Category Archives: Vermont

Eugene Jarecki and Civic Engagement

Posted on Monday, December 29, 2008 by • No comments yet

Mike Ives profiles Vermont filmmaker and author Eugene Jarecki in Seven Days this week.  Jarecki’s 2006 documentary, Why We Fight, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

And he has a new book out…

… he told Jon Stewart recently, he hopes The American Way of War will inspire a sense of common civic engagement that withered during the Bush years. “I’m on a real mission,” he explained to the Comedy Central host. “The worse thing that’s happened is, we’ve become disengaged… ”

And…

Jarecki is trying to make a difference in his community. Neighbors say the Big Picture Theater & Caf© in Waitsfield, which Jarecki co-founded in 2006, is an important civic space for residents of the Mad River Valley.

Good stuff.  Many of Jarecki’s Mad River Valley neighbors have asked us to bring Front Porch Forum there… we hope to in 2009… working on pulling pieces together now.  In Burlington, where we’ve been operating for two years, a survey found 93% of respondents claiming that FPF led to increased civic engagement for them… real, face-to-face, in the community kind of stuff.

Backdoor Bakery and Front Porch Forum

Posted on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 by • 1 comment

Quote seen on the website for the Backdoor Bakery in Huntington, VT…

“Also on my mind — the best almond croissant I’ve ever had in my life — last Saturday — hot out of the oven from the Backdoor Bakery (my stomach thanks Front Porch Forum).”  -Catherine

This is a “community supported bakery”… locals buy shares in advance and get regular doses of fresh baked yum yums… reduces the risk for the mom and pop owners of this treasured local small business.  Suzanne Podhaizer of Seven Days wrote about it recently.

Zip Codes and Polygons

Posted on Wednesday, December 10, 2008 by • No comments yet

Defining physical boundaries of neighborhoods is a cornerstone of Front Porch Forum. So we’re interested in local boundaries generally.  Vermont-based Maponics shares a good primer today about ZIP Codes and carrier routes (and they have neighborhood polygons too)…

The ZIP Code and carrier route coding system was specifically developed by the United States Postal Service (USPS) in order to make mail delivery more efficient.  This means that what the average person refers to as a “ZIP Code”, is actually a collection of addresses that have the same 5-digit code assigned to them. The USPS then further splits up each of these ZIP Codes into smaller blocks of addresses: carrier routes. A carrier route literally corresponds to the group of addresses that an individual mail service employee is responsible for delivering to each day.

There are roughly 43,000 ZIP Codes in the US.  These are divided into approximately 600,000 unique carrier routes with, on average, 15 carrier routes per ZIP Code.  Fifty percent of these are PO Box-based carrier routes which do not have actual delivery areas.

ZIP Codes and carrier routes do not tie in to any other US geography. Because of this, they frequently cross city, census tract, county and even state boundaries. The USPS does not provide maps or map data for ZIP Codes and carrier routes. Businesses looking for postal map data to inform their sales territory tracking, direct marketing and other initiatives have to turn to private map data compilers for this information.

Read the full post…

Front Porch Forum in Two Slides

Posted on Wednesday, December 10, 2008 by • No comments yet

Here’s Front Porch Forum boiled down to two slides…

Vermont PR Chick’s Free Advice

Posted on Friday, October 3, 2008 by • No comments yet

“Vermont public relations chick – Rachel Carter (www.rachelcarterpr.com)” offers “5 Free & Quick Ways to Promote Your Business” today.  And number five is…

Join your local Front Porch Forum and let your neighbors know who you are and what your business is! (www.frontporchforum.org)

Yes sir… and many have and do.  Thanks Rachel.

Talk “community building” with FPF: dates and places

Posted on Thursday, September 11, 2008 by • No comments yet

I always learn something valuable, so it’s a pleasure to converse with an audience about Front Porch Forum.  So I’m grateful for the invitations to address these upcoming events.  Please come!

• Connecting with your Essex Neighbors using Front Porch Forum
Brownell Library, Essex Junction Village, Lincoln St
Sept. 15, 2008, 7:00 PM

• Building Community Online: Leveraging the Web 2.0 World for 21st Century Classrooms and Communities
Sept. 26, 2008, 10:15 AM with Dr. Rob Williams
Action Coalition for Media Education
GROWING UP DIGITAL: Kids, Commercialism & New Media Culture
Rock Point School, Burlington, VT

• Sponsor
Intervale Center‘s 20th Anniversary Harvest Barn Dance
Oct. 3, 2008

• Sponsor
UVM’s Center for Rural Studies 30th Anniversary Symposium
Oct. 4, 2008

• Front Porch Forum: Helping Neighbors Connect and Build Community
Oct. 6, 2008, 9:30 AM
• Vermont e-State: National Model for Broadband Community Building
Oct. 7, 2008, 9:30 AM with Lauren-Glenn Davitian and others
Rural TeleCon 2008
Smugglers’ Notch, VT

Skunk’s head stuck? Here’s what you do…

Posted on Monday, September 8, 2008 by • 1 comment

I love the stories that people share with their neighbors on Front Porch Forum.  Here’s one just in from an FPF subscriber…

