Green Mountain College
EN-10: Community Partnerships

Poultney 2020's mission is 'To Revitalize the Town of Poultney, Vermont and Bring the Community Closer Together'. After founding Poultney 2020 in 2013, GMC hosted a conference on April 24, 2014 to kick-off of a new partnership between Green Mountain College and the greater Poultney community to revitalize the town. The conference was a day to celebrate Poultney’s progress and potential, and create a fresh new vision of our town’s future! Working together, we identified the highest-priority projects to be implemented. These projects included developing an arts center, improving our natural areas and building more trails to increase access to them, supporting local food and food security, and creating a recreational park on Main Street in the Village. Through community organizing, meetings, and collaborations, the Stone Valley Arts and Slate Valley Trails are well established community organizations and still actively involved in working with Poultney 2020 quarterly meetings to grow their organizations further. The Slate Quarry Park has secured land for their park and the Poultney Food Care Partners has been working to meet the needs of food insecure individuals and families in the region. The College host quarterly Poutlney 2020 update meetings providing the space, advertising, and facilitation of the meeting as well as coordinating with faculty and students to contribute service and engagement with the activities. Slate Valley Trails: https://www.slatevalleytrails.org/ Stone Valley Arts:http://stonevalleyarts.org/ Slate Quarry Park: https://www.facebook.com/SlateQuarryPark/ Poultney Food Care Partners

The Poultney Earth Fair is an annual event meant to engage with the greater Poultney community for an afternoon of sustainability education and celebration on or near Earth Day. Green Mountain College has partnered with the Poultney Earth Fair since 2007 and has supported the program through staff participation on the planning team, equipment and supplies, and incorporating the event into service projects for GMC students in their coursework. The event is held at the Poultney High School and key to the event is engaging students from Poultney HIgh School in the leadership of the event. Students from the high school are directly involved in the planning, decision-making, implementation and review of Earth Fair each year. The Earth Fair Event features community organizations, artists, farmers, businesses, and students providing information and demonstrations of sustainability solutions, activities, and project for the entire Poultney community. Past activities have included bike repairs, a poster displaying highlighting resiliency in the region, a clothing exchange, a community visioning interactive art project, and a sustainability scavenger hunt with tree seedlings for prizes. Earth Fair is a completely free event for participants and a key goal is to provide information and support to our economically challenged community on low or no cost ways to transition to more sustainable lifestyles.

The Rutland County Hunger Council works in partnership with Hunger Free Vermont to end the injustice of hunger and malnutrition in Vermont. The Rutland County Hunger Council is made up of representatives from a diversity of sectors including social service agencies, religious organizations, the agriculture sector, medical facilities, and schools. Initiatives and collaborations are presented and discussed during meetings held every two months. Green Mountain College sustainability office participates in these meetings, offers staff time to work towards initiatives that allign with GMC's goals, and provides meetings space for the Council two times per year.