BRATTLEBORO-The Windham Southeast Supervisory Union (WSESU) School Nutrition Program will offer free summer meal kits for kids every Thursday, beginning June 26 and continuing through Aug. 14, behind Brattleboro Union High School on Sunny Acres Road.
The program is for all children 18 and younger, regardless of enrollment. Each kit will include what the federal government considers to be seven days' worth of breakfast and lunch for one child and will offer items like milk, fresh local produce, bread, cheese, bananas, and breakfast cereals.
Drive-through distribution will take place between noon and 3 p.m. Access Sunny Acres Road via South Main Street.
Children may receive one breakfast and one lunch per day and cannot receive meals from multiple Summer Food Service Program sites.
BELLOWS FALLS-After using several temporary sites for its collection, the Bellows Falls Historical Society (BFHS) held a grand opening on June 14 at its new permanent location at 46 Canal St. Founded in 1965 by Bob Ashcroft, Bob Adams, and Alice Hawkins in order to save the historic Adams...
PUTNEY-On Friday, July 11, Yellow Barn opens the doors for its 56th Summer Music Festival. More than 70 musicians representing 17 countries will travel to Putney for five weeks of chamber music, including 19 concerts and five master classes in the Big Barn. This season's repertoire spans 300 years,
Fall prevention clinic offered in Guilford GUILFORD - The Guilford Cares Senior Support Group is hosting a clinic on Thursday, June 19, from 1 to 2 p.m. at the Broad Brook Community Center (3940 Guilford Center Rd.) to discuss why we fall and what we should be doing to avoid falling. The presenters are volunteer physical therapists with the Southeastern Vermont Medical Reserve Corp. (MRC), a community-based network supporting local public health initiatives and emergency response efforts. The presentation will...
BRATTLEBORO-The Root Social Justice Center is ending the 2024–25 school season with The Black Youth Scholarship Kickoff. In honor of the late Angela Berkfield, co-founder of the organization, The Root will host a birthday party FUNdraiser for their annual Black Youth Scholarship at the Brattleboro Kiwanis Shelter at Memorial Park on Saturday, June 21, from 5 to 8 p.m. Guests can expect to have a good time catching up with old friends, listening and dancing to music, sharing a meal...
College news • The following students at the Community College of Vermont (CCV) earned associate degrees at CCV's 2025 Commencement on June 7: Sarah Aiken, Jacob Alexander Harrelson, and Alejandra Morcillo-Franco of Bellows Falls; Moussoumakan A. Diallo, Monica Ann Kellar, Carol Ann Maynard, Clay Anthony Barcelos, Erika Carolyn Favreau, Frances Cornick, Drew Del Valle, Hailey Elizabeth Taylor, Melissa Lee Hill, and Monique Tameka Carson of Brattleboro; Sierra Lynn Lane, Krystal A. Martin and Trevor J. Golding of Dummerston; Sierra Gagnon...
BRATTLEBORO-During May and June, the Vermont Center for Photography (VCP) has been presenting "Presence: The Photographic World of Lotte Jacobi," a major exhibition celebrating the extraordinary career of "one of the 20th century's most significant portrait photographers," according to exhibit organizers. On view through June 29, the exhibit features a wide-ranging selection of Jacobi's photographs, including portraits of Albert Einstein, J.D. Salinger, Billie Holiday, W.E.B. Du Bois, Robert Frost, and Eleanor Roosevelt. "Bringing Lotte Jacobi's work to VCP is both...
PUTNEY-Happenstance Theater's Pocket Moxie: A Happenstance Touring Vaudeville is coming to Sandglass Theater on Thursday, June 26, with shows at 3 and 7 p.m. The show is billed as a lighthearted homage to the style and spirit of the Great Age of Vaudeville - a popular theater style from the late 19th and early 20th centuries made up of specialty acts, song, and dance. Happenstance Theater's five versatile players - Gwen Grastorf, Mark Jaster, Sabrina Mandell, Sarah Olmsted Thomas, and...