Today, Monday September 8th, 2008, I witnessed an amazing act of heroism. I live on Claire Pointe Road in the New North End of Burlington. This morning I received a signal from my husband who had been walking our dog, when he pointed with a hurried walk I saw a skunk with a yogurt container stuck on its head. So stuck that this skunk could not see where it was going, just walking and bumping into the cement of the walkways that just jammed the container onto its head even more. When I left the condo and drove out of our garage, this skunk had made its way down the driveway. Still bumping the side cement walls and jamming the container even tighter onto its head. I had to stop and turn my car off because the skunk was coming so close to the car. At this time a wonderfully brave woman, a neighbor who’s name I do not know walked down the driveway, we both discussed for a second what to do and in a terrific fearless act she went quietly to the skunk and with amazing heroism (and if she is reading this now she will know what i mean ) and a bit of scary comedy she freed the skunk from it’s smothering , blinding jail. She did not get sprayed and the two of us ran like the wind once it was over. This woman, my neighbor is a hero. What bravery, I have always lived in a city, we do not know from skunks except picture in animal magazines. Brava to this wonderful woman who will forever have the most wonderful and odd story to tell!!!!

Feel Good Post of the Day

Posted on Saturday, September 6, 2008 by • No comments yet

From Sarah on the FPF ONE East Neighborhood Forum this evening…

To our wonderful neighbors: thank you so much for all of your help in finding our lost cat, Calvin.  It was one of you readers who eventually found him for us (only a block away from our house!), and I am so appreciative to have him back safe and sound after he spent 5 nights on his own.  We received several emails/phone calls from people who had thought they’d seen him, and I have been absolutely blown away by this kindness and thoughtfulness.  When I was trying to decide where to go to graduate school, I knew that Burlington would be a special place, but I had no idea how amazing the people would be.  Thank you, Front Porch Forum. Thank you, sweet neighbors.  All the very best, Sarah, Drew, and Calvin

Bridge Closure Hurting Businesses – Another Use for FPF

Posted on Saturday, September 6, 2008 by • No comments yet

Oof dah… the Bridge Street bridge in Richmond, VT, was closed late Thursday… from an already tedious one lane down to zero.  The good people of Richmond (and surrounding towns, such as Huntington, should be grateful for Selectman Erik Filkorn.  He turned immediate to Front Porch Forum and got the news into hundreds of local households’ inboxes as people were preparing to commute home.  The local traditional media have now picked up on the story too.

From Erik’s most recent FPF posting…

Hi Everybody – I am amazed at what great feedback I’m getting from folks about communicating through the forum. Thank you Michael Wood-Lewis for creating this. Yesterday could have been much worse. I rode my bike to the village expecting to see a big line of cars, but most folks seem to have gotten the message.

I know this is a gigantic hassle for everyone and we are working with our contractors and the State to get this bridge opened as soon as possible. We are also trying to find the resources to do a little extra work on the roads which are taking the additional traffic. Fire, rescue, police, the highway department, everyone has really stepped up. We’re lucky to have such good people working for us.

While as commuters, we are being compelled to bypass Richmond until this is fixed, as residents, now more than ever, we must support the businesses downtown. Thomas Hark pointed out in one of the forums that business is way off. The bakery was down 75% for the day and the cafe was similarly hit. Unless we ALL make an extra effort to shop and dine in town this week, some of the businesses we rely on may not be here next week. It IS that serious.

One of the pleasant side-effects of the closure is that the village has never been more pedestrian-friendly. Many people parked at the Round Church for the Farmer’s Market yesterday, and the absence of cars (mostly) on Bridge Street makes it even nicer to walk around. For anyone who hasn’t been yet, VT Green Grocer has most everything you need to cook dinner on the South Side of the River and the Corner Market has just about everything you need on the North. Walking to the hardware store over the bridge when you’re just picking up a few things is good for you and you run into more friends that way. Take a walk to Film Buzz to make up for the fact that you’re going to end up on the couch.

Please, please, make an extra effort to support local business through this crisis. You may even find that you like shopping in Richmond better than spending $10 on gas to drive to Williston and the time you would have spent on the Interstate could be spent talking to friends in town.

So it goes,
Erik

“Citizen sleuths track taggers, online” from BFP

Posted on Monday, September 1, 2008 by • No comments yet

I like Joel Banner Baird’s opening in his Burlington Free Press article today…

Take notice, Burlington vandals, taggers and would-be thieves: Little Brother is watching you.

And he’s swapping notes with his (and her) neighbors — and the police — on Front Porch Forum, a community-based online network serving Chittenden County…

And he goes on to shed some light on the story we discussed here.  And I just noted a comment left on the Free Press site by wordwhip99…

The po po do the best that they can. And just like every thing else, and everyone else, there’s room for improvement. There’s good cops, and crappy ones. There’s good folks around town, and lazy uncaring ones. Etc. But what it really boils down to is that Americans seem to always rely on someone else to take care of their problems.

It’s a community problem here and cannot rely on just the cops to reduce or solve, but ALL the community members. The parents. The (failing) education system. And so on. Stop looking the other way and speak up when someone throws a candy wrapper or bottle on the ground.

Well, I could go on… I know I speak up, and I applaud others that take some kind of action, as well as Front Porch Forum.

Have you done anything to help your community today?

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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