CRAFTSBURY – This summer’s UVM/NEK Community Resilience Internship program wrapped up last Wednesday with student presentations at Sterling College’s Simpson Hall in Craftsbury.
courtesy photo
Students from the program have been living on the Sterling College Campus and involved in projects with area nonprofit organizations doing work in Craftsbury, Hardwick, Greensboro, Glover, Barton, Stannard, Wheelock, Orleans and others.
Along with their lodging, the students shared a CSA, providing fresh vegetables from the Sterling College Farm during their 10-week stay in return for contributing at least two and a half hours of labor during their stay.
Interns shared stories of their experiences and universally seemed to find a sense of connection in the rural NEK, hoping to bring that back to their UVM experience in Burlington in the coming academic year.
Ethan Brodie, UVM ‘26, a history major with a minor in psychology, from Alexandria, Va., worked with The Chronicle in Barton, a weekly newspaper. It was “a totally different experience,” giving him “new writing opportunities,” and “a big change of pace,” he said. His experience in a more rural setting allowed him to write stories about an equine expo, Canadian relationships with the NEK, an after-school program’s raffle of a shed, and to take photos.
Asked if he’d thought about living here, Brodie said, “I’ve thought about it, but maybe.”
Alex Strand, UVM ‘27, a psychology and english major, with minors in biology and reporting, from Roslindale, Mass., worked with The Hardwick Gazette. She said she’d “met people I wouldn’t have otherwise met,” and experienced a place that seemed anything but small, where rolling hills go on and on, seemingly forever. Working with The Gazette, Strand reviewed graphic novelist Allison Bechdel’s Hardwick talk, the opening of the Jeudevine Library’s new addition and documented community activities through her photography.
Caelah Kennedy, UVM ‘26, an environmental studies and studio art double major, with a minor in agroecology, from Wilton, Conn., worked with The People’s Agroecology School of Vermont and the Glover Equity Committee, where she made use of her many skills in designing a T-shirt and helping to organize and run an Agroecology Short Course for 40 international students.
Working with the Glover Equity Committee she helped create a community garden and support the Barton community meals program.
Intern Maya Bakowski, UVM ‘28 UVM, a neuroscience and psychology major from St. Johnsbury, has been working with the Center for an Agricultural Economy. Bakowski has been instrumental in Monday meals and the Friday Farmers markets, along with making herself useful in many other ways as well.
Bakowski said her “summer in the NEK started with kindness, generosity and community.” She said she tried to talk with as many people as possible, get to know their names and experiment with recipes. She appreciated being in a place where food is seen as a human right, and she had a chance to experience quietly swimming around Caspian Lake’s Bathtub Rocks.
Sherif Alao, a UVM graduate student served as an RA, mentoring and supporting the interns living at Sterling College’s South House, where he served as a link between interns, the college community and program leadership, also assessing and evaluating the program.
Alao, from rural Nigeria, became a camp counselor at the Rural Arts Collaborative’s Wonderkid Summer Camp at Hazen Union High School, where he led activities for middle-grade campers, developed an intracultural curriculum for the organization’s after school program, modeling leadership, collaboration and inclusive practices.
Alao even had the opportunity to try his hand at woodworking at GRACE in Hardwick.
The UVM/NEK Community Resilience Internship Program began last year as a pilot program, with funding from the Leahy Institute. It continued this year, organized by the local sponsoring organizations with assistance from Kristen Andrews in the UVM Career Center, financial support again from the Leahy Institute for lodging, management and other expenses, and local oversight by Glover’s Travis Reynolds, UVM Associate Professor of Community Development and Applied Economics, working as a volunteer.
An unplanned open discussion following the presentations between interns, their hosts, program leadership and Leahy Institute staff confirmed this second year of the program had continued to establish the value of extending UVM’s reach, the importance of interns to increasing area organization’s capacity and supported continuing the program next year, while identifying some opportunities for future improvement.
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
