BRATTLEBORO — A glance around Marilyn Buhlmann's Brattleboro home tells you without a doubt two things that drive her passion: creativity and a commitment to her adopted community.
But Buhlmann will be leaving Brattleboro in October, splitting her time between Florida and Colorado to be closer to family. Boxes are packed with paintings, her ceramic bowls, and the two-foot tall, ceramic 'Wise Ones,” shamanic figures she has built by hand.
Piles of file folders must be gone through before her move. They represent the many community organizations she has supported as a volunteer leader - among them, three years of organizing the River Gallery School auctions while a board member; serving over 10 years on the Board of the Women's Crisis Center (four years as chair), where she coordinated the Women's Film Festival for three years; and volunteering as a bereavement counselor for Brattleboro Area Hospice for 13 years.
“I love the act of giving, being able to share myself and my resources with this wonderful community that I have made my home for the past 50 years,” Buhlmann said.
Her longest commitment, serving as a restorative justice volunteer on a Youth Services' Diversion Board, concluded last month after 22 years, culminating with her induction into Youth Services' Hall of Fame, the organization's top award for its volunteers.
Buhlmann's monthly meeting as a panelist on the Board focused on repairing harm done to the community.
“Diversion holds those who violated the law accountable in a manner that promotes responsibility to individuals, community and relationships,” she said. “Also, when appropriate, we addressed underlying needs or issues that led to the offense.”
Wisdom of experience
In her family of origin, not unlike many Youth Services clients, Buhlmann experienced trauma and violence and extreme poverty. “My life experiences have given me a lot of insight in all of the volunteer work I have done,” she explained.
She knows from her own childhood that often young people just need nurturing and guidance to help them succeed and realize their full potential. “I had a couple of teachers who told me I could go far in the world, despite my limitations. Their belief in me stayed deep inside me like a candle flame even in my darkest times,” Buhlmann said.
In her 30s, Buhlmann was finally able to go to college, propelled by that tiny flame sparked years before. “As a Diversion board member I try to light the same flame in others,” she explained. “It is rewarding to have a part in what is often a transformation.”
Like many transplants, Buhlmann first came to Vermont in 1972 to ski, discovered instantly that “I belonged here,” and made it her home over the next five decades. Buhlmann worked many years as a waitress, ran a hotel desk, and performed other administrative jobs before she was finally able to go to college to study to be a dietitian.
According to Patrick Fleming, the Youth Services Diversion Case Manager who coordinates six restorative justice panels of community members each week, Buhlmann will leave big shoes to fill.
Fleming described Buhlmann as “a natural” at the work, as unusually compassionate, and as someone who could instinctively alleviate the defensiveness of even the most challenging clients.
Inspiring advocate
Before the term became widely used, Buhlmann's approach was trauma-informed, according to Fleming.
“We could trust her with the most complex cases and know she would understand on a cellular level what was important and what wasn't. She also inspired our clients to look at and address the issues that led to their offense,” Fleming said.
Buhlmann is being inducted into Youth Services' Hall of Fame as the agency's first-ever recipient of the Restorative Justice Advocate Award.
Her portrait will join Liz Richards and the late Ben Underhill, two other champions of Youth Services who devoted decades to the young people of Windham County, in the hallway of Youth Services.
The Hall of Fame is a way for Youth Services' board to recognize community members like Buhlmann who make outstanding and sustained contributions to youth development and the agency's outreach.
“Marilyn went out of her way to champion Youth Services and restorative justice at every opportunity,” Fleming recalled.
Like the “Wise Ones” figurines that Buhlmann has fashioned from lumps of clay into sculptures that carry meaning, Buhlmann's decades of empathic listening and questioning on Youth Services' Diversion Board has helped close to 3,000 Windham County community members transform their mistakes into life lessons to help them choose a better path going forward.