Ghost of Midnight

Most people want to be neighborly…

Mel Allen, long-time editor of Yankee Magazine, recently addressed a gathering at Shelburne Farms in Vermont about the importance of local community.  I was touched to learn about this piece of his talk…

This September, Yankee marks 75 years. In the publishing world, that’s a pretty big deal. At the heart of what Yankee has written about has always been sense of place — always community.

There hasn’t been a more important story for Yankee over the years than this one: keeping place alive, keeping communities vibrant. And that doesn’t happen without people who care, and people who understand that all of our lives are better when we belong to a place that we care about.

The wonderful Vermont writer Bill McKibben wrote a story in a recent Yankee about the Front Porch Forum, which, as you know, has its roots right here in Burlington. We called it “Making Good Neighbors.” He told about how, through the vision of a few and the power of the Internet, so many of Burlington’s neighborhoods became linked, as if by a town crier who reached out to all. And we received a letter from a South Burlington woman that we published in our new summer issue.

“In my neighborhood,” she wrote, “it enabled us to rally around a young mother who was dying. Because of her illness, she and her husband hadn’t gotten to know many people. With Front Porch Forum, however, we were able to arrange for someone to prepare dinner for this family and deliver it every night for two months before she died, and for several weeks after the funeral. Through Front Porch Forum the family also received a steady stream of cards and notes, and practical help with dog walking, errands, and driving the kids to after-school activities.

“What struck me most,” the writer continued, “was the number of neighbors who expressed appreciation that Front Porch Forum had enabled them to participate in helping this family at a time of profound need. Most people want to be neighborly, but we no longer have the local institutions and the time to do it the way we used to. FPF is a modern community-building tool that has admirably filled the need in the fortunate neighborhoods that have access to it. Many thanks for running the story.”