Category Archives: Burlington
Vermont’s Digital Future Conference May 8
#BTV #VT – Calling digital leaders and Vermonters statewide! Help set the path for Internet technology use that will create jobs, enliven our communities, reinvent schools and increase citizen participation. Register today for…
Fascinating keynote speaker, Nicco Mele, will be joined by Governor Shumlin and dozens of other speakers. Sign up today!
Front Porch Forum is a proud e-Vermont partner and we look forward to participating in this event.
Seeking ophthalmologist recommendations near Burlington
#BTV #VT – Posted by David on his FPF today…
I asked on the Shelburne Front Porch Forum if anyone had experience with ophthalmologists and cataract surgery in the Burlington area and quickly got eight responses, all of them extremely helpful. What a good resource…
Supporting Community Conversations
#VT #BTV – Thanks to all of our Front Porch Forum Supporting Members. Their contributions help us cover the costs associated with delivering our service to the 70 Vermont towns that we cover.
Please consider joining them by making a contribution today… click here. Thank you!
– Michael and the FPF team
“Thanks for Connecting Me to Great Neighbors!”
#VT – Early adopters of Front Porch Forum are often community-minded folks. So even before we reach a critical mass of members in a particular town or neighborhood, we might get 25 or 50 of the kind of people who volunteer a lot, organize events, and generally get things done locally.
When this happens we hear about it. “Thanks for helping me find the other people in town who want to take action to make this an even better place to live!” That was a comment we got last year. And today, we heard from Janice is St. Albans…
I want to thank Katrina and her family for loaning me the HOUSE-shaped cookie cutter – I was able to make over 2 dozen house shaped cookies which I decorated with hearts – for the Spectrum Youth & Family Services Sleep Out tonight in Burlington.
One of my former college classmates wanted friends to bake goodies that could be delivered to those sleeping out tonight to bring awareness to homelessness… I think many would be surprised at how many working homeless there are!! While there are organizations out there, like Spectrum, such as Pathways to Housing and the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition – we need to take better care of each other – in Vermont and across the country. We all deserve a home.
A home is the basis for life – for being successful neighbors and citizens – for kids it’s having a SAFE and WARM place that is theirs and where they can concentrate on homework and getting good educations – so many important elements around having a HOME.
My friend is delivering all the cookies, brownies, muffins, etc. his friends baked tonight – with the requirement that if there is too much for all participating in the event that they have to PAY IT FORWARD and deliver/share with others in need – so maybe these simple cookies in the shape of a HOME/HOUSE – with a heart on them will make someone’s heart smile tonight!
Please consider looking up these other organizations and seeing how you can volunteer, donate supplies/equipment, or if you have a room to rent out or apartments you rent – think about making them as affordable as possible so there are few homeless.
Just my 2 cents worth – on a huge subject! Thanks Front Porch Forum for connecting me to my great neighbors.
Seeking roofer recommendation?
#VT – Thanks to you FPF neighbors who sent recommedations for roofers. It’s like having a local “Angie’s List.” (only better).
That was posted on Front Porch Forum by Chris in Burlington’s North End today. We hear that kind of thing frequently. FPF members get lots of good results when they seek recommendations… and, best of all, they get to meet neighbors along the way.
More than half of U.S. seniors don’t know neighbors
Seniors in Vermont have long put their neighborhood Front Porch Forum to good use. Today, AARP reported on this growing trend…
According to a 2010 Pew Internet and American Life Project report, of nearly 2,300 surveyed, half ages 50-64 did not know their neighbors; the number was 52% for ages 65+.
So when I heard about free neighborhood websites, I stopped multitasking. They are a place where neighbors communicate online with others who live nearby about community issues (a new building project in the area, traffic concerns, a burglary, a favorite gardener, a family in need), post requests, and get to know one another. That often leads to face-to-face connections and new relationships.
According to Michael Wood-Lewis, cofounder of the Front Porch Forum, a neighborhood website in Burlington, Vt., there are about 20 similar start-ups around the country. Created in 2006, his is among the oldest and serves one-third of Vermont.
One of most recent entrants is the San Francisco-based Nextdoor, which debuted last October and is in more than 1,200 neighborhoods nationwide. In order to join one of these private social networks, you have to live in that neighborhood (except if you’re an adult child/caregiver) and when posting, use your full name. If there’s no neighborhood website, you can start one and invite neighbors to join.
What does this have to do with caregiving? These companies are seeing adult children, who are caregivers, or their parents or relatives, the care recipients, using it to enlist the help of others. Last winter, during a blizzard, an adult daughter living across town got on the Front Porch Forum website and asked her mother’s neighbors to check on her. Several went over to make sure she was okay and fed, while someone else shoveled her driveway and walk…
Arthur Goyette knows the value of good neighbors. His wife Betty died three years ago, but while she was battling cancer, his neighbors brought countless meals to their Caroline Street home. When the neighbors learned that Betty had always wanted to ride in a convertible, they found a dealership willing to loan them a car, and surprised the Goyettes with a Chrysler Sebring. When the couple drove down the street with the top down, people lined the block waving and taking pictures.
Remembering this time, the 71-year-old Goyette marvels that he barely knew some of the people who helped him. He might never have known them at all if it weren’t for an email newsletter called the Front Porch Forum, which serves the South End neighborhood known as the Five Sisters.
