NEWFANE — Even though it was almost 12 years ago, I still get nervous when it rains. With climate change, the rains are only going to get heavier, loosening the soil even more, eroding the land that sits on the edge of its rivers and creeks.
I think about “Vermont Strong,” that slogan we see on the back of pickup trucks like mine.
Created as a symbol of our commitment, of Vermonters helping repair our community after Tropical Storm Irene, for me, it represents the emotional resilience we have when we come together as a collective to rebuild in the face of hardships.
Megan, her husband Jeremy, and their three children are but one example of the 800 families whose homes were damaged or destroyed by Irene. The flooding caused such a severe mold problem in their house in Brattleboro that it was unbearable to live in. Their bunny rabbits died. Nobody was able to get to their home to bring them food or supplies.
“I was pregnant at the time, too,” she says. “It was scary.”
“I was happy when they finally came in with loaders to clear the roads off from all the dirt piles left from the force of the fast-rushing flood water,” Megan recalls. Since then, Vermont has promised to work toward flood resilience and has set up a program, Flood Ready Vermont.
* * *
I had hoped that we would be able tohave that same Vermont Strong team spirit and care that we had then and apply it to the pandemic of COVID-19, another naturally occurring disaster that put Vermonters at a crossroads, often with each other.
I watched that happen for some, even as the Coronavirus radically changed their professional and personal lives.
Megan and I were working together at the Fireside Café at Landmark College in Putney when the pandemic happened. It was a struggle for her to home-school three kids and work at the same time.
We took on the nightshift together at the Café, as it was the only way for her husband to work and for her to remain home during the day with her kids for Zoom classes. I have admired her resilience to keep going no matter what the circumstances.
With all the understaffing, work has become more stressful. Megan reminds us that we are all in it together. The restaurant expression “teamwork makes the dream work” sounds cliché, but it's true.
* * *
We had a solid dream team. I worked with Lily Patterson, a well-versed team player who has been in the restaurant business a long time.
As a single mom, Lily personifies what it means to be resilient in the face of hardship.
“I had my first child at 17,” she says. “Being a woman of color, I did not want to become a statistic. I have always had two to three jobs to provide for my family.”
She has taught me a lot. I can only imagine the stress Lily was under as a single mom when her sons suddenly had to attend Zoom classes all day while she was at work. Not only that, one of them was struggling with a learning disability. Work made it impossible for her to be there for him to keep him on track.
As a single mom, Lily knew she had to be strong for her children and her team. But how?
The restaurant business is not the most flexible when it comes to scheduling, particularly with understaffing conditions that had started to sweep across the state.
“Nobody wants to work” employers cried, forgetting that half the population was more than likely sick, was grieving the death of a family member, or was like Lily: struggling to juggle all the roles demanded of her.
Thankfully, a former colleague reached out to Lily, offering her a chance to start her own business. The opportunity - to work for herself and control her own schedule so that she could be there for her son - finally saved her.
* * *
Single moms aren't the only ones who struggle. Kate Barry is a very successful real estate agent in Vermont, a business owner, and the main breadwinner in her family right now, which often means the financial burden falls on her shoulders.
When I asked her what helped her survive, she responded that the added stress of having to be a teacher, on top of work, would not have been possible without her supportive husband.
But she told me that “the lack of affordable child care is detrimental to the family's mental health, and this age of burnout isn't healthy.” She then described her struggle during the pandemic as a kind of displacement that happened when her living arrangements became complicated, forcing them to have to move.
Kate soon became involved in Let's Grow Kids, an organization that focuses mostly on families and was created out of the desire for free and affordable child care in Vermont. She sums up the mission in a nutshell: “It really does take a village, and when we come together as a community there is more stability - not only for the parent, but for the kids, too.”
Ian Hefele describes the dark days of 2020 and the pandemic creating a glaring need of child care that surfaced in ways it hasn't before. When asked what he thought about the slogan “Vermont Strong,” he wrote: “Community. Our community came together and opened 'essential workers' child-care locations, one of which was at the [Unitarian Universalist] meeting house my family attends.”
”The community rallied to support our kids as we were fighting to finalize our adoption amid a global pandemic by providing them a safe location to continue emotional growth and learning,” he added. “For that we are forever grateful.”
* * *
One last prime example of a community creating stability for a struggling family during the pandemic took place in Putney at Rod's, a family-owned business devastated by a fire determined to have been set deliberately.
One of the family members, Julie Winchester, posted on I Love Putney, Vermont! Facebook group on Oct. 9, 2021, feeling devastated but determined to rebuild and come back even stronger.
Julie, six months later, posted an update: “We were never promised easy,” she wrote. “We were promised we are never alone in the good and the bad.”
Shortly after the blaze, she reflected on how the Putney community came together for her family, stating that “the outreach of our community cannot even begin to be put into words.”
* * *
While Vermonters are community-oriented, we are also incredibly autonomous and at times pridefully self-sufficient. Some might even call us “loners.”
But Megan, Lily, Kate, Ian, and Julie have been able to move forward despite the circumstances around them. They have played the hero in their struggles.
My mother (who recently held the national record for bench press and dead lift in her age group - she's really Vermont Strong at 74) has always taught me that to be strong and resilient means to press on and keep going despite the circumstances.
We Vermonters, independent by nature, are good at coming together on behalf of something good, something right, something noble - to help families or neighbors in crisis.
When we essentially show up for each other, despite our differences, we create the stability needed to be stronger in the face of hardships like Irene or a global pandemic.
And that is what truly makes us Vermont Strong.