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Permit #15 Williston,VT 05495 POSTAL CUSTOMER
RECIPE INSIDE! OCTOBER 28, 2021
WILLISTON’S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1985
Lawmakers implore Scott to declare Covid-19 emergency BY SARAH MEARHOFF VT Digger Vermont state lawmakers joined health care workers, teachers and others during a Monday afternoon press conference to increase pressure on Gov. Phil Scott to reinstate an emergency declaration amid rising coronavirus case counts in the state. The calls for a mask mandate and other mitigation measures come as Vermont continues to see
Rep. Tanya Vyhovsky, P/D Essex Town, listens as Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden speaks by video conference in favor of stronger Covid-19 mitigation measures on Monday, Oct. 25. PHOTO BY MIKE DOUGHERTY/VTDIGGER
record case growth, fueled largely by the highly contagious Delta variant of Covid-19. With a seven-day average of 218 cases per day and 35 cases per 100,000 people, Vermont now has the 17th-highest case rate in the country, higher than New York and Massachusetts. As cases have trended up, Scott has resisted calls to reinstate a statewide emergency declaration, cease in-person business or mandate mask-wearing in public. Instead, he has reiterated his call for Vermonters to get the Covid-19 vaccine and boosters, and implored residents to take “personal responsibility” to curb the spread.
At Monday’s press conference, Rep. Erin Brady, D-Williston, said that Scott’s message of “personal responsibility … is tremendously hurtful to my family and so many others.” Brady is a high school teacher and has two school-aged children — both of whom recently tested positive for the virus after months of caution. Both Brady and her husband are vaccinated, but her kids are too young. This marks her third-grader’s third Covid-related class-wide quarantine of the school year, Brady said. Brady said she now has to quarantine at home with her children, causing what she called a “ripple effect” from her children’s diagnosis that now impacts her own students. She said she’s been trying to help her children do their schoolwork from opposite sides of a door, wearing masks. “We know vaccines for kids are coming and it will be monumental, but we have many difficult weeks and months ahead before kids are fully vaccinated,” Brady said. “It is long past time for a mask mandate and to treat our schools with the resources and dignity commensurate with the crisis they’re in.” Rep. Tanya Vyhovsky, D-Essex, who works with school children as a social worker, said students “need to know they’re going to be safe at school,” but under current conditions, she said, they don’t. She pointed to rising reports of misbehavior at school as evidence of widespread anxiety among kids as the pandemic drags on. “This is not indicative of bad children; it’s indicative of children who are in crisis, children who do not have the tools or skills to navigate the unpredictability and anxiety that this pandemic has brought them,” she said. “It’s up to the adults to make it better.” To make it better, she said, the governor’s office should be reinstating broad mitigation requirements to get case counts down because “what we are doing is see COVID page 5
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Chris Stewart reads with CY mentee Braedon Minehart at WCS in a photo from a few years ago.
WCS Connecting Youth Mentoring Program thrives with community support
OBSERVER COURTESY PHOTO
BY SUSAN COTE Observer Staff This November, a program first launched at Williston Central School in 1999 will kick off another year. The Connecting Youth Mentoring Program (CYMP) enters its 22nd year of matching adult volunteers from the Williston community with students in grades 5-8 for one-on-one relationships. Not about academics or tutoring, these pairings are better described as special friendships between students and adults, who each commit to spending one hour per week together. How that time is spent is up to each pair, but often includes conversation, game-playing, reading and engaging in crafts or cooking projects. Students can ask to be included in the program and may also be referred by parents or school personnel who think a child will benefit. In addition to weekly meetings among pairs, in a typical year, i.e., pre-Covid, the program has in-
cluded a fall barbecue and a reading challenge that culminates with a celebratory ice cream social in the spring – events that include the students’ family members. Nancy Carlson, Connecting Mentoring Youth coordinator, has stewarded the program since 2002. During a recent presentation, Carlson shared that children who are engaged with a mentor are more likely to go to college, volunteer and be positive influences within their communities. They are also more likely to step up to mentor others and to achieve positions of leadership within their chosen fields. They even tend to enjoy more positive relationships with their parents. She notes that a key to the program is reciprocity. “The mentors are amplifying their mentees’ strengths and their interests and their best qualities. These relationships are also transformative for the adults. They’re about two people growing and learning and becoming their best selves together.”
MENTOR PORTRAITS
Chris Stewart first became a mentor several years ago at his mother’s urging, after she herself began as a mentor 12 years ago. His wife Diane also serves as a mentor. “As a man that doesn’t have children, and whose nieces and nephews are grown, I like the connection with the young people ... learning what they know about and are interested in.” After being involved in the program for a few years, Stewart, a general contractor who also builds furniture, was asked by Carlson to take on a special project with a student. Stewart readily agreed and together he and the girl built a solid maple table that today sits outside Carlson’s office. “I like being part of the school and maybe giving something back. It feels good,” he said. “When I was a fifth or sixth grade boy, I would have given anything to have somebody other than a parent or teacher to talk to .... It’s a wonderful way to connect with a see MENTORING page 5