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Williston
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Permit #15 Williston,VT 05495 POSTAL CUSTOMER
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NOVEMBER 13, 2025
WILLISTON’S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1985
WWW.WILLISTONOBSERVER.COM
As needs rise, Williston’s food shelf remains committed BY SUSAN COTE Observer Staff
When talking with leadership of the Williston Community Food Shelf, the primary sentiment one hears is gratitude. The next message you hear is about the continued increase in need for food they are seeing, and their commitment to keep meeting that need. Ginger Morton, president of the food shelf, says she wants to talk about generosity. “Our community has stepped up in the last month. We have received so many monetary and food donations as a result of people responding to the cuts in SNAP benefits in the political arena. I can’t thank the public enough because we have no guaranteed source of funding,” said Morton. “Both with our own regular advertising and the national news about hunger and about SNAP, we’re more on people’s radar than we were in the past,” said Sally Metro, the food shelf’s operations manager. “We’re enormously grateful for the outpouring of support we’re getting from the businesses, from the individuals ... Needless
to say, the families we serve are incredibly grateful as well.”
Seeking and finding community generosity
FILLING THE SHELVES
Last Saturday afternoon, while not open to clients, the food shelf was bustling with activity. Regular volunteers Tom Heppner and Gail Schwartz Heppner were busily opening boxes of donations, including those delivered through the food shelf’s new online donation site, then sorting and shelving the various foods and personal care items received. At the same time, employees from Bowman Consulting, an engineering firm based in Williston, began arriving one after another in company vehicles packed with donations they had collected at tables outside of Walmart, Hannaford, Shaw’s and Healthy Living for four hours that day. In addition to the carloads of product donations, the team collected $1785 in cash. “Big country stuff is hard for a small community to impact so you’ve just got to get local and do what you can. It’s fun to be a part of it,” said Cole LaFleche, who organized the Bowman food drive for the second year in a row.
This is the second year that Bowman Consulting of Williston has sponsored a food drive for the Williston Community Food Shelf. Saturday found Lucy Thayer, left, set up at Hannaford’s while at Shaw’s, below, Bailey Trahan, Vincent Monty and Harlan Monty (left to right) manned a table. There were also donation drop off locations at Heathy Living and Walmart. OBSERVER PHOTOS BY AL FREY
Morton pointed to the Bowman group’s effort as an example of how and why community members support the food shelf. “They were thrilled with see FOOD SHELF page 8
Selectboard votes to undo cuts to social services funding BY SUSAN COTE Observer Staff
A sharp increase in nonprofit funding requests prompted Williston’s selectboard last week to restore level year-overyear funding to the town’s social service organization grant allocation – a budget item that had seen a significant cut this year.
Each year the town of Williston designates a small portion of the town budget to provide grants to local nonprofits that offer direct social services to the community, services the Town cannot provide directly but can support through funding. Grant applications are solicited in the fall and the Social
This year, grant requests jumped up over 30%, to $67,400, the highest total for such requests on record.
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Service Organizations Funding Committee, staffed by volunteers, reviews the applications and makes decisions on what grants to award within that budget. Last year, roughly $50,000 in grants were requested against a budgeted allocation of $32,000. Nineteen nonprofits were awarded grants, with the
largest amounts, accounting for almost half of the funding, going to the Williston Community Food Shelf, the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (which includes Feeding Champlain Valley), the Howard Center, and Steps to End Domestic Violence. This year, grant requests see FUNDING page 3