would like to meet a person who wants to enjoy the next 30 adventures, try new things and be active. Things important to me are my family, faith and friendships with long-term friends. Leelady, 59, seeking: M

FIRST-TIMER HERE

I am outgoing, inquisitive and independent. I am a lover of good conversation, good drinks and long walks on the beach. Laughter is a priority. My humor is some mix of nerdy and sarcastic. I enjoy downtime at home but also have a healthy sense of adventure that extends to my interests in food, travel and the outdoors. PrincessDi, 44 seeking: M, l

FUN, FUNNY AND FIT

Attractive, athletic woman interested in casual dating/connections. Kids are getting older, and work is winding down. Looking for new adventures. Love to travel, see new places, experience new things. Never bored or boring. I enjoy music, dancing, yoga, weight lifting and soccer. Not a fan of drama. If you are healthy, fit, nice, funny and easy on the eyes, reach out. Yolo50 50, seeking: M

RIDING THE ROLLER COASTER OF LIFE

Kind and caring, crazy busy, lonely when I have downtime. Looking for a likeminded person to spend that downtime with. moomail, 49 seeking: M, l

HAPPY WOMAN SEEKS HAPPY MAN

I’m a healthy, active, educated and curious woman. I currently live in a rural area of Vermont with my dogs, chickens and plenty of woods, where I am a town official. I work a little to supplement my pension. I enjoy travel, home projects, caring for my pets, enjoying friends and family. I love the beauty and challenges in Vermont. Happiness1 66, seeking: M, l

HONEST, RESPECTFUL, PLANNER, CARING, THOUGHTFUL

I am a worker, a giver of my time, sincere, honest. I hide nothing. Very up-front and open. I like going places, traveling, beaches. I haven’t biked in a couple of years but enjoy biking. I like to eat healthy, but everything in moderation. I get tired of just staying at home! Give me an email. Would like to email/message. Respect2020 47 seeking: M, l

CREATIVE, OUTDOORSY STUDENT OF LIFE

I want to meet an active man, ages 60 to 68, who’d join me for outdoor adventures. I want to meet friends first. I enjoy music, good food, conversation, my home, my garden, simple things. I snowshoe, cross-country ski, hike. No picture at this time; I value my privacy. If you write, I’ll respond and possibly will provide a photo. nicensimple, 64 seeking: M, l

RECREATION, RELAXATION AND EXPLORING

Retired, relocated to the beautiful, scenic Vermont. Looking for someone to share the magnificent sunset over Lake Champlain, hike, do tai chi, garden and cook good meals with. Someone to laugh with and explore the Vermont region. I am an optimist. If you have a good honest heart and are a hopeful nature lover, I am the one you’re looking for. Looking for fun in Vermont. Seeking M and a new group of friends.

RecreationRelaxationandExploring 57, seeking: M

FUN, KIND AND LOVING

Recently I relocated to Vermont and am looking for someone to enjoy Vermont life with. I’ve been divorced/single long enough to know myself and enjoy my own company. I would like to be in a longterm, healthy, monogamous relationship. So let’s be friends first and see where it goes! CoachKaty7 53 seeking: M, l

RELAXED AND HAPPY

I would love to meet a kind and gentle man for companionship, friendship and long-term relationship. I live a pretty quiet and simple life, though would love to share time with a kind kindred spirit. I would love to meet someone who is easygoing, enjoys the outdoors, loves dogs and has a big, tender heart. angelight333, 76, seeking: M, l

ENJOY LIFE BEFORE I’M DEAD

Looking for someone to share time with. Traveling is one of my passions. I enjoy the outdoors, camping, hiking, walking, snowshoeing, music, dancing and playing cards. I love spending time with family and friends and my little dog. ladyinvt 66, seeking: M, l

ARTSY NATURE LOVER

Looking for a man who loves Vermont, is grounded and enjoys meaningful conversations. Youthful, educated, community-minded, endlessly curious, I love to dance, make music, watch indie and foreign films, attend live performances of all kinds, and laugh with friends. I’m in the woods daily to walk the dog, hike, snowshoe, ski, meditate. You? NEKdancerdrummer 61, seeking: M, l

