VT School Meals
The Food Team
Bellows Falls Meal Delivery
Summer Garden Art Series
Summer Garden Art Series
This summer, alongside the open garden hours at schools, students and parents can participate in a variety of art activities in school gardens. The River Gallery School of Art, the In-Sight Photography Project, and the Human Art of Play will offer fun art and garden-based activities throughout the summer. Create a bug poster, learn about cyanotype art, and join in on circus yoga. All activities are free and supplies are provided. Students must be accompanied by a parent or guardian, who are welcome to join in the fun! The Summer Garden Art Series is a collaboration between Food Connects, RiseVT, WSESD, and Tara Gordon, Food Connects Garden Coordinator. Be on the lookout for the 2020 open garden hours, announced in May.
Cafeterias Unknown: Bellows Falls Union High School Meal Delivery
Food Connects’ Farm to School program is asking many of the same questions as our colleagues in schools—What does remote learning look like for students? How can we continue to support the social and emotional needs of students? What about all the kids who rely on school meals? In the past two months, a collective epiphany swept the country as the importance of school meals came into focus. Despite looking a bit different, our work supporting and championing school meals continues—and so last Wednesday I visited Bellows Falls Union High School to lend a hand and gain a better perspective of what it takes to put out school meals in the era of COVID-19.
At the school
Bags and boxes lined up for distribution. Meals go out three times at week in the WNESU.
Bags line the facade of the building, stacked on picnic tables, as they wait to load onto buses. There’s a pop-up tent battling the wind by the road—in addition to the bus routes, families can pick up meals themselves at the high school, middle school, or Saxtons River Elementary. Once inside the cafeteria, a bustle of activity greets me as staff and volunteers pack additional bags for pickup and delivery. Like many districts, the backbone labor of Windham Northeast Supervisory Union’s (WNESU) distribution system is teachers, paraeducators, and other school support staff.
The kitchen is no less busy. Staff are preparing the last of today’s meals and getting ready for the next wave going out on Friday. Just as I start to feel a little lost with no job to do, Harley Sterling (WNESU School Nutrition Director) happily jumps alongside to show me their current set-up and talk about how the new program is going.
Four weeks in, Farm to School Cafe is finally in a groove and things are running smoothly. Harley is excited about a recent contract with the Department for Children and Families to supply breakfast, lunch, and dinner for families staying at a nearby motel. That’s an additional 160 meals a day, more community members served, and slightly more funds to run the program.
I settle in to help Melissa Bacon (Westminster School Nutrition Manager) pack bags for today's delivery to the motel and talk about how school closure affected her. Westminster School is closed, so Melissa is working out of the high school. Her son, in 3rd grade, and daughter, in 6th, are learning from home. While her daughter took to distance learning pretty quickly, her son still requires quite a bit of guidance. The Farm to School Cafe staff are balancing the responsibility of feeding their communities with the now universal job of home-school teacher.
On the bus
After finishing off the last of the bags with Melissa, I head out to one of the buses with Harley and Lija Geller (Westminster Afterschool Program Director). Renee, the bus driver, already lined the bags in the seats in order of stops. An incredibly organized system, which only took us minutes to confuse. Luckily Denise, a staff member from Westminster, joined us as well and was a regular on this route.
Since we had four volunteers on a bus that usually only had two, there was plenty of time to reorganize the lunch bags and for conversation, as we completed the route (Denise had an impressive 75’ X 75’ garden and, by the sounds of it, is a prodigious canner.) Our stops varied—meals were left on front porches, handed off to groups of cars waiting at the ends of dirt roads, and relayed to one student driving a three-wheeler.
As we drove, the conversation turned to increasing meal participation numbers. Meals are currently free to any child 18 or under—they don’t need to be a student at WNESU, there’s no income cap, and all you need to do to enroll is fill out a quick Google Form. While many families rely on the meals to feed their kids, you do not need to be in dire economic straits to receive meals nor will your participation preclude other families from participating.
All school meal programs are operating under the Summer Food Service Program rules, meaning the reimbursement rate they receive from the federal government is slightly higher. This, in turn, helps shore up school budgets in a time of increased uncertainty. Whether you sign up for meals because it’s one less thing you need to worry about or it's something familiar for your kids, all districts want you to enroll.
Bus rules to live by.