PUTNEY-Next Stage Arts, 15 Kimball Hill, continues its 15th anniversary celebration with a night of nonstop laughter as Gordon Clark and his Vermont Comedy All Stars return for a "Live Stand-up Comedy Showcase" on Friday, June 20, at 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 6:45 p.m.). This comedy night is part of Next Stage's yearlong anniversary series, in which they are honoring individuals who have shaped their community and organization. At this show, they will recognize two "Next Stage Champions" -
PUTNEY-The Bandwagon Summer Series presents an unforgettable evening with Christine Ohlman & Rebel Montez on Saturday, June 21, at the Putney Inn Field. Known as "The Beehive Queen" for her signature platinum-blonde bouffant and electrifying stage presence, Ohlman brings her powerhouse vocals and legendary band to southern Vermont for a night of Americana soul and rock 'n' roll under the summer sky. Ohlman, the vocalist for NBC's Saturday Night Live Band, most recently appeared on the SNL 50th Anniversary telecast...
MARLBORO-Argentinian singer-songwriter Cecilia Zabala will perform "Notes of the Soul" on Thursday, June 19, at 7 p.m. in an outdoor concert at Thrush Hill Stage, 314 Upper Houghton Rd. Zabala is a guitarist and composer whose music blends Argentine folklore, jazz, tango, and Brazilian rhythms. With 11 albums, 25 years of international performances, and Argentina's First National Prize for the Arts under her belt, Zabala is "a true force of musical magic," say event promoters in a news release. "Don't...
BRATTLEBORO-Mitchell-Giddings Fine Arts, 181 Main St., presents "Unmoored," an exhibition of new oil paintings on paper by Rona Lee Cohen. Also featured is a recent welded steel sculpture by Torin Porter, Parallel Forces. An opening celebration and artists' reception is scheduled for Saturday, June 21, from 5 to 7 p.m. The shows will continue through Aug. 10. "There is an invitation in the expressive arts to let go into an unformed, unbounded state, one that doesn't need to make sense,"
WEST DUMMERSTON-Lydia's Friends, the friends-of-the-library organization that supports the Lydia Taft Pratt Library, will host a presentation and discussion with the producers of the six-episode podcast The Afghan Women of Brattleboro. The event is scheduled for Thursday, June 19, from 6 to 7:15 p.m. at the Library located in the Dummerston Community Center at 150 West St. in West Dummerston Village. The Afghan Women of Brattleboro is about a group of people who fled their homeland and built new lives...
BRATTLEBORO-Perennial favorite Pan Evolution Steel Orchestra returns to Retreat Farm to kick off the 2025 Brattleboro Music Center's Music Under the Stars series. The Pan Evolution Steel Orchestra, 2024 New York Panorama Winner, is a steel pan band that performs around the U.S. and overseas. Founded in 2015 and based in Brooklyn, New York, the band uses its platform to promote unity throughout the culture and steel pan community, all while personifying the band motto of "Together As One." Other...
BRATTLEBORO-At 9:10 a.m. on Thursday, June 26, Brattleboro's New England Center for Circus Arts (NECCA) will be featured on NBC's Today, highlighting the school's Silver Circus class for students age 60 and above. In early April, NBC Producer Kayla Steinberg called NECCA's Producing Director Serenity Smith Forchion with an idea. Steinberg had taken a few aerial classes in New York City and was searching for a good story line when she saw an announcement from NECCA about the Silver Circus...
BRATTLEBORO-Brooks Memorial Library, in partnership with Windham World Affairs Council (WWAC) and VIM/The Commons, continues its monthly America 250 gatherings on Wednesday, June 25, from 6 to 8 p.m. in the library's upstairs community room with special guest Breanna Sheehan, a local Elnu Abenaki member who represents the Brattleboro area on the Vermont 250 Commission. That statewide commission is planning events around recognition of the 250th Anniversary in 2026 of the founding of the United States. A Brattleboro Union High...
Howard Fairman, a native Vermonter, likes to study official public documents and presentations, research their backgrounds and implications, document what's really happening, then share food for thought with fellow grassroots Vermonters. To watch the Putney Selectboard's discussion of the ordinance with the author at the June 11 meeting, visit bit.ly/820-putneysb. PUTNEY-Should your local fire department bill you for its services? You or your landlord already have paid property taxes funding the fire department. How about nearby fire departments that provided...