MONTRÉAL WIFE IN OPEN RELATIONSHIP

Longtime married, very attractive, in open relationship. Desire playmate in Burlington area. I like confident, experienced, athletic, smart, welleducated, charming men. I am not looking to develop a relationship. Would like a regular playmate who is very discreet. My wonderful husband may be around for first meet, so need to be comfortable with that. He does not participate. MontrealWife 54, seeking: M, l

I NEED LOVE

I am proud of myself, honestly. I treat others the way I want to be treated, and I need a man who is going to love me and give me joy. elizabethlove 28 seeking: M, l

MELLOW, CREATIVE OLD HIPPIE

I love myself. Happy with my own company and in a crowd of people. I have many good friends and hobbies. The last time I remember being bored, I was 9! I consider it a really good day when I have learned something new and had a good laugh. Full-blown Libran. Prefer cultured, educated company. Versatility is a must. Zenbabe 61, seeking: M, l

INTUITIVE, CARING, LOVE BEING OUTSIDE

I am a passionate, fit, caring, down-toearth woman looking to share adventures. I love to be active — hiking, skiing, running, yoga. I love to travel, as I am fascinated by the different ways people live their lives. I hope to have honest, interesting, authentic conversations where we really get to know each other. Let’s meet for coffee or a drink! lovemountains, 57, seeking: M, l

MEN seeking...

HEART AND SOUL CONNECTION

I am a professional in private practice for many years who also loves music (listening and performing) and spiritual growth. I am looking for someone who is warm, is self-reflective, has a passion for life and has her own interests that are important to her. Someone who wants to know me and wants to be known. 1992, 70, seeking: W

ACTIVE SENIOR

Meet in person. Face-to-face and eye-to-eye will tell more than words on a questionnaire online. Grampie 75, seeking: W, l

OSH GOSH BEGOSH LEVI’S

Looking for a companionship and friendship with an honest, kind lady who likes music and gardening. greenthumb123 46, seeking: W, l

OLD-FASHIONED MALE

Looking for a women who enjoys honesty, hiking, cooking together, weekend travel, gardening, snowshoeing, skinny-dipping, voting, Saturday night movies, dressing up or dressing down or undressing, enjoying sunsets or rises, full moons, natural hiking, motorcycle travel, holding hands, 420, older rock and roll. Still crazy for fun. Stillkrazy60, 61, seeking: W, l

WILL YOU HELP SHOVEL SNOW?

Just joking. Because of global warming, there’s probably not going to be a whole lot more snow. However, I am looking for honesty, communication, integrity, good times and a woman willing to put forth the effort. TV addicts need not apply. dswlino, 67 seeking: W, l

GENTLEMAN PREFERS BLONDES AND BRUNETTES

Old-school guy who seeks soul mate and partner in crime for next chapter. Fun, funny and family-oriented. Love the great outdoors, the arts and a farm-to-table foodie. Not in a huge rush to settle down. Be great to make a couple of female friends with common interests. George_2, 58, seeking: W

EASYGOING AND OPEN-MINDED 74 y/o but still in good shape. Still have hair and can see my toes. Run four miles a day, play pickleball, hike, ski and generally enjoy the outdoors. Avid reader, enjoy a wide range of subjects. Spent the last nine years providing at-home care for my wife, who suffered a debilitating stroke. Kyia341 74, seeking: W, l

CASUAL AND QUALITY

New to town, work a lot and looking for some casual fun. I’m real easygoing and easy on the eyes. Well hung and love using it. Saintj, 41, seeking: W, Cp, Gp

53-Y/O MWM SEEKING FWB SITUATION

Open-minded guy, athletic, sane and nonsmoker. Seeking a situation to fill the sexless void in my life. Would be awesome if an individual or couple were into riding on two wheels or sliding on snow. meisbadvt, 53 seeking: W, NC, Cp

