At the end of 2025, I embarked on a long-overdue cleaning project: sorting through coloring contest entries from the past dozen years.
Seven Days was consolidating its office space to save money, giving up the room where the Kids VT editor and calendar writer used to sit. In 2020, we began inserting Kids VT inside Seven Days. Our editor, Alison Novak, became Seven Days’ K-12 education reporter, and the Seven Days calendar writer took over compiling kids’ events, which are now listed on a “family fun” calendar that’s part of the weekly paper. The Kids VT office sat empty for years.
When we finally tackled the move, I discovered thousands upon thousands of coloring contest submissions. No one could bring themselves to throw them away! As I started sifting through the massive piles, I began to understand why: Each one was the work of a hopeful young artist.
One of the first entries I came across was by Jonathan Kafumbe at age 8. His brightly colored September 2016 submission, “The musical fish,” included the words “Music is amazing!”
I recognized the name: Jonathan, now 18, had just performed as the senior soloist in the Vermont Youth Orchestra’s holiday concert at the Flynn. The show had appeared as a spotlight in Kids VT’s Winter Issue and in the weekly Wee-Mail newsletter.
Inspired by that sweet find, I spent hours paging through past submissions, recycling many of them. But I saved hundreds: winners, honorable mentions, memorable designs, entries from kids I know. Coloring contest creator Diane Sullivan and I have discussed showcasing them in a community art show someday.
These entries are evidence of reader engagement, a term that’s currently in vogue in journalism circles. It’s one of the ways to measure how much a publication matters to its readers. The coloring contest is the most successful sustained reader engagement initiative we’ve ever attempted — but it’s not the only one.
My cleaning project prompted me to reflect on the past 15 years of this publication, which Seven Days bought in 2010. The way parents get information has evolved substantially during that time, and so have we. Today, Kids VT no longer contains a full calendar of events. But it now offers more opportunities for local kids to shine — you’ll read about one of them, Next GENerator: VT’s Youth Maker Market. On March 28, a couple dozen young entrepreneurs will sell their creations at Burlington’s Generator Makerspace in the second iteration of this annual event. Kids VT helped make it possible.
Next GENerator is the perfect complement to our other reader engagement initiatives: the Spectacular Spectacular talent show in December and the Good Citizen Challenge youth civics project, which will kick off again in May.
Kids VT is a little business within a business, and we’re using it to educate and empower the next generation of artists, citizens and business owners. You can help kids learn hands-on lessons in entrepreneurship by coming to Generator that Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., chatting with them and buying some of their products. If you show up and don’t buy anything, that’s also a lesson!
Keep reading to learn more about money matters that affect Vermont families, from information on the new Trump Accounts and Baby Bonds to a novel way to help your kids become financially literate. There’s a coloring contest in the newspaper, too.
This article appears in Kids VT Money Issue • 2026.
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