-The Leland & Gray Rebels started the softball season with just three returning seniors. The rest of the roster was comprised of a senior joining the team for the first time, plus three juniors, two sophomores, seven ninth-graders, and two eighth-graders. With so many young players, Rebels fans might have expected that this year would be a rebuilding season. Instead, the third-seeded Rebels made it all the way to the Division IV state championship game. They lost 19-4 to the...
Emily Carris Duncan (ecarrisduncan.com) represents the Windham-6 district (Wilmington, Whitingham, and Halifax) in the Vermont House of Representatives. WHITINGHAM-Like many folks, I've been taking in the horrific images, videos, and stories from the streets of downtown Los Angeles. My heart is sore with betrayal, frustration, anger, and sadness. As we live in a participatory democracy, we have the bedrock right to speak truth to power, call out wrongs when we see them, and take to the streets in protest if...
BELLOWS FALLS-Another large, colorful, peaceful crowd lined the main street of Bellows Falls on June 14 for a couple of hours starting at noon, one of an estimated 2,000-plus anti-Trump No Kings rallies in the U.S. that day. The crowd was estimated to be similar in size to the town's last rally, with 400 to 500 people participating. More than 100 people had officially signed up, said organizer Susan Brace, but many times that number participated. The protestors initially gathered...
BRATTLEBORO-Brattleboro Memorial Hospital has cut six administrative posts as it seeks $4 million in reductions and new revenue to balance its $119 million annual budget. "Unfortunately, creating financial stability at times requires a reduction in force," hospital President Christopher Dougherty said in a June 12 interview. The day before, the hospital let go of its director of radiology, senior director of revenue cycle, data scientist, outpatient specialty practice manager and two executive assistants. "They're all administrative positions," Dougherty said of...
BRATTLEBORO-On June 4, members of the Charter Revision Commission voted 6-0 "to move away from" the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) model the town has used since 1961 and "towards" open Town Meeting. The nuanced language differentiates a total rejection of RTM from the fact that commissioners are still investigating all aspects of a new open Town Meeting plan. "We need to know what we're talking about when we say 'open Town Meeting' or 'hybrid' meeting," said Commission Chair Kate O'Connor...
BRATTLEBORO-It seems as if President Donald Trump is not popular in Windham County, either. On June 14, which was Flag Day, Brattleboro joined an estimated 2,100 protest marches across the nation and held its own "No Kings" march. Nearly 3,000 people marched from the Centre Congregational Church on Main Street to the common, where they listened to protest songs sung by the 50-voice strong Good Trouble Street Choir backed by the Peoples Resistance Marching Band, and to speeches about democracy...
PUTNEY-Considered one of the finest pianists in Europe until her brother Wolfgang came along, Maria Anna Mozart, nicknamed "Nannerl," was born in 1751 in Salzburg, Austria. She was nearly five years older than her brother, and they were both considered musical geniuses. Her father, Leopold, started her on the piano at age 8. She and her brother performed all over Europe until she was 16, when she stopped performing in public because she was a woman. To date, all of...
BRATTLEBORO-What do community land trusts, the slow food movement, water stewardship, distributed cooperative organizations, crowdfunding, cooperatives, and community arts groups all have in common? Each is a manifestation of "the commons." On Monday, June 23, Windham World Affairs Council (WWAC) hosts commons expert and advocate David Bollier, author of several books and host of the monthly podcast, Frontiers of Commoning, for "Think Like a Commoner," an exploration of innovated systems for better, more fulfilling, healthier living among all peoples -
Meg Donahue is cofounder and chief creative officer of MamaSezz.com, an online enterprise that works to "revolutioniz[e] the snack space with convenient, whole-food, plant-based delights." BRATTLEBORO-I went to a recital recently at our town's music center, which, against all odds and economic logic, is a world-class space nestled in a community of just 13,000. The building is light-filled and elegant, the acoustics finely tuned, yet it feels entirely rooted in this place. It is a town with more heart than...
Timothy Belknap is a Brattleboro Representative Town Meeting member representing District 9. BRATTLEBORO-To the Brattleboro Human Services Committee: During your June 10 meeting, it was repeatedly stated that the body does not "make policy." I respectfully disagree. The decision-making process regarding the allocation of taxpayer-funded donations is, by definition, a form of policy making. These choices shape outcomes, reflect priorities, and embody values - fundamental elements of public policy. It is imperative that we address several growing concerns, particularly around...