HONEST, LOYAL, AFFECTIONATE

AND CARING

I’m a very laid-back person and really hate confrontation. I’ve been in recovery over 10 years now and have a recovery coach certification. I’m looking for someone who knows what they want and how to communicate that. I feel like communication is the key to a healthy, strong relationship. I don’t really do hookups. Apollo16, 39, seeking: W, l

SEEKING SOMETHING FUN AND CASUAL Living life collecting as many wonderful memories along the way as possible. Let’s make a few. ADK_ROVER 52 seeking: W, l

SEARCHER

Lust for life looking for FWB, perhaps more. blueskyinvt2022 58, seeking: W

WHITE BOAT CUMMIN’ UP RIVER

I’m into Neil Young, B. Traven, Passivhaus, wilderness, water, Alexander Berkman, John Prine, writing, saving the world, silence, the stars, German beer, etc. I have no idea who I’m looking for. I’ve probably not learned the lessons I should have. Ragged heart is still on the sleeve. Stilgar, 71, seeking: W, l

LOVE

I am a decent and hardworking man. People love to see the moon and stars in the sky, but my eyes just love to see my love’s happy and smiling face! abelfirm 65, seeking: W, l

OLDER FUN LOVER

LOOKING FOR GOOD TIMES

Tall, a little fluffy, experimental, clean and mostly smooth. Looking to meet other fun people. weldon72 75, seeking: M

NONBINARY PEOPLE seeking...

BOOKISH, CONSCIOUSNESS SEEKING, LIFELONG STUDENT

I am old in chronology, full of childish wonder. I don’t use alcohol or cannabis. Sobriety is the greatest high of all. I am recently divorced, which is the source of great sorrow and pain for me, something I never wanted. My interests include, though not exclusively, classical music, opera, visual arts, literature and, of course, psychoanalysis. Petal269, 78, seeking: W, l

COUPLES seeking...

ISO EASYGOING BI GUY

Easygoing couple for easygoing guy. Looking for a bi guy for fun times.

NEKCouple2456, 66 seeking: M, l

LOOKING FOR COUPLE

Mature male 58-y/o and female 55y/o. Happily married couple looking for our first time exploring our sexual fantasies by adding a male, female and/ or couple for our sexual exploration.

If you are not comfortable with a BBW plus-size woman or a man with extra padding, then please move on. 2Exploring, 55, seeking: M, W, Cp

SNOW AND SUN EQUAL FUN

Borders and boundaries are sexy. We’re pretty cute. We like to have fun, and we bet you do, too. Happily married couple (W, 35; M, 45), open-minded and looking to explore. Love playing outdoors. Looking to meet a couple, man or woman for fun and adventure. Ideal meetup is a cottage in the mountains with great food and lots of great wine.

SnownSun 46, seeking: Cp, l

LOVERS OF LIFE

We are a 40s couple, M/F, looking for adventurous encounters with openminded, respectful M/F or couples. Looking to enjoy sexy encounters, FWBs, short term or long term. sunshines, 42, seeking: M, W, Q, Cp

LOOKING FOR OUR MAN!

Ideally hoping for a throuple/FWB situation. Us: established M/F couple. DD-free. (She: 44, straight BBW; he: 46, bi MWM). Drinks, 420-friendly, fires, get outside, music, Netflix and chill, always horny. You: DD-free, clean, masculine bi male (30ish to 50ish) who works and knows how to enjoy life! A little rough/hard (top, real man, etc.) with a compassionate heart and a bit of a snuggler. Connection is key. Let’s chat and get to know each other, then play! ginganddaddy 46, seeking: M

EXPLORING THREESOMES AND FOURSOMES

We are an older and wiser couple discovering that our sexuality is amazingly hot! Our interest is another male for threesomes or a couple. We’d like to go slowly, massage you with a happy ending. She’d love to be massaged with a happy ending or a dozen. Would you be interested in exploring sexuality with a hot older couple? DandNformen, 66 seeking: M, TM, NC, Cp, l

VT COUPLE SEEKING

A FEMALE/COUPLE

Fun married couple in their 30s looking for a female or couples for casual dates. We like the outdoors. 3inthevt, 36, seeking: W, Cp, Gp

NORTH CAROLINA TO NORTH COUNTRY

I ran into you on South Union Street, and you commented on my North Carolina plates. It was so nice meeting you! I thought you were so friendly! I wished I would’ve asked you for your number at the time, but I was too shy. Would you like to get coffee sometime? When: Monday, January 9, 2023. Where: South Union. You: Man. Me: Woman. #915691

RE: I WISH...

