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Presort Standard ECRWSS O’Rourke Media Group, LLC ECRWSS Postal Patron
Vol. 27 • No. 21
Thursday, July 4 • 2019
Habitat constructing duplex in Milton Two families to move in this fall
PHOTOS BY NEIL ZAWICKI Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity volunteers Bill Gerlach and Pete Sandon prepare to set hardiboard for tile setting June 28 at a duplex project on Railroad Street in Milton. FAR LEFT: Tim and Emma Hopkins move hardboard panels at the Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity home they will own once it is completed. The Hopkins will work at least 400 hours on the home, and will purchase the home at cost.
By NEIL ZAWICKI
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im and Emma Hopkins moved a stack of Hardie board Friday at a residential construction site on Railroad Street. The young couple were there to help build the 1,600 square-foot duplex they will call it home. The project broke ground in early May, and it is the latest home to be built by Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity, a non profit that purchases land and materials and works in partnership with volunteers to build homes for low-income working families. The Hopkins live in Essex, with their three kids. They’re staying with family while they save for their new home. Families like the Hopkins purchase homes at cost from Habitat for Humanity with either a zero percent or an affordable interest mortgage. The mortgage payments fund Habitat’s efforts to build more homes. When the home is all done, the
> See HABITAT on page 8
Farm gears up for berry season Blueberries key part of Willow Hill operation By NEIL ZAWICKI
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illow Hill Farm, on Hardscrabble Road, offers a two-acre forest of 10-foot-tall organic blueberry bushes offering ten varieties of the berry. Each year since 1992, families and travelers have come to pick them from mid July to Labor Day. The other 476 acres of the farm are used to produce sugaring sap, and, for more than 20 years the farm was one of the original producers of artisan cheeses in Vermont. Farm owners David Phinney and Willow Smart stopped making their cheeses just a couple years ago, partly because the number of competitive cheese makers in Vermont has jumped to around 70, and that
number was just around 12 when Smart and Phinney started. The other reason they’ve closed the cheese factory is because, as Phinney put it, “We haven’t had a vacation together in 18 years.” Phinney grew up in Milton, graduating from Milton High School in 1978 and then earning a mechanical engineering degree. He worked for IBM as a facilities design engineer, and met his wife Willow in Florida. The couple came back to Vermont in 1991 and bought Willow Hill Farm. One of the first things they did was plant just over 1,050 blueberry bushes. Now that they’ve bowed out of the
> See BERRIES on page 10
School board open to raising BLM flag Flagpole policy in works By NEIL ZAWICKI
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group of student activists hoping to raise the Black Lives Matter flag on the Milton High School flagpole got a little closer to that goal on June 24, when the Milton Town School Board voted unanimously to establish guidelines that would allow such expression. The discussion, which began at the board’s June 11 meeting, stems from the student group Milton for Social Justice and its goal to raise the BLM flag on the school pole. The group revealed its plan to the school in May, and ultimately hopes to fly
> See BLM on page 10