Goyette’s neighbors used the newsletter to organize support for the family. “If the web wasn’t there,” he says, “it never would have happened.”
Goyette is not the only South End resident who credits the 6-year-old Front Porch Forum with bolstering community. The FPF website lists testimonials from dozens of users who say they like the way this free online service helps them connect with others in the immediate area; of the 350 households in Five Sisters, 286 subscribe…
Thanks so, so much for posting the message about Operation Snow Shovel throughout Burlington. The response was incredible! Can you believe that I’ve heard from 57 people willing to volunteer to shovel? 57! (That’s in addition to the 33 permanent volunteers who shovel for a particular person each time it snows”“ many of them were recruited through Front Porch Forum, too.) A large percentage of volunteers said they’d heard about the need through their neighborhood forum.
As of right now, every single elderly or disabled person in need of help that contacted OSS has been accommodated. And those I’ve yet to hear from will get help quickly. What a wonderful resource these forums are! Many, many thanks!
And another one… Watching neighbors connect through Front Porch Forum is often both fascinating and moving. This post from today, e.g., adds to other evidence we’ve witnessed of people wanting and waiting for a chance to lend a helping hand to those around them.
My husband died from metastatic prostate cancer in October. I asked for help finding someone to snowblow my driveway [through her FPF neighborhood forum] and think I have found someone. Then I went away for a week and when I returned my leaves were raked and removed and items moved from around the house to the driveway. I don’t know who did this, but I have to think it was someone in the neighborhood and I wanted to say thank you.
This message comes from a suburban-style neighborhood where about a quarter of the 200 households signed up with Front Porch Forum in the first three months of operation. To further thank her neighbors, the writer goes on to share a warning:
You should also know that in July 2006 we had a house invasion during the daytime (2:30 pm, man with a ski-mask) and my husband’s pain medication was stolen ([he] was lying in bed at the time). While I was away in November, there was another break in. His remaining medications were taken too. There is no more medication in the house and it is now very much more secure, but be aware that this sort of thing happens even in our own “safe” neighborhood.
Many thanks to the kind-hearted and energetic people who helped me out.
The anwser to the request for snow-removal help for the coming winter is great. The mysterious leaf-rakers are even better. But it’s the willingness of the writer to share her loss, ask for help, and offer a constructive warning to her neighbors out of what must have been an awful experience that motivates us to make Front Porch Forum happen for more people and neighborhoods.
FPF is hiring!
#BTV #VT – Front Porch Forum is seeking an experienced sales rep. to join our growing team: http://bit.ly/FPFsalesopening
Burlington’s Five Sisters recognized by This Old House
#BTV #VT – Front Porch Forum‘s flagship neighborhood — the Five Sisters — was just named by This Old House as one of their Best Old House Neighborhoods of 2012. Nice…
The Five Sisters neighborhood is in the south end of Burlington near the shores of Lake Champlain. Its five primary streets bear the names of Caroline, Charlotte, Catherine, Margaret, and Marian, hence the moniker. Here you’ll find around 300 houses and cottages developed from 1900 through the 1950s for working-class families employed by the nearby Queen City Cotton Mill and the American Woolen Company, among others. These days, it’s attracting young families, who often take turns walking kids to school, a practice known as the “walking school bus.”
Vermonters have many choices…
#VT – Lots of great discussion of various online tools today at the e-Vermont workshop in Randolph. I was blown away by first-hand accounts of Moretown citizens responding to Hurricane Irene, as well as the folks of Westford self-organizing a food shelf to help neighbors in need.
Vermonters have so many digital media tools in the toolbox from which to choose. That said, I’m partial to our Front Porch Forum for many applications. Apparently Doris in Argyle, NY feels the same way (from her current posting)…
Thanks to everyone who posted or emailed info about the Pleasant Valley public hearings, which my husband will attend tonight. I was pleased to see that Front Porch Forum published the info in a timely manner.
It occurs to me that one week of following FPF has given me more positive information and ideas than several years of trying to negotiate Facebook. With Facebook I have struggled to figure out who is seeing what information and I have not gleaned much of anything from a world of “friends” except for gossip and a lot of negative interaction. So, goodbye Facebook, and hello Front Porch Forum!
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t share this bit about Twitter… just in fun, of course…
Update: And from Carrie in Argyle…
Doris, I agree…been thinking the same thing about getting rid of facebook. I love that the FPF news I hear is local!!! I feel so much more connected.
Neighbors like to talk about real estate
Lots of real estate moves through Front Porch Forum… houses and commercial properties for sale, apartment and office space for rent, families searching for information about neighborhoods, school, homeowners discussing property values and taxes, etc. FPF helps neighbors connect about whatever it is they’d like to discuss… and real estate is a consistent theme.
From Daily Real Estate News today…
There are sites and tools out there that are more directly focused on location: the online places where people talk about their physical places. Some of these are simply Facebook pages. But some are more specialized.
My favorite example is always Burlington, Vt.’s Front Porch Forum,… [which] is broken down by neighborhood. The only people talking on the list are actual neighbors. It’s super useful, but not very common.
Owning a similar social media site like this would be a strategic advantage in towns where it doesn’t already exist. It would be like a newsletter, but instead of being a social product it would be a social activity.
About Blog
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more
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