Need a recommendation? Having a yard sale? Looking for your lost pet? Front Porch Forum is used by Vermonters for many different reasons. But one thing that’s true for its members is that FPF connects us to one another.
If you appreciate the way Front Porch Forum helps us stay connected as a community, please consider donating to FPF’s Supporting Member Campaign this month! Track our progress with this fun leaf bag help us fill it up by the end of the month!
“I am continually amazed by the kindness of strangers and the strength of our community. Last winter, I wrote a posting on Front Porch Forum to request help digging out after a large snow storm. I’m disabled and can’t do it. Less than an hour after the FPF issue was sent out, I received TEN offers from folks wanting to help! I am so grateful and happy to live in an amazing community like this. Without FPF, I might still be snowed in. ;-)”
• Cara in Winooski
Your support allows FPF to reach even more people and continue to bring our free service to every town in Vermont. Together we’re connecting neighbors and building community.
The Vermont Foodbank reminds us to visit one of Vermont’s orchards this season and Pick for Your Neighbor! Front Porch Forum is pleased to sponsor this yearly initiative to help our neighbors. So let’s work together to help increase the amount of fresh produce available for Vermonter’s facing hunger and support our local orchards. To see a list of participating orchards visit https://www.vtfoodbank.org/event/pickforyourneighbor
From small businesses to larger non-profits and ad agencies, many agree that Front Porch Forum gets results.
“Our response has been HUGE! Thank you so much for helping us meet our recruitment goals!” • Dana at UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
“The response rate of people who have said they saw the ad on FPF has been notable! So all good news!” • Nilda with Kerr Advertising
“Where do you advertise for your Burlington business? Front Porch Forum is a free, easy way to advertise.” • Alignable member, Kate, shared her thoughts under “Coffee Shop Buzz”
Front Porch Forum Members Trust Their Neighbors.
“When it comes to informing neighbors, was there really life before FPF?” “Our community garden is thriving in its 4th season, largely because gardeners and supportive community members heard about it on Front Porch Forum. On FPF, we learn what our neighbors are thinking and doing. We participate in offerings we wouldn’t otherwise have known about. We avoid hazards we might have stumbled into if uninformed. We sell, buy, and give all manner of goods and services. I look forward to reading every issue. My responses range among curious, amused, concerned, angry, delighted, relieved, gobsmacked, inspired, and more. It takes a lot of worthy content to stimulate so much response repeatedly over time.” • Sheryl in Montpelier
Connecting with neighbors and building local community begins with being better informed. FPF stimulates that in spades. Neighbors who use Front Porch Forum to communicate are more aware of who lives around them, stay better informed about what’s happening in their communities, and are more prepared to face challenges and times of crisis.
“FPF exists to help communities become more resilient,“ says FPF co-founder, Michael Wood-Lewis. “Neighbors who know each other and communicate about what’s happening locally are far more likely to be better prepared to face tough times.”
You’ve got to know that a local issue is bubbling up if you’re going to be involved. For many Vermonters, that starts on their neighborhood or town FPF. Even knowing about the weekend’s yard sales or school sporting events via FPF leads people to getting more face-to-face time with neighbors.This leads to more connection and more involvement. Get on the local grapevine. Sign up for your local FPF. Read, and then share your perspective in a posting to neighbors.
Bree, librarian at the Westford Public Library, uses Front Porch Forum regularly to reach their patrons. From updates, special event notices and library closings, she finds FPF “reliable and easy to use. FPF is the social media outlet that reaches different generations of patrons – appealing to the whole town rather than a certain demographic or “friend” group.”
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded an independent third-party, Network Impact, to design, implement and analyze an online survey of 132,188 Front Porch Forum members in March 2017. 13,086 Vermonters completed this 20-minute survey. With a 99% confidence level, the survey results represent the full FPF membership.
A local police department warns neighbors and provides tips on Front Porch Forum.
“We have received several calls from elderly citizens recently regarding fraudulent “robo calls” (recorded automated phone calls) from someone claiming the recipients of the calls have not paid their taxes. They threaten police action if a payment is not made immediately.
Neither the Internal Revenue Service nor the Vermont Department of Taxes will make contact by phone and demand immediate payment for unpaid taxes. Local police, sheriff’s departments, and state police are not involved in enforcing payments of federal or state taxes.
Should you receive a call like this, do not confirm or give out personal information, simply hang up and make a report to the Vermont Attorney General’s Office at the Consumer Assistance Program site below:
You can sign up for scam alerts from the Vermont Attorney General’s Office at this site:
http://ago.vermont.gov/consumer-assistant-program-scam-alerts/
Information on this specific scam from the Internal Revenue Service:
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-urges-public-to-stay-alert-for-scam-phone-calls
Please contact your elderly friends and family members and inform them of this scam.”
• Michael with the Montpelier Police Department
Share this info on your own FPF!
VPR correspondent, Stephanie Green, shared her FPF experience on the radio this morning. Looking to her neighbors for recommendations on a good plumber, she was “astounded to get 13 useful replies in 24 hours…. I had no idea so many people read these posts so closely – or felt so passionately about their plumbers. And the re-connection to my neighbors was heartening. This, I think, is social media at its best, and it’s a relief when we’re daily buffeted by national headlines about social media at its very worst.”
Read or listen to her commentary at http://digital.vpr.net/post/greene-best-social-media
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