After just over an hour, we bumped along the access road into the high school parking lot with all 60 bags distributed. It was right around 11 and cars continued to roll up to the to-go tent (which was miraculously still standing). Inside, things were winding down and thoughts turned to Friday when the next round of deliveries would go out. Harley and his team are ready to keep this up for as long as it is needed—it may look a little different, but the work continues.
Questions about accessing school meals? Want to share your experience with school meals during coronavirus? Email us at farmtoschool@foodconnects.org.
The Food Team: A Community Collaboration to Address Hunger
As Brattleboro Town Food Service Director Ali West of Fresh Picks Cafe fielded phone calls from families throughout Windham Southeast Supervisory Union (WSESU) to sign their children up for school meals in the early days of COVID-19 school closures, she was often heartbroken as people reached out to her. Many shared that they were in desperate situations and did not have enough food, not only for their children during the school day but also for their entire family.
"I wondered what could be done to meet the needs for families," thought Ali West. "The regular school meals programs were not enough to feed entire families. So I reached out to Food Connects for guidance."
Conor Floyd, Farm to School Manager at Food Connects, represents area schools at the Windham Region Hunger Council and has strong relationships with school meal programs, area food shelves, and the Vermont Foodbank.
On a Hunger Council call a couple of weeks into the crisis, Christine Colascione, of Foodworks, shared that she saw a rapid increase in need across the community. Zach Hebert, of the Vermont Foodbank, led the coordination efforts between food shelves and relayed that information to his colleagues and secured more resources for food relief in Windham County.
In Brattleboro, there is a strong network for anti-hunger organizations that provides relief to families. Organized through the Hunger Council, the network collaborates to best meet the growing food security needs of our community. Despite everyone’s best efforts, the group knew that they were not reaching all the families in need. This was particularly on the mind of Christine, who focused on creating more trauma-informed services at Foodworks after attending a Trauma and Food workshop led by Equity Solutions.
"Many people are needing help for the first time,” noted Christine. “Navigating the charitable food system can be difficult for many—either knowing who to call or the stigma associated with accessing help.”
On a Hunger Council call, Sheila Humphreys of Food Connects wondered about the needs that families were communicating with Ali, and whether these families were being served by Foodworks or if they were falling through the cracks. Out of those questions, an idea began to take shape. Could Foodworks and the WSESU meal program work together to determine which families were not already receiving regular food deliveries from Foodworks, and launch a new, collaborative program to deliver food to these families through the school meal program delivery system?
Within a week, a new “Food Team” was formed with staff from WSESU Food Service, Foodworks, Food Connects, and the Vermont Foodbank, and they quickly came up with a plan. Using Foodworks’ existing account with the Foodbank, and with additional grant funding supplied by the Foodbank, Christine launched a new delivery program to families, managed and distributed by Ali via the Academy School meal site. “We are so happy to be part of this collaboration with the schools because this way, many people who wouldn't otherwise be helped, are able to get the food they need,” Christine remarked. “People are already familiar with the school system making it an easy access point, and using the busses is such an excellent and efficient way to deliver food."
For the first week of the program, staff from Foodworks, Food Connects, the Foodbank, and Fresh Picks unloaded the truck themselves to get a sense of the time and labor required.
Staff from Food Connects provided coordination and support services to launch this program, including muscle to move 4 pallets of shelf-stable food from the Foodworks truck into the school. Week 1 was a success! The Food Team met and refined delivery and ordering systems further, and decided to look for volunteers to help with the heavy lifting to get the food off the truck.
The food boxes line the halls of Academy School, waiting to be loaded on buses for distribution.
WSESD is running two buses solely for food box distribution. Filled to the brim, they trundle about the district, delivering boxes to doorsteps.
Conor reached out to Assistant Fire Chief, Leonard Howard, for support. Not only was Leonard on board but he brought the request to a town staff meeting. From this, a new partnership was born with the town, where staff from Brattleboro Fire, Police, Highway, and Recreation and Parks signed up for a weekly shift to unload the truck. On the second Wednesday of the program, town staff had the truck unloaded in record time!
Fire, Police, Rec and Parks, and the Highway Dept came out in force to unload the delivery in record time.
After unloading the truck, part of the Food Team posed for a socially distant group photo.
