People use Front Porch Forum in lovely ways. The other day a proud mother shared the following with her neighbors…
“We are pleased to tell the community that [our son], an eight-year member of Huntington Troop 645, passed his Board of Review last week and is now an Eagle Scout.”
She provided some detail and showed great constraint in not bragging… just sharing really.
Well… she opened the flood gates and neighbors started flowing in with compliments about the Eagle Scout, as well as a sibling and the parents in general, e.g.,
“This is a wonderful accomplishment and one well deserved. I agree that [they] have done a wonderful job giving these great boys to our community. It gives me much hope for our future to know that there are boys like these in our world and contributing to our future generations. The welcoming smiles that these boys so readily share makes my day each time I cross paths with one of them. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
The mother weighed in one more time, a bit embarrassed, but clearly appreciative of her kids AND her neighbors.
It’s a privilege to have Front Porch Forum used in this way.
Please help us continue and expand this work… vote today and spread the word!
Here’s a posting from a South Burlington FPF neighborhood forum from Deana that makes my day…
I just wanted to show my gratitude for the neighbors I have on [our street]. People on our street care about one another, watch out for each other, and help whenever you need it. I’ve walked out my door and my neighbor is chipping away at ice in my driveway for crying out loud!!
I’ve lived in southern Florida, San Diego, and now Vermont. Making a life on [our street] has been an experience of a lifetime. There’s nothing like it.
We are out of town right now and I feel very at ease as my neighbor, Susan, is taking care our dogs, the mail, and no doubt whatever weather inhabits our driveway. I love turning off of [the main road] and immediately begin to wave at anyone who is in their yard or walking on the street.
Thank you to everyone on [our street] for making our neighborhood feel like a real community. I am very proud to be part of it.
I’m excited about a panel that I’ll be part of at the annual conference of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility. Here’s a draft of what to expect…
The World Wide Web Comes Home
How “Local Online” Is Changing Your BusinessRichard Donnelly, Burlington Telecom
Christopher Grotke and Lise LePage, iBrattleboro.com
Chris Middings, Seventh Generation and Champlain College
Paula Routly, Seven Days
moderator: Michael Wood-Lewis, Front Porch ForumThe fifth great wave of the Internet—after communication, commerce, search and social networking—may well be “local.” People increasingly look online for answers to local questions about shoe stores, plumber recommendations, meeting people, directions, crime reports and more. A vast array of tools and services are being developed in Vermont to meet this demand. Much of this activity is fueled by online ad sales, which grew nationally to $20 billion in 2007. The Internet is driving business change, and companies are increasingly learning how to use this medium to focus on local markets. This session will provide attendees with concepts and tips for keeping up and getting ahead.
The conference (always a hit), will be held May 14 at Champlain College in Burlington, VT. The panel is tentatively scheduled for 1:15 to 2:30 PM. Come join the conversation… bring your experiences, questions and comments!
For a list of local businesses that have advertised online recently via Front Porch Forum, click on our sponsor link.
INVITATION: If anyone wants to get the conversation started early, leave a comment below…
Thanks to Elaine for this wonderful note today…
I just wanted to tell you that right after the announcement that I had started my business was posted on the Five Sisters Forum, I received an email from a prospective client. I’m happy to say that he is now an official client and I foresee a successful working relationship ahead. Many thanks to you and Front Porch Forum for making connections like these happen!
— Elaine Sopchak, Vermont Voices Marketing Services
I wonder how she’d do if she reached out across all 130 of our neighborhood forums in addition to the single one she tried the other day?
Congratulations to the Soup Mama, Lorraine Murray. Nice coverage in today’s newspaper…
The only thing better than a bowl of homemade soup in winter — at least for those of us who arrive home from work simultaneously with the family’s demands for food — is a bowl of homemade soup we didn’t actually have to make.
If that soup made in somebody else’s kitchen were actually delivered to our front door, why we might just fall down and kiss the hem of that cook’s garment.
And she exists, at least if you live in Burlington. Hooray for Lorraine Murray, the Soup Mama, who delivers her homemade concoctions door-to-door every Monday.
Murray, the 26-year-old mother of one, launched her business in October. It works like this: She posts her soup-of-the-week on the neighborhood e-mail newsletter, Front Porch Forum, and her Web site (http://thesoupmama.wordpress.com/) each week. Customers place orders by Saturday evening.
Lots of small and micro businesses use Front Porch Forum to get the word out about their offerings… another great use of this service.
When my wife, Valerie, and I created Front Porch Forum a year and a half ago, we had a simple mission in mind… to help neighbors get to know each other better and foster the sense of community at a very local level. We haven’t tried to dictate what people write about… we just wanted folks to sign up and put this free service to work. And they do!
So we didn’t know what to expect with our first real experience with an election cycle. Wow! Front Porch Forum has been awash with comments, announcements, endorsements, analysis, opinions and more for the past month or two. Here are some numbers (rough estimates)…
Moran Plant Redevelopment Proposal (City’s pitch)
Burlington City Council Races
Chittenden County School Board Races
Presidential Primaries
Lots of (mostly) great discussion. Many people have told me that they are glad to hear their neighbor’s views on these matters. Others though have said that they are looking forward to getting this Town Meeting Day behind us… soon enough!
I guess Front Porch Forum has arrived… we’re now on YouTube!
Special thanks to CCTV Channel 17 (Meghan O’Rourke, Sam Mayfield and Lauren-Glenn Davitian) and the dozens of local folks who appear in the clip.
Front Porch Forum sees plenty of “seeking babysitter” and “lost cat” postings among nearby neighbors, but we also see something new and different everyday. Here’s today’s entry, posted by Marisha on The Quarry Neighborhood Forum in Burlington’s South End…
Posting this from Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic where the Burlington-based non-profit Vermont Institute on the Caribbean (VIC) is working to connect Vermont and Puerto Plata communities through educational and cultural programs and exchange. The VIC/BALL Vermont/Dominican Republic Baseball Cultural Exchange last summer was a great success; and last month teachers from Barnes and Champlain schools spent a week working with teachers here to introduce the Healthy Neighborhoods Healthy Kids curriculum in sustainable education…
On behalf of VIC I’m entering this raffle with hope that if we win the prize from KidsSurplus we’ll be able to send $50 worth of kids stuff to the schools we’re working with here in Puerto Plata.
Many thanks to FPF for this opportunity and for your great community connections. It’s great to stay in touch with folks back home!
Philip Baruth has an excellent piece on VPR and his blog about Vermont libraries providing internet access for folks who couldn’t otherwise afford it. Read it here.
Front Porch Forum keeps access as open as possible… subscriptions are free and we focus on the low-end of the tech spectrum. In fact, a Burlington FPF member told me last year that he was homeless. He participated in FPF via the Fletcher Free Library. He used a free GMail account. He listed the intersection in the Old North End where he parked his car/home on wheel on his FPF account. Without the library he would have been shut out of this neighborhood conversation.
A national federation of U.S. “green” business groups ran a blurb today. From the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) e-newsletter…
Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility is experimenting with Front Porch Forum to increase traffic to member job listings on the VBSR site while increasing interest in socially responsible businesses.
VBSR is a sponsor of FPF and its first ad will run on FPF’s neighborhood forums in Chittenden County next week. The ads will encourage FPF’s subscribers to check out VBSR’s online job listings. Smartly, VBSR alerted its business members to freshen up their job listings on VBSR’s website before the ad run starts on FPF. A small step on a modest campaign, but a smart one.
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