He left that phone dangling off the hook / en slowly turned around and gave it one last look / en he just walked away. / He aimed his truck toward that Wyoming line / With a little luck he could still get there in time / And in that Cheyenne wind he could still hear her... When: Monday, January 9, 2023. Where: on the road. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915690

PRESTON POND TRAIL BEFORE SUNSET

You: hiking a race against the sunset with your dog, some kind of husky mix? You have beautiful blue eyes. Me: wearing a yellow coat and pink neck warmer, hiking with my grumpy dog. Yours wouldn’t come when you called, so I just picked mine up to avoid the encounter. I’d love to look into those eyes again. When: Sunday, January 8, 2023. Where: Preston Pond Trail. You: Man. Me: Woman. #915689

MUBIKSSKI, I’D LIKE TO CHAT

I enjoyed reading your profile and would really like to connect with you. I haven’t used Seven Days for a long time, so my profile has been deleted. So I thought I’d try this. Take a chance on connecting with this 57-year-old artsy, even-keeled and also eclectic BTV gal. When: Friday, January 6, 2023. Where: Seven Days Personals. You: Man. Me: Woman. #915687

MARGARITA CUTIE AT OLIVE GARDEN

I was eating lunch and playing the trivia game. You walked up and ordered a margarita and joined in on my game and had a good convo. Wanted to give you my number but missed my chance. Trivia night sometime? You said your name is Hannah. When: ursday, December 29, 2022. Where: Olive Garden. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915688

TARA FROM MATCH.COM

One day I saw your profile. Meditation was important to you. I went on a trip intending to respond when I returned, but by then you were gone. I just consulted the tarot and drew the Two of Cups. Could that be us? When: Monday, December 12, 2022. Where: match. com. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915686

HIGHER GROUND NYE MISSED OPPORTUNITY

You: cute guy with a killer smile and sharp button-up by the side bar at Dead Set NYE. You said you’d get me a drink after the set break. Me: decked out in a glitter shirt and glow ears. Secondguessed myself but totally interested. Buy me that drink? When: Saturday, December 31, 2022. Where: Higher Ground. You: Man. Me: Woman. #915684

NEWPORT NATURALS NATURAL BEAUTY

Saw you at NNM on a crisp December afternoon. You were wearing a pink sweater and purchasing mac and cheese. In hindsight, I should have diverted you from the checkout line to restore our connection. If you see this, I would love to take you out into the community. Let’s be social together; otherwise it would be an injustice. When: Wednesday, December 28, 2022. Where: Newport. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915682

OIL CHANGE CUTIE

I’d like the chance to continue the conversation. Seems bizarre to think this will work, but you were beyond cute, so maybe the universe could give me another chance. When: Saturday, December 31, 2022. Where: Oil n Go. You: Man. Me: Man. #915683

CUTE BLONDE AT THE AIRPORT

Seeing you made my 5 a.m. flight that much better! We locked eyes at precheck while I was talking with friends. You: dark sweatshirt, green leggings, a gorgeous face and beautiful blond hair. I was wearing a funky cardigan and an orange hat. Coffee when you’re back in town? When: Wednesday, December 28, 2022. Where: BTV airport. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915681

I SEE WOMEN IN TOWN

I recall what they were wearing, mostly their boots. I’m wondering, are they tomboys like me? I also notice their eyes. I turn around to look at them, as well. Mostly I see them walking or hiking. I notice their kindness and a willingness to engage in a conversations. Being a Buddhist, kindness is important. When: Wednesday, August 10, 2022. Where: Montpelier. You: Woman. Me: Woman. #915680

