Friends and Strangers Come to the Aid of a Scammed Baker 

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• Kevin Goddard
• Nicole LaBonte and her daughter, Anna

Nicole LaBonte thought she had found the perfect opportunity to expand her home baking business: an "end of summer fest" in South Burlington.

A Facebook ad for the event said up to 1,500 visitors were expected over the second weekend in September. LaBonte, who lives in Richford, talked to the organizer by phone to learn more. Then she sent her $50 by Venmo to reserve a booth for her business, called Love, Lydia, on Sunday morning.

LaBonte — who has three kids and a full-time job with the state court system — got to work, baking enough sourdough bread, cookies and other goods to fetch $1,500 at the market. That's about triple the amount she usually makes for the Saturday farmers market in Morrisville.

But when LaBonte and her husband, Jamie, showed up at Veterans Memorial Park on September 10, there were no signs of a market. They asked a maintenance worker if he'd heard anything about one; he hadn't. A kids' soccer game was starting to set up there.

The ad seemed to have disappeared from Facebook, and a reverse image search turned up a nearly identical flyer for a legitimate-seeming farmers market in Ohio. The "organizer" wasn't returning calls. LaBonte had been scammed.

"There I was with 128 loaves of sourdough bread," said LaBonte, who also made dozens of other types of loaves and 12 dozen cookies for the nonexistent event. She was discouraged. "I didn't know what to do except donate them."

That's when family friend Zach Untiedt got involved. He'd been planning to attend the South Burlington market with his wife and kids to support the LaBontes. Hearing that the scam had left the couple with a carload of perishable goods, Untiedt invited the LaBontes to his home, which sits by busy Route 2 in Marshfield village. He and his wife promoted a pop-up baked goods sale on social media and then set up a table to display the bread in their living room. Soon, the four friends were fielding visits from people who wanted to help.

"When people around here heard what happened, they were like, 'What can I do to make you feel better?' and 'I'll take five loaves,'" Untiedt said. "I loved seeing the community step up."

Untiedt also told LaBonte's story to Michelle Eddleman McCormick, who manages the Marshfield Village Store just two doors down from his house. McCormick sprang into action, too. She helped move the bread sale to her parking lot, repurposing one of the tents that had sheltered relief supplies and workers for weeks after flooding devastated the town in July.

McCormick said she knows how hard it is for her friends and neighbors to make a living in rural Vermont. She's feeling that hardship herself at the moment. Short on staff, she has to get up at 4:30 a.m. to open the store.

She felt a sense of outrage on behalf of LaBonte, who had invested hundreds of dollars in baking supplies and many hours of work to create her goods for the market.

"She wasn't out here looking for sympathy, but I feel empathy for people who get scammed," McCormick said. "I'm a small business, but they're a really small business."

The bread sale was a success; passersby bought almost all of LaBonte's stock. When the family headed back to Richford later that day, McCormick bought the remaining bread and started giving it away to people who she thought might need it. That evening, she handed two loaves to a pair of customers who stopped in to buy milk, instructing them to deliver them to the town's 93-year-old retired fire chief.

McCormick purchased the Marshfield Village Store as part of a worker-owned cooperative two years ago, and she's quickly made a name for herself in town as a business owner who wants to bring the community together. The store, which has a deli, caters many local events and often donates goods and services. During the July flooding, it served as a clearinghouse for information and supplies, and even sheltered people whose homes had been flooded. McCormick is skilled at problem solving in a crisis.

"She's new to the community, but she's a very valued member," Untiedt said. "She wants everyone to grow."

LaBonte came away from the pop-up bread sale with about half of the money she'd hoped to net from the South Burlington market, roughly $100 more than she'd spent on ingredients.

She said she's undeterred by the scam. The Facebook ad ran in a group called Vermont Vendor Fairs/Events Planning, which frequently posts advice on ways vendors can vet advertisements before committing. Page administrator Heather Buczkowski of Swanton said she questions prospective members closely, but a few scammers slip through. She recommends that vendors dig into the online profile of fair organizers and talk to them directly if they can.

"I've noticed more people doing their own sleuthing before they send money," she said.

LaBonte said she did just that and talked to the woman who claimed to be the organizer: "She sounded normal." Seven Days reached out to the woman using contact information in her Facebook ad and got no reply.

LaBonte is forging ahead with her baking, a skill she learned young, in her grandmother's kitchen. And she's grateful to Untiedt and McCormick for their crucial intervention.

"Bringing all the bread back home would have felt like a defeat," she said.