As the program evolves, hiccups continue to occur, from working out the details of weekly distribution to communicating with families. But, the program is already providing much-needed support to families. In a recent conversation with Ali, she mentioned that “I heard from one family that said receiving the boxes has been such a relief, especially as they have 5 kids at home and one of the parents had been laid off! Many more have expressed gratitude and appreciation to the counselors that they are in contact with.”
This story is not only uplifting but serves as a model for how to create successful community collaborations. So, how did it happen?
Start with existing connections. The Windham Region Hunger Council, a decade-long collaboration, actively served our community before the crisis hit. The group already established norms and relationships with one another, allowing for a seamless transition to remote collaboration and an immediate platform for broad information sharing.
Additionally, Food Connects had strong working relationships with Foodworks and the Foodbank—thanks to the community of practice group focused on trauma and nutrition which formed after the Equity Solutions training. This created a space for each organization to feel comfortable stepping into unknown territory as the new collaboration was formed.
Food Connects’ well-established Farm to School program supports WSESU schools and foodservice programs. Food Connects nurtured and developed those relationships to create strong partnerships with open lines of communication with the schools as well.
Identify key action teams. Large, regional collaborations are essential in spreading information and gaining a comprehensive understanding of the situation but they make quick action difficult. On the first Hunger Council response call, the group identified lead coordinators for the schools, food shelves, volunteers, and communications.
Through this structure, Conor pulled together a smaller group of essential organizations to address the need Ali experienced at the schools. While keeping the Hunger Council informed, this group could then act quickly to put a new set of systems in place and ensure the food got out quickly and efficiently.
Leverage existing resources. After identifying the problem and those best positioned to address it, the Food Team took stock of the resources at hand. The schools had the volunteers to pack the food and buses to deliver it. Whereas Foodworks had some additional ordering capacity via the Foodbank and a box truck to get the food to Academy School but lacked the home delivery infrastructure to cover an additional 130 families a week. With this information, the team created a new supply chain with the resources already at their disposal.
Think about sustainability. The charitable food system relies on community funding and volunteer support. It was crucial to utilize existing systems in new ways to be able to address this need. By capitalizing on Foodworks' relationship with the Foodbank and the school’s connection with families and delivery network, the group ensured that this wasn’t a 180° pivot, but a reimagining of the services each organization already provided.
Once there was proof of concept, the next thought was how to ensure this new program could exist for months into the future. The town’s on-going support unloading deliveries on Wednesday was the final piece to the puzzle and ensured the additional task didn’t fall to the district’s volunteers.
And what is the result of all this? A consistent source of additional food relief for 130 families in our community and more resilient organizational relationships for when the need arises again. This project is a model for the ways that community organizations can partner with schools and municipal staff to meet the needs of vulnerable populations in a time of crisis.
Food Connects is grateful of everyone who helped make this collaboration happen: Ali West and the incredible staff of Fresh Picks Cafe; Zach Hebert of the VT Foodbank; Christine Colascione and Ava Howard of Foodworks; Jon Sessions of Academy School; Leonard Howard of the Fire Department; the staff of the Fire Department, Police Department, Highway Department, and Recreation and Parks; and the Windham Region Hunger Council. It truly takes a village.
On Air: Feeding Children—Call to Action
Our Farm to School Program Manager, Conor Floyd, joined Peter ‘Fish’ Case on Call to Action to discuss how Food Connects and schools are partnering to feed students during the uncertain times of COVID-19. Listen now!
Exploring Equity at Food Connects
What is the intersection between trauma, equity, and nutrition in our food system? This is a question that the Food Connects’ Equity Team grapples at each of our team meetings. This investigation allows us to take a critical look at the work we are doing in our community and engages us in deeper conversations around race, gender, and socio-economic status.
These conversations may seem daunting to some, but luckily there is a great resource to guide us through these challenging conversations. Last year, for the first and certainly not the last time, I participated in Food Systems New England’s 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge. The challenge consists of a daily email with information and prompts that encourage participants to learn, reflect, act, and go deeper on topics of racial justice and equity in our food system. The readings, videos, podcasts, and discussion questions gave me tools and resources that I returned to throughout the year as I wrote about the importance of working towards greater equity in our food system.
Last year, more than 3,500 people participated in the challenge. This year, in addition to individuals, they are opening the challenge up to whole organizations. So far more than 500 organizations signed up. The challenge runs from March 30 to April 19, and I encourage you to sign up personally or for your organization by clicking here.
