By day Shani Stoddard is like many Vermonters: boots and caps, hikes with dogs, a house in the woods of Stannard. By night he is… “Shani.” In stilettos and braids, dancing himself sweaty for tips and the joy of the stage, the joy of drag.
The art of drag is the performance of gender, or better yet, the freedom to perform gender as you please, to its fullest and wildest extent. In Vermont’s drag scene, Shani is among the cream of the crop. Raised in Lyndonville, he left for New York City to study musical theater and drama before returning to strut the stages of Burlington and beyond. In 2017, Shani won Outright Vermont’s “Drag Idol” competition, firmly establishing himself in a new generation of Vermont drag performers who bend gender even more than what fans of “traditional” drag may be used to seeing.
Shani shared his thoughts about being a Vermont artist.
How has living as an artist in Vermont affected your creative process?
I moved back to Vermont after studying musical theater in New York City. This change of pace gave me the time and creative energy that I needed in order to reevaluate my passion and re imagine myself as a different type of performance artist. I took my favorite parts of musical theater (storytelling, costuming, & music) and I turned them into something else entirely. Vermont is my home and the work that I’m able to create here, surrounded by love, is unparalleled.
What is something about your art that has changed over time?
As a musical theater performer, it was my job to tell other people’s stories. Over time, I realized that the art I wanted to create would only be possible without such boundaries. As a drag performer, there are an infinite number of ways for me to tell a story, and I feel energized by the fact that my art has no real limits. I’ve learned that creative limits only exist within myself, making them easier for me to process and overcome.
What is your vision for the next several years?
I want to continue using this platform to build creative relationships with other artists and performers in my community. Vermont has given me so much, and I want to return the favor by bringing queer, black art into new spaces — confidently and unapologetically.
Nestled in the quiet towns of Grafton and Brattleboro, Vermont, Grafton Village Cheese is a longstanding business within our community. Founded in 1892 by a cooperative of dairy farmers as a means to utilize surplus raw milk, Grafton Village Cheese remains a vital part of Vermont’s dairy industry. President and CEO, Ruth Anne Flore, took some time to answer our questions and teach us more about this great local business.
What makes your products unique?
Grafton Village Cheese is consideredone of a handful of legacy cheese companies in the country. Grafton never wavered from its handmade, small batch production and its commitment to producing a traditional New England style cheddar; a cheddar with “bite.” Our flavor profile remains distinctive. All of our milk comes from Vermont family farms.
What is your favorite product?
Tough question…I love our 1 and 2 year-aged cheddars for their versatility and Grafton’s signature “bite.” For grilled cheese sandwiches, mac ‘n cheese dishes, burgers… the Truffle cheddar or Smoked Chili cheddar absolutely elevate the experience! Our cave-aged cheeses, Clothbound, Shepsog (mixed milk – cow & sheep), and Bear Hill (washed rind 100% sheep’s milk), are incredibly special and shine on any cheeseboard.
Why is selling locally and the local food movement is important to you?
As a Windham Foundation-owned enterprise, Grafton Village Cheese communicates a sense of place. When buying locally produced cheese, you are supporting not only the teams that make it happen, but the dairies from whom we purchase our milk, and the local retailers, country stores, inns, and restaurants who include locally produced cheese on the shelves and menus.
How does working with Food Connects help your business?
The choices we make have a direct impact on our communities. Working with Food Connects enhances our ability to educate not only students but teachers, health care, and food service professionals of the importance of using local, sustainable foods produced in our regional community.
Could you share with us some of the new business changes at Grafton? What are some of your hopes for the future?
In early April, as a result of COVID-19, we experienced a significant drop in volume and made the decision to move our block cheddar production from our Brattleboro location to the original Grafton facility. We continue to operate our cut and wrap operations, as well as our retail store and logistics from Brattleboro. Over the years, our volume and growth ambitions for the plant have unfortunately never been realized. The Retreat Farm’s interest in acquiring the property to further its mission around local food production, agricultural products, job creation, and outdoor recreation would allow us to become an anchor tenant—relieving us of long term debt and enabling Grafton Village Cheese to become financially sustainable. In May, at our Grafton facility, we completed a months’ long project of building new caves which will give us running room to increase production of our award-winning cave-aged cheeses. Combining our block cheddar and cave-aged production in Grafton, a much smaller facility, will allow us to re-focus our efforts to right-size the company.