BUFFALO MOUNTAIN MARKET CUTIE

We walked from separate sides of the parking lot but met up at the door. You held it open for me, and it made my day. Sometimes it’s just those simple gestures and moments in time. Your gentle eyes and sweet face were exactly what I needed. Happy Winter Solstice. When: Tuesday, December 13, 2022. Where: Hardwick. You: Man. Me: Woman. #915679

SHAMWOW

Two and a half years, and you still visit my dreams and almost every thought day-to-day! When: Saturday, June 6, 2020. Where: in my dreams. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915670

DID ALEX GET FRENCH FRIES?

Has it been nine years since we grabbed coffee and talked chi running? is southern gentleman is so glad you squeezed my hand before I got out of your tiny car. A steamy hallway, secret swimming hole detour, three little ones, and many laughs later, it’s still the sweetest thing. Love you. When: Saturday, December 10, 2022. Where: downtown. You: Man. Me: Man. #915678

Dear DIL Pickle,

Dear Reverend,

My in-laws visited our new house and were excited to buy us some things that we needed, like hand towels. But my mother-in-law picked out stuff she likes that we don’t and refused to give us receipts! She just said, “You can put them out when I visit.” What should I do?

is reminds me of an old joke: Why did the mother-in-law cross the road? She thought it was a boundary. Mothers-in-law have long been stereotyped as Bossy Betties who meddle in their adult children’s lives and make their children’s spouses crazy. Whatever truth

BEARDED COFFEE PATRON

Approximately 2 p.m. You held the door for me and remarked on my beard. en, when I left, we met eyes and you smiled. Too shy to ask your name. Wish I had! When: Friday, December 9, 2022. Where: Williston Dunkin’ Donuts. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915676

RED HAT WOMAN, NEWPORT WALMART

Hello, Indiana Jones. You sauntered in wearing a leather hat, looked right at me and smiled the most beautiful smile. I had a red felt hat on. I will never forget what that smile meant to me at that moment in time. Perhaps I may find you again? When: Wednesday, December 7, 2022. Where: Newport Walmart. You: Man. Me: Woman. #915675

CYCLING ON PINE

We passed each other in the dark on Pine, near Flynn. You nodded, and I smiled. I appreciated that simple acknowledgment that we weren’t out in the cold alone. Safe travels, fellow commuter! When: Monday, November 28, 2022. Where: Burlington. You: Man. Me: Woman. #915674

HANNAFORD SUPERMARKET

Evening. Enjoyed talking with you about horses, blueberries and kids in the checkout line. You were wearing a black hoodie. Are you single? Do you want to have tea or coffee together and chat sometime? When: ursday, November 17, 2022. Where: Hannaford. You: Man. Me: Woman. #915673

WHO HAS THE REMOTE?

Older gentleman wondering who had the remote for the TV at Handy’s Toyota waiting room. We started talking about downtown Burlington, and then my car was ready. When: ursday, November 10, 2022. Where: Handy’s Toyota, St. Albans. You: Man. Me: Woman. #915672

WHY KNOT BE THEIR SQUARED?

My GPS brought me to your location twice. I didn’t catch your name, and I bet you can’t guess mine! When: Saturday, November 13, 2021. Where: in the eyes of the world. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915671

HELLO, SLOWWALKER

I saw your message a month after you posted it. Sorry for the late reply. I bet Ruby is out of treats; should I bring some more? When: Saturday, September 24, 2022. Where: Shelburne Bay Park. You: Man. Me: Woman. #915669

SAXON MOUNTAIN BIKER, GREAT SMILE

You finished your ride and loaded up your orange mountain bike onto your black Subaru. ere were numerous glances between us while I stood chatting with my friends. As you drove away, you gave a very friendly smile and wave. It would be great to say hello, maybe do a bike ride or hike, or even just have a drink sometime. When: Sunday, November 6, 2022. Where: Saxon Hill Rd. parking lot. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915668

HAVE WE MET?

