Category Archives: Civic Engagement
“She is she for whom we searched…” in Hyde Park
“Seeking an able bodied, time flexible, altruistic person who enjoys providing a helping hand to those in need. We are an elderly couple looking for someone to clean off our vehicle and shovel a short pathway from the house to the vehicle. Pay is $20 per hour.”
• Andrea, Hyde Park Front Porch Forum a couple day ago
“We have found our snow shoveler! Well qualified, flexible, a desire to assist those in need. She is she for whom we searched. Thank you FPF.”
• Andrea, Hyde Park FPF yesterday
Fairy strikes Ferrisburgh Town Hall
“Sometime very recently our Town Hall had a visitor – not the ‘tooth fairy’ but perhaps the ‘wreath fairy’ who once again has hung beautiful balsam fir wreaths on our two front doors for everyone’s enjoyment. And so to our ‘wreath fairy’ – hope you are on Front Porch Forum and see this heartfelt THANK YOU!”
• Gloria, Ferrisburgh FPF
Stolen weathervane recovered thanks to alert Barre neighbor
“Our weather vane has been recovered and returned to us, thanks to Front Porch Forum! An alert FPF reader recognized the cast iron horse at a local second-hand store. Thanks to this Barre neighbor and the Barre City Police Department, the relic from my childhood is back home. There is no doubt it was stolen from our yard before making its way to the store, so please keep this in mind as you decorate outdoors, no matter how “safe” your neighborhood may be.
“Many many thanks to the alert neighbor who acted on his suspicion. And thank you also to the people who emailed me to express their concern for the incident, and also for my personal feelings of loss. You brought me a lot of comfort with your messages.”
• Cindy, Barre City FPF
Randolph neighbors offer crash-course in Spanish
“I may be going to Mexico for a week in the spring. I can count to 10 in Spanish, and say “good morning” and that’s it. Although I won’t be entirely on my own, it seems prudent for me to have some grounding in the language. Can anyone recommend a source for lessons, or would anyone be willing to teach me once a week or so? I hardly know where to begin.”
• Elizabeth, Randolph Front Porch Forum, Dec. 1
“Thanks to all the FPF members who filled my mailbox with suggestions for learning Spanish and offers to have “conversation time” with me. One email came from the director of the Spanish immersion program at the Randolph Tech and Career center. He has set me up with one of his advanced students, he and she are providing me all sorts of ideas and resources (many online)… The first phrase I asked to learn was “More slowly, please”! (“Mas despacio, por favor!”) I so appreciate everyone’s interest and ideas. What a great forum!”
• Elizabeth, Randolph FPF, Dec. 8
Gun-frightened Gracie on Jericho Road
“A huge thank you to John T. for finding our frightened dog Gracie on Jericho Road and taking her back to his house. He then promptly posted to Front Porch Forum and we were quickly reunited. She had been frightened by gunshots and had taken off. After calling and calling for her, for over an hour, I knew that I needed to watch the Forum for news. And the good news came quickly. Thank you to our wonderful neighbors and to Front Porch Forum for providing such a valuable service to our community.”
• Deb, Jericho Front Porch Forum
VPR: Front Porch Forum turning 10
From Steve Zind’s recent piece about FPF…
Nearly 10 years after it was created, the online community known as Front Porch Forum is a well-established statewide service.
It’s a unique model that hasn’t been duplicated on a statewide level elsewhere, but Front Porch Forum CEO and co-founder Michael Wood-Lewis says the business is viable without expanding beyond Vermont.
The free online community message board was started by Wood-Lewis and his wife Valerie when they were looking for a way to communicate with people in their Burlington neighborhood.
The business grew steadily. Then, in 2013, Front Porch Forum received a grant under the Vermont Council on Rural Development‘s Digital Economy Project that allowed it to essentially double its coverage area to include every town in Vermont.
Today the business has a dozen employees and is financially sustainable…
Hearts warmed by Hardwick and Walden neighbors
“Thanks to all the folks who offered to lend me a stroller for my visiting granddaughter. Especially on Thanksgiving it was heart warming that strangers would extend themselves to reach out to me. Front Porch Forum is an excellent way of making connections and building community.”
• Marsha, Hardwick Walden FPF
Stowe school eases lunch crunch
Lisa McCormack wrote in the Stowe Reporter recently…
Stowe Middle School students no longer have to gobble and go. After parents and students complained that lunch periods didn’t allow enough time to finish a nutritious meal, school administrators decided last week to expand them to 20 minutes…
Student Kenzie Bruce posted on Front Porch Forum last week that the changes were already having a beneficial effect. “I, and others, are very grateful for the change,” Bruce wrote.
Parent Elizabeth Croes says her daughter no longer comes home from school with a lunchbox full of half-eaten food. “I was glad that enough parents expressed concern that they were able to change it quickly and positively,” Croes said. “It was good to have children see that it’s OK to express concern in a respectful way and to have the community respond to support them… “
Croes posted comments about the issue on Front Porch Forum, drawing responses from parents, students and community members who urged that lunch periods last longer. “As more and more people became aware and said, “˜Wait, this isn’t good,’ it was wonderful to have the support of parents and community members, even people without children in the school system,” Croes said…
A recent study by Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health warns that short lunch periods don’t serve students well. It found students with less than 20 minutes to eat school lunches consumed significantly less of their entr©es, milk and vegetables. One author of the study told Croes that Stowe Middle School’s 12-minute lunch was the shortest he had ever heard of.
Croes sees the Front Porch Forum campaign as “a perfect example of social media being used for good.” In an age in which parents might not always know one another, it made the community aware of what was going on and helped bring about beneficial change, she said.
Are local concerns trivial?
“Thanks to Front Porch Forum for providing a way to communicate to our community directly. It’s worth supporting financially. We live in a politically charged world and, yes, worldly problems can be made to trivialize local concern. The Shelburne FPF is for us neighbors and I am grateful to be able to share my thoughts. Together we can work toward a better community by keeping communication open and positive. Thank You FPF.”
• Steven, Shelburne FPF
The Bridge covers FPF in Montpelier
“Front Porch Forum, the free community-generated online newsletter, has only been serving Montpelier for a couple of years, but 3,500 city residents have already signed up to get its e-mails, and Montpelier members have proven to be the most active posters of messages in the state… ‘Montpelier is an outlier,’… ‘In the last 30 days, there have been 1,300 postings in Montpelier. We usually consider anything over 60 or 90 postings a month to be a successful forum. Montpelier is at over 10 times that level.'”
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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