Outside Chittenden County, many small Vermont towns are struggling. Low birth rates and an aging population are forcing schools to consolidate. As local retailers and manufacturers close, more residents find work farther afield, and commuters don’t volunteer as often for the groups that keep these towns vital.
Local newspapers have taken a hit, too. The country lost one-quarter of its newspapers — 2,100 of them — from 2005 to 2020, according to a 2020 report on local news from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Many of the papers that remain have hemorrhaged reporters and editors. Their numbers dropped from 71,000 to 35,000 during roughly the same time period.
The newspaper in the Northeast Kingdom town of Hardwick is still in business — though the Hardwick Gazette is now available online only. In 2022, its editor and owner donated its former headquarters to a nonprofit organization called the Civic Standard, a new community gathering place. Cofounders Tara Reese, Rose Friedman and Erica Heilman — the producer of the podcast “Rumble Strip,” featured in last week’s cover story — envisioned a place where locals could hold potlucks, fundraisers and murder mystery dinners.
The three wanted to get the word out about the venture, but when they got a call early on from Seven Days reporter Rachel Hellman, they were nervous about being interviewed by someone from a Burlington-based paper.
They wondered how Seven Days would characterize the endeavor. Would the story hurt their credibility with their neighbors?
They took a leap of faith and talked with Hellman anyway. The story appeared in the July 20, 2022, issue.
“People really read it,” Friedman recalled in a recent phone interview. “They read the heck out of it!” She saw conversations about the article popping up on social media and heard people discussing it around town.
Hellman got the story just right, Friedman said: “She did a really excellent job of conveying what we’re up to without the tone of it being ‘from somewhere else.'”
Hellman’s coverage in Seven Days also brought the Civic Standard’s story to a wider audience. Friedman got notes from people all over the country about the project — and a few from Vermonters in other rural towns eager to try something similar.
Finding and amplifying stories like this is what Hellman was hired to do. A 2020 graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, she came to Seven Days through Report for America, a competitive national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. Covering Vermont’s small, rural towns, Hellman writes about the challenges and opportunities these communities face — and the resilience and creativity of the people who live in them.
Since she started last June, her reporting has taken her to the back roads of Cabot and East Montpelier, where she followed a volunteer delivering Meals on Wheels; to Ripton, where she reported on a campaign to save the local elementary school; to Johnson, where she documented how a recovery center, Jenna’s Promise, is helping to reinvigorate the town. She’s put more than 1,600 miles on her car and covered issues in 52 towns, including Springfield, St. Johnsbury, Belividere, Plainfield, Rupert and Rochester. Her most surprising trip was to a farm in Brownington, where she met a rare Baudet du Poitou donkey — and found out about an Australian horse whisperer coming to town. The tip helped her report on Orleans County’s growing — and private — Amish community.
Hellman also contributed to “Locked Out,” Seven Days‘ 2022 series about Vermont’s housing crisis. Published on November 2, “This Old Homeowner: Aging Vermonters Who Can’t Find New Housing Are Part of the State’s Real Estate ‘Gridlock’” helped inform proposals currently under consideration in the Vermont legislature.
We’re excited to announce that Hellman will be staying on for another year at Seven Days.
To date, her reporting has been funded by Report for America — the program paid half of her salary for the first year. Tax-deductible donations from Vermont Coffee founder Paul Ralston and another local donor offset the rest.
Report for America will cover a smaller percentage of Hellman’s expenses in year two, which means Seven Days has more money to raise. To that end, we’re launching a crowdfunding campaign, with the goal of bringing in $20,000 this spring and another $20,000 later in the year.
Our donors from last year have agreed to match the first $10,000 of contributions. We’re hoping readers like you will pitch in to make up the rest.
If you care about Hellman’s reporting and want to support it, please consider making a one-time donation to this campaign. Unlike Super Reader contributions, which go directly to Seven Days, these funds go to Report for America and its nonprofit parent, the GroundTruth Project, which means they’re 100 percent tax-deductible. Report for America will distribute these funds to Seven Days over the course of the year as we publish more of Hellman’s dispatches about rural Vermont.
Hellman’s eager to keep writing them. She enjoys the variety of assignments, which recently included participating in a community meditation class through the volunteer-run Bethel University — that story appeared in last week’s paper. At the end, she described how a woman in the group burst into tears; her beloved family dog had died the night before. “I started crying, too, eventually,” Hellman recalled. After crying together, “We all kind of meditated for her well-being.”
That’s just one of the ways Hellman has seen people take care of each other — one of the most hopeful aspects of rural life. “There are so many understated and profound ways that people are showing up for each other,” she said. “And I get to see it, which is pretty special.”
Got a story idea for Hellman? Send it to her at rhellman@sevendaysvt.com or give her a call at 802-865-1020, ext. 130.
Help fund Rachel’s reporting on rural towns!
You can also send a check to:
Report for America Seven Days Campaign
c/o The GroundTruth Project, Lockbox Services
9450 SW Gemini Dr., PMB 46837
Beaverton, OR 97008-7105
Questions? Contact deputy publisher Cathy Resmer at 802-865-1020, ext. 141 or cathy@sevendaysvt.com.
All contributions to Report for America are tax-deductible.
Contributions do not influence editorial decisions.
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Aging Vermonters Who Can’t Find New Housing Are Part of the State’s Real Estate ‘Gridlock’
This article appears in Apr 12-18, 2023.
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