Something that stuck with me the most from last year's challenge was the theme of storytelling. I have often referenced the Voices from the Food Chain videos this year, and I gave a lot of thought to how we, at Food Connects, can amplify the voices of the people we serve, including food service workers in our school cafeterias and students in our community who are coping with food insecurity.
We formed an equity team at Food Connects last summer, and we’re engaging in conversations about how to bring greater equity to our work with farmers who are people of color, women, and/or members of the LGBTQIA community.
I am looking forward to another opportunity to think about my work from different perspectives and to continue to ask myself how together we can build a food system that provides dignity for everyone. I hope that you’ll join me!
By Sheila Humphreys, Farm to School Coordinator
April 2020 Farm To School Newsletter
Farm to School Responds to COVID-19
WSESU Schools Respond to COVID-19
Area Schools Provide Free Lunch
Professional Development
Racial Equity Challenge
Windham Southeast Supervisory Union's Meal Program Response to COVID-19
Alison Kelly, Intensive Services teacher at Brattleboro Union High School & Brattleboro Area Middle School, volunteers in the Academy School Kitchen portioning out fresh grapes for student lunches.
When Food Service Directors Ali West and Justin McArdle of Fresh Picks Cafe received the call that schools in Windham Southeast Supervisory Union (WSESU) would be canceled due to COVID-19, they stepped into high gear, figuring out how to quickly get school meals out to students throughout the region who depend on those meals.
Initially, there were administrative hurdles to jump through in order to receive funding for these meals through federal and state funding sources. Kira Sawyer-Hartigan, WSESU’s Nutrition Programs and Wellness Consultant, assisted Ali and Justin with navigating these issues. Once they received the go-ahead from federal and state agencies, Ali and Justin rolled up their sleeves and got to work, doing what they do best—feeding children.
Ali, Justin, and staff from their own kitchens, as well as staff from Vernon, Guilford, and Dummerston now work together in two kitchens (Academy School and BUHS/BAMS) to make breakfast and lunch daily for nearly 1100 students in WSESU. School buses are used to help with distribution with teachers and paraeducators volunteering to ride along on the bus routes and hand out the food to families. This support from school staff is crucial—it brings a friendly, familiar face to these vulnerable families during this challenging time. BAMS/BUHS intensive services teacher Alison Kelly says that she has volunteered on the Vernon bus regularly as a way to stay connected with some of her students, and she has witnessed first hand the smiles on students' faces as they come to meet the bus each day to receive their food. Her students look forward to this friendly routine each day. Right now, the meals served are cold breakfast and lunch, 5 days a week, but as the new system grows and funds allow, Ali and Justin would like to add some hot meals to the menu, as well as dinner and food for the weekends.
A Glimpse at Academy School’s School Meal Operation
Ali starts each day in her kitchen at 5 am, checking the master list of students who are signed up for meals and making new additions to that list daily as more requests come in. She also works closely with Becca Kenyon, the dispatcher at Kuzmeskus bus company, to figure out how to reconfigure bus routes to accommodate new families who sign on to the meal program. Ali says she couldn’t do this work without Becca—Becca is so devoted to the project that she works some nights and weekends, driving around to figure out how to seamlessly fit in new stops to the routes so that all families can participate easily.
By 6:30 am, Ali’s crew arrives and starts to work. They assemble bag breakfasts together like a well-oiled machine. They had some practice with assembly-line meals prior to COVID-19—they were already preparing 300 bagged after school meals daily. Now, the existing systems are expanded to make everything work on a larger scale. There are no students in the building, allowing the staff to spread out rows of bags across several tables in the cafeteria, and this added space is crucial to the operation.
Ali says one challenge faced by her staff is having chronically dry hands from near-constant washing and sanitizing. She says her staff is very conscientious of all safety protocols including vigilant hand sanitation, wearing masks and gloves, and keeping 6-foot distance. Wearing masks is so natural now that every day someone forgets they are wearing a mask and tries to take a sip of coffee or a bite of lunch without first removing the mask, which can be messy! Luckily, they have plenty of colorful masks handmade by volunteers, and Ali jokingly says that wearing masks has the added benefit of stopping stress-eating at work!
