Welcome to Vermont's Rural Partnership

A Rainy Day Meeting with Sunny Results

November 5th, 2010

Today, Madison, Todd and Johan and I walked through the drizzle to the United Church of Christ for a meeting with people from all different schools in the area to talk about VRP, Vermont Rural Partnership. There were kids from Barnet, Cabot, Twinfield, Peacham, Rivendell, Doty Memorial, schools, and of course, us. We were the first ones there despite the fact we walked A WHOLE HUNDRED YARDS to get there, so we got to warm up with the first of the hot cocoa. We set up the projector and chatted with Joseph, Margaret and Helen, the VRP leaders. Soon the other schools showed up and the entire space took on a conference-like feel as people milled around, got hot chocolate and made name-tags.

Eventually, everyone settled down and Todd and Madison showed their kid-friendly rubric, which was met with applause. After this, Margaret talked a little about VRP, and outlined the meeting plan. Next, they introduced four stations: Student Empowerment, Assessment and Documentation, Place Based Curriculum, and School-Community Partnerships. Then, each school became a rotating group and we went to all the stations and wrote down different things that we had done in each category. After we were done with that, each school shared two or three things from the station with the group.

After that, there was a short break, and then we worked on our grants. Lakeview’s committee (us) worked on a grant to do with our school gardens. We worked on the grant, but we also brainstormed VRP ideas in general, and working on those two things, we spent a half hour. Then we had a delicious lunch prepared and served by a Wonderful Woman named Cassandra. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a very good vegetarian option, but I had brought food, and they were helpful finding stuff for me to eat, and they promised to think more about that in the future, so that ended sunnily, too.

Then, we played a group game to get us energized, and then finally ended our brainstorming with another half hour. Once our hour’s worth of brainstorming was done, all the schools shared ideas. Joseph started us out by saying: its ok to borrow ideas, the whole point of sharing is to borrow ideas. One school was focused on local heroes, one school was focused on astronomy, and one school was focused on their bread oven and making it more productive. As you know, our focus was the garden.

So, all that done, we headed back to school to turn some of our ideas into reality. Immediately Madison, Trystine and I rushed to the cafeteria to look at the whiteboard and to see when the next fresh food would be. Meanwhile, the boys had started working on the header for the newsletter. Kim helped us with the whiteboard stuff, and Mrs. Morrissey helped the boys with the header. After doing the whiteboard stuff, Madison, Trystine and I rushed (there was a lot of rushing going on) back to the library and started our articles for this very same newsletter that you are holding right now. So, our work has begun and everyone is very enthused about the work we need to accomplish this year. Much work will be completed during the cold winter months in hopes for a sunny planting and growing season!!

For more information on the Vermont Rural Partnership,
please contact: margaret.maclean@ruraledu.org

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