Maybe, or in another life? Like me, you’re weary of running away from, running to catch up, running in circles. Let’s be still, be patient and have faith; we will be together soon. en let’s practice those qualities in our union every day. How will we know we have found each other? Love, it will be love that feels right. When: Saturday, November 5, 2022. Where: to be destined by summer 2023. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915667

BEAUTIFUL BRUNETTE, VFCU

I was in a black truck at the teller window at lunchtime, in South Burlington. You are a stunning brunette with a great smile! You helped me with a shared branch banking transaction. Wanna grab a coffee sometime? When: ursday, October 27, 2022. Where: VFCU. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915666

I SPY MVISLANDDREAMIN

Saw your profile in the personals; sent a message. Please read and hopefully get back to me. When: Sunday, October 30, 2022. Where: Personals. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915665

WHATCHYA READIN’?

You were walking up Church Street with a bag from Phoenix and an iced matcha. I am envious of your afternoon with new books and a sweet drink. If you’d be interested in having company next time, I’d be thrilled to join you. When: Saturday, October 29, 2022. Where: top block of Church St. You: Woman. Me: Woman. #915664

MORE KELLBEL

I was going to message you, but it looks like you are now off this site. If you see this message, holler back. I, too, like to take long car rides. When: Wednesday, October 26, 2022. Where: Seven Days Personals. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915661

Most of the time, the towels — and her other gifts — will just be taking up space in your house, and that’s bad feng shui. Besides, it would probably encourage her to keep giving you things that are her taste, not yours.

Your best bet is to off-load the unwanted items. Donate them to a thrift store that raises money for a good cause — and don’t forget to get a receipt to take a tax deduction. If you’d rather get some cash to help buy things you do want, list the items for sale on Facebook Marketplace or another site.

You’ve already tried to address the issue head-on with no luck, but it may be worth another shot. You and your husband should let her know that, although you are grateful that she gives you gifts, they would actually get used if she kept your taste in mind. Give her some suggestions of what kinds of things would be more practical. Better yet, the three of you could go shopping together and make a day of it.

Good luck and God bless,

While it could be cute to put out the hand towels when she comes to visit, how often does that happen?

What’s your problem?

Send it to asktherev@sevendaysvt.com.

DIL Pickle (WOMAN, 40)

Irreverent counsel on life’s conundrums

60s bi white male seeks older guys for relaxing, M-to-M fun. Regular guys being yourself. Soft or hard is less important than attitude. #1631

Gentle, affable, fit, humorous, principled, educated man (67) seeks tender alluring woman (52 to 66) who relishes a life of organic gardening, animals, hiking, biking, Scrabble and pillow talk. Land conservation and off-grid living are also interests of mine. #1630

I’m a male, 70, seeking a female, 50-plus. I am single and looking for a good friend and possible partner. Chittenden County. Phone, please. #1621

I’m a 47-y/o male seeking a male for some fun. I’m attractive, fit and drug/diseasefree; have perfect hygiene; and am looking for the same. Discreet fun only. Let’s watch each other cum and help each other out. Send stats with contact number. #1629

72-y/o male seeks similar qualities as my own in a woman. Kind, tender, loving, empathetic, fun, homebody, somewhat liberal, intelligent. I’m healthy, fit, thin and considered attractive. Cozy home in the country. Financially secure. Phone or email, please. #1627

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Submit your FREE message at sevendaysvt.com/loveletters or use the handy form at right.

We’ll publish as many messages as we can in the Love Letters section above.