Ali is challenged by product shortages of certain items like single-serve yogurt containers and individually packaged cheese sticks—which are in high demand by schools all across the country. Whenever possible, Ali tries to keep the menu consistent because she knows how a last-minute menu change can be challenging for students. Ali continues to face the ongoing hurdle of tight budgets for the meal program. Luckily, she was able to find a creative way to save 23 cents per bag by leaving out condiments and plastic utensils since students are eating these meals at home—freeing up resources to improve the quality of the food she serves.
By far, the coordination of all the moving pieces of this new feeding program is the biggest challenge for Ali—from managing staff and volunteers to figuring out correct quantities in order to minimize food waste. She likens the work that she has done creating new systems in uncharted territory as being an “air traffic controller with my eyes closed and working in a different language.” But, she is finding her stride and providing critical leadership to make the program run smoothly. A colleague recently expressed the need to wrap Ali up in a highly sanitized bubble to protect her from all illness, because the school district is relying heavily on her right now to keep the operation going.
Ali’s dedication to feeding our community runs in the family. Her mom runs the Guilford Food Pantry—which remains open during the pandemic and is offering curbside delivery with the help of Ali’s father, also working as a volunteer. Families write their orders on an order slip and Ali’s parents bring orders to volunteers working inside the pantry who pack boxes of food. Ali is concerned that her parents stay healthy, and so she donated oodles of pencils to the food pantry so that each person can keep the pencil they used to place the order.
A Glimpse at BUHS’s School Meal Operation
At Brattleboro Union High School, the staff transitioned quickly after Governor Scott ordered schools to close. “The very first thing we did was to sanitize everything,” said Justin McArdle, BUHS Food Service Director, “we’re pretty meticulous about cleanliness and sanitation regardless, but when we realized the magnitude of this thing, we ramped it up to 11.” After they did a deep clean, the team began thinking about what changes needed to happen. They tried adapting as much leftover food in the kitchens into deliverable meals and created a new menu that enabled easy distribution.
The biggest change was transitioning from primarily serving hot meals to entirely cold meals. “The process has changed significantly,” said Justin. “We’re now doing volume production, instead of making 18 pizzas a day and 200 sandwiches and a few batches of a hot meal, we have people prepping out 400 salads and 400 cups of yogurt, there’s an assembly line feel to it right now.” From a chef’s perspective, Justin would like to see more scratch cooking, but he sees the current set-up as the most effective way to serve the entire district—which is putting out over 2100 meals per day—during this time of need.
Justin also says that the entire staff has stepped up to the challenge. Like everyone else in the community, the staff are concerned about their health and the wellbeing of their families. But they still come in every day and have adapted to the change really well. “I really admire how they have managed to come in and grasp it so quickly,” Justin said during our interview.
There have been some hiccups along the way. Supply chain disruptions are still occurring. “Last week it was finding paper bags,” said Justin, “this week it’s been finding cheese sticks.” The entire staff has to be resourceful in finding alternatives when shortages occur. The community also pitched in. Recently, Food Connects put out the call for community members to lend their coolers to the program to help distribute the weight of all the meals being delivered. Within a couple of days, Justin had the ten coolers he needed.
When asked how the community can help now, Justin said that more families could sign up for school meals and help spread the word to their neighbors and friends. The program is free to all children 18 years and younger. The district asks that families fill out a short survey to help the program better predict the number of meals they need to make. More information about the program can be found on their website.
Farm to School Responds to COVID-19
It’s been a crazy past couple of weeks. It’s hard to imagine that only two months ago Coronavirus was a headline from halfway across the world for most of us in New England. Now, schools are remote learning, businesses are closed down, and everyone is adjusting to a new way of life. These changes deeply impacted Food Connects as we adjusted our operations and shifted our focus to the community response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Food Hub
Since mid-March, Food Connects closed its office to everyone except essential employees. Who’s an essential employee at Food Connects? Our drivers and operations staff that play a vital role in maintaining the local food supply chain. They continue working under heightened safety protocols to ensure that schools, co-ops, hospitals, and communities continue to have access to local, healthy food. As we adjust to this new way of life, our entire staff is reminded of how vital our work is.
Thanks to our already strong safety protocols, connections with producers and consumers, and our dedicated Food Hub team, operations continue throughout this period of transition relatively unimpeded. Old programs, like community-based buying clubs, gained traction once again as shoppers re-discover the importance of local, source-identified food.
