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Town’s stance on Black Lives Matter flag evolves BY JASON STARR Observer staff
Fifth- and sixth-graders at Williston Central School send backpacks full of toys, food and toiletries on a journey to Europe on Tuesday morning to help Ukrainian refugees after organizing the effort in a matter of days.
Help is on the way
OBSERVER COURTESY PHOTO
WCS students send backpacks to fleeing Ukrainian children BY JASON STARR Observer staff It’s heartening to think that children arriving at a train station in Germany after fleeing Russian military attacks in Ukraine will soon open bags packed at Williston Central School and find comfort in the food, toiletries and toys inside. WCS fifth- and sixth-graders organized a backpack drive over the course of a few days last week, collecting and sending off 75 bags to a refugee hub in Western Europe. But with an estimated 100 refugees arriving hourly at the train station where the backpacks are bound, it can also be overwhelming to imagine the scope of the need. “It’s crazy to think that we’ve gotten all these backpacks, but that still might not be enough to last more than two hours where we are sending them,” said fifth-grader Nora Brady, one of the backpack drive organizers in Jared Bailey and Joy Peterson’s humanities class. Bailey and Peterson have set aside about 10 minutes each school day to discuss updates on the attacks in Ukraine. “The students have definitely been tuned in,” Bailey said. “There is always a hand up asking ‘when are we getting our Ukraine update today?’ They continue to drive it as part of our daily curriculum.
“We were hearing it as hallway conversations, so we wanted to get everyone some sort of a baseline of information so they aren’t feeling like there is something going on that they don’t know about.” Things turned from discussion to action early last week when a sub-set of the class used its “What
‘We have all those things here and they don’t even have a simple toothbrush or clothes without help from other people. Our intention is to make their life a little bit more normal. ‘ Sophia Zada-Silva WCS sixth-grader
I Need” (WIN) time to brainstorm ways to help people upended by the attacks. With the help of school administrators, they learned of a “Backpacks4Ukraine” drive that other Vermont schools are participating in. Students got to work last Tuesday promoting the campaign, asking peers to bring in non-perishable snacks, toys, games and toiletries as well as backpacks to put them in as care packages to
greet refugees as they arrive in Western Europe. They more than tripled their goal of 20 backpacks, and this Tuesday morning, loaded 75 packs onto a truck to start the journey abroad. “We are asking these kids to be informed and engaged citizens and this is an opportunity that shows them what an engaged citizen does — to not only talk about what we could do to help, but to go and get something done,” Bailey said. The students continue to gather items for another send-off in April. “This is something that’s actually helping,” said sixth-grader Orion Power-Freeman. “It just makes me feel happy that I’m getting to be part of this.” In addition to backpacks, toys, toiletries and non-perishable snacks (like granola bars), the school is also asking for socks, underwear, t-shirts and toys for older children, such as playing cards, for the next shipment. “We have all those things here,” sixth-grader Sophia Zada-Silva said, “and they don’t even have a simple toothbrush or clothes without help from other people. Our intention is to make their life a little bit more normal. A lot of them came there with nothing — just the clothes they had on them.”
Donations from community members can be dropped off at the school’s front office.
A Black Lives Matter flag has flown on the Town Hall flagpole for 12 months — a symbol approved by the selectboard to affirm the town’s commitment to confront racism. The original approval came last spring, then was extended in June into March of this year. Now the board is embarking on a deeper approach to addressing racism in the community. Last week, it unanimously approved an effort led by the Williston Community Justice Center (WCJC) to delve into professionally facilitated community conversations about the values of residents when it comes to speaking out against racism — and how best to visually represent them. WCJC Executive Director Cristalee McSweeney said the conversations will take a restorative justice approach and seek out a variety of opinions. “I’m really hoping we can be reflective of more thoughts and considerations from various experiences and opinions in our community so that we are best representing the ways in which our community wants to engage in anti-racism work,” McSweeney said. She added that the input of those who don’t support the Black Lives
Matter movement “also needs to have importance placed on it and be part of the conversation … It’s not just a conversation for someone to say ‘yes, I support this.’ It’s also for us to really hear and glean the various voices that we share a community with.” The effort is intended to take two-to-three months and result in a formal report submitted to the board. At that time, the board will again reconsider whether to continue flying the Black Lives Matter flag at Town Hall. Resident Cindy Provost urged the board to take down the flag and let the American flag stand by itself. “The American flag embodies everyone in this community,” she said during last week’s board meeting. “Everyone has the same rights, freedoms and opportunities. The (BLM) flag should not be there. Our flag —the American flag — is what this country stands for, for everyone in it.” Resident Patricia Peterson urged the town to go beyond symbolism and think of more concrete ways to work toward equity. She suggested using town resources to purchase goods and services from Black-owned businesses. “That would be more of a true gesture,” she said. “It really doesn’t have to have anything to do with the Black Lives Matter flag.”
Meet a medalist
Megan Nick, who learned her gymnastic skills at Williston’s Green Mountain Training Center years ago, returned after winning an Olympic bronze medal for aerial skiing. Nick met with everyone from Gov. Scott to young gymnasts on Wednesday. See story page 3. OBSERVER PHOTO BY AL FREY