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I’m a 66-y/o woman seeking a 60-plus male. Not married, no children. I’m a loving, kind, talented, educated nonsmoker. Honest and love to cook and bake and share joyrides. Looking for a serious friendship. Chittenden County. Phone number, please. #1626

I’m a GWM 59-y/o. Mostly a bottom seeking to take care of the needs of a top. Very attentive and willing to please. Rutland area. Phone/text. #1624

I’m a female, 71, single (W), seeking a male, 65 to 75 (W). Would like a quiet dinner, movie or just coffee. Central Vermont. Need a friend to get through the winter, etc. Please write a note or send a phone number. #1625

I’m a male seeking a loving companion of any gender. I’m a nonsmoker with a concentration on health. I’m an educated, honest, kind and calm baby boomer with a love for gardening. Time is precious. Open to the right person. #1622

Man, 70, seeking woman. Warm heart, hard body, open mind. Easy to look at. Musically inclined. Going to Astrala playing, singing, dancing. Mainly veggie. Grow my own. Bicycle. Looking for you, someone to be with in Astrala. #1623

I’m a 57-y/o woman. Not married, no children. I stay as healthy as I can. Educated, mostly by deep life experience. Need a dedicated relationship with a man who understands me and treats our unit as No. 1. Need to live in the country. Calm, gardens, sounds of nature, sunset. Please be honest, thoughtful and kind. Be able to relate well to others and be well liked. Phone number, please. #1620

I’m a 70-y/o WF seeking a 70-plus WM. (#1604, I’m interested.) Was widowed 10 years ago and am lonely and seeking a companion. I love being outdoors and seeing birds and animals. Car travel is fun for me. #1618

Young-looking baby boomer woman seeks the same in a male partner. Time is precious. I’m a humanist looking for a nonsmoking, honest, good person. Seeking an occasional drinker without drug or anger issues. Ninety-five percent Democrat and young-at-heart woman who doesn’t drink is looking for a partner, not a serial dater (aka bachelor). #1619

Discreet oral bottom. 54-y/o SWM, 5’8, slim, dark hair, blue eyes. Seeking any well-hung guys, 18 to 55 y/o, who are a good top and last a long time for more than one round. Phone only, but text. Champlain Valley. #L1615

Calling all bottom fem guys, trans into stockings, high heels, painted fingers, toenails. Any race, young or old. Gay, bi, straight. Always horny. Spend the weekend together. No drugs or smoke. Clean. Phone. #1617

I am a SWM, young-looking 52-y/o in search of a trans woman. Not into drugs or 420 and not into a lot of drinking. Someone who wants to be treated like a lady in public and freaky in private. I am very respectful, romantic, physically passionate and enjoy some kinky situations. I enjoy a lot of outdoor activities, like swimming (sometimes skinnydipping), camping, fishing, walks and bike rides. I also like quiet nights at home, snuggling and watching movies. If you want to know more about me, please write. #1616

Facing Change: Life’s Transitions and Transformations

WED., JAN. 18

ONLINE

Full Barrel Cooperative Brewery Pop-Up Tap Room

FRI., JAN. 20

12-22 NORTH ST., BURLINGTON

Ethiopian and Eritrean Cuisine Takeout

SAT., JAN. 21

O.N.E. COMMUNITY CENTER, BURLINGTON

Beyond the Board

FREE Vision Master Class

SAT., JAN. 21

ONLINE

Vermont Burlesque Festival: 17 Classes! See Website for Details

SUN., JAN. 22

HILTON BURLINGTON, BURLINGTON

After School Drawing Club with Rachel Mirus

MON., JAN. 23, 30, FEB. 6, 13, 20

GRANGE HALL CULTURAL CENTER, WATERBURY

Meza Bosnian Cuisine Takeout

MON., JAN. 23

TINY COMMUNITY KITCHEN, BURLINGTON

Female Founders Speakers Series: Motherhood

MON., JAN. 23

HOTEL VERMONT, BURLINGTON

Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour

THU., JAN. 26-SAT., JAN. 28

DUDLEY H. DAVIS CENTER, BURLINGTON

Kristian Montgomery & the Winterkill Band with A Day Without Love

FRI., JAN. 27

THE UNDERGROUND - LISTENING ROOM, RANDOLPH

Bagel School

SAT., JAN. 28

RICHMOND COMMUNITY KITCHEN, RICHMOND

Yoga Nidra in the Salt Cave

SUN., JAN. 29

PURPLE SAGE, ESSEX

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