Farm to School
The Farm to School team is working remotely during this period as well. Like the Food Hub, Sheila and Conor are utilizing their strong connections with teachers and partner organizations to coordinate a response to the growing nutritional needs of our community. Food Connects’ Communities of Practice continue to deepen the interconnected relationships of anti-hunger champions throughout Windham County, aiding in the quick response and collaboration of schools, food shelves, and other community organizations when schools were mandated to close.
We took the lead in coordinating between school districts and the Windham Region Hunger Council. In this role, Food Connects has ensured the clear flow of information and resources between schools and partner organizations, the VT Foodbank, and area food shelves. We can see these channels of communication in action, quickly fulfilling the volunteer needs of schools as they arise. With the Hunger Council, we also maintain an updated database of each district's school meal program during the school closure and concisely disseminate that information county-wide via local news media.
Working directly with schools, we continue to support Food Service Directors by aiding in the spread of information, finding answers to rules and regulations, and coordinating volunteers for their programs. As teachers begin to settle into their new routines, we will be another layer of support for them by sharing resources and facilitating online Communities of Practice and Farm to School committee meetings. This is especially important as we collectively navigate the next stage of questions—how do we engage students in farm to school while teaching remotely, what will the school’s garden program look like for next year, how do we maintain the progress we’ve made this school year?
Everyone at Food Connects is working to strike a balance between meeting our community’s immediate needs and not losing sight of the future. School gardens, nutrition education, and local foods are all mentally and physically nourishing activities that will be in high demand once this is all over. We’re excited to help our partners and schools be prepared for when that time comes.
Food Connects Expands Professional Development Offerings
Food Connects Farm to School program is excited to step into new roles of leadership in the Windham Region and at the statewide level through expanded professional development opportunities. Interest continues to grow for workshops exploring Farm to School’s role in supporting students through a trauma-informed approach. Food Connects was awarded an Agency of Education contract, along with our partners from across the state, to provide additional professional development in the coming school year.
Trauma and Nutrition Professional Development
Food Connects began our second year of a two-year grant from the Thomas Thompson Trust focused on investigating the links between trauma and nutrition. We’re grateful for the opportunity to develop a set of best practices and resources for schools that utilize Farm to School approaches to support students through a trauma-sensitive lens. We now provide professional development opportunities on this topic and the interest in our trainings is very high. We are also coordinating a bi-monthly community of practice group on this topic for wellness leaders in WSESU, and participants find those discussions rich and valuable. As we continue to monitor and respond to the COVID-19 crisis in our community, we know that resources for supporting students who experienced the trauma of food insecurity are becoming more and more relevant every day. We deeply appreciate the support we have received to delve into this important topic and share our learning throughout the region. If you are interested in learning more about this work, please contact our Farm to School team at farmtoschool@foodconnects.org.
Agency of Education Contract
In early March, the Agency of Education awarded Food Connects and other regional Farm to School organizations a contract to provide professional development to educators across Vermont over the next year.
As a part of Vermont Farm to School Network, Food Connects works with the Ease of Use team to better reach Farm to School coordinators across the state. The team hosts regional gatherings, collaborates on professional development opportunities, and publishes a quarterly newsletter. This past winter, the Agency of Education released a request for proposals for contracts to provide Farm to School professional development throughout Vermont. The Ease of Use team was well-positioned to serve out this contract given its collective experience delivering Farm to School professional development and the combined geographic reach of the organizations.
Through the collaborative contract, Food Connects, Green Mountain Farm-to-School, Healthy Roots Collaborative, VT FEED, and Vital Communities will create a unified set of modular professional development workshops. These workshops may include topics such as collaborating with farmers, the school nutrition program as a curricular resource, and trauma-informed approaches to nutrition education. Each regional organization will bring this newly created catalog of workshops to school nutrition professionals and teachers in their area to identify which workshops should be offered. This approach ensures that there is a consistent Farm to School approach throughout the state while still providing regional flexibility.
Food Connects is excited to be a part of this partnership which highlights the highly collaborative nature of the Vermont Farm to School Network. We look forward to sharing our knowledge of Farm to School programming and nutrition education with our statewide partners and bringing new professional development opportunities back to our stakeholders in southeastern Vermont.