Any events coming up or fun fact about your business/products?
Our new branding is working its way into the marketplace. It’s bold. It’s bright. It’s exciting. We are CHEESE ON A MISSION!
Our most important “ingredient” is our cheesemaking team, led by Mariano Gonzalez, our head cheesemaker. Mariano is one of the country’s best award-winning cheddar makers. Dedicated to his craft, Mariano’s cheesemaking skills are recognized worldwide.
Our cave-aged Shepsog is the Algonquin word for “sheep”, which once covered Vermont’s hillsides during the booming wool industry of the 19th century.
Our sheep’s milk cheese, Bear Hill is named for the scenic bluff overlooking the Village of Grafton.
In the era of COVID-19, Vermonters are particularly fortunate to live in a rural state where access to the outdoors is abundant. Even people living in Vermont’s largest city and the epicenter of coronavirus cases in the state, most Burlington residents had access to their nearby town forest for a walk and fresh air.
But during the weeks when even town forests were shuttered to slow the spread of the virus, Chittenden County Forester Ethan Tapper found people yearning for a taste of the woods from the comfort and safety of their home.
Community Engagement in the Time of COVID-19
“Right away I recognized an opportunity to engage with people who might not come to a forest walk, but do consume virtual content,” said Tapper. Channeling his energy around community education and engagement into online platforms, Tapper launched “Coffee with a County Forester,” a weekly chat hosted by the Vermont Woodlands Association and Vermont Coverts on Zoom. The first chat had more than 75 people in attendance, and now draws a regular weekly crowd of 30-40 tuning in to engage with Vermont’s country foresters.
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“It’s convenient,” added Danny Fitzko, Vermont’s Director of Forests, who is rethinking how her division will do outreach in the future. “It doesn’t beat being in the forest together, but it’s working.”
Tapper also launched a series of webinars, which cumulatively have reached more than 500 people, on topics such as tree identification, backyard stewardship, and invasive species treatment. With schools closed, he also partnered with the Fairbanks Museum to offer programming for middle schoolers. “Before COVID-19 I dreaded webinars,” said Tapper, who admits he’s happiest out in the forest, “but it feels really valuable to be making new connections.”
Now that many stay-at-home orders have been lifted and socially-distant recreation can resume, town forests are playing a big role in providing Vermonters — and some out-of-town visitors — a place to hike, bike, or just get away from the stresses of the times.
Vermont Town Forests: For the People
All told, there are over 67,000 acres of forestland owned by 168 municipalities in Vermont and, according to Fitzko, there has been a recent resurgence in interest in town forests, largely driven by expanding recreational opportunities, such as mountain biking. “The more traditional values associated with forests — hunting, walking, fishing, timber harvesting — are now co-existing with trail building and outdoor classrooms,” said Fitzko.
Tapper agrees. “Not everyone has the ability to own and manage land, but town forests give everyone an opportunity to weigh in on a public space.” Tapper sees town forests as an entry point to bringing people into a bigger conversation about forest management. “Each time someone joins a forest walk because they’re curious about tree identification or bird habitat, we have an opportunity to build a coalition of responsible stewards of our public lands.”
“Vermont’s town forests are forests for the people,” said Fitzko, who spent 15 years growing Vermont’s Urban and Community Forestry program. “It’s democracy in its purest form. Once a town has taken the step of protecting the local forest from development, communities decide how they want to use and enjoy that land.”
Each town forest in Vermont reflects the values of the community and offers different angles for engagement. At the Catamount Family Forest, for example, a popular mountain biking location, Tapper is planning events with the Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife around the intersection of recreation and forestry. Home to 20 miles of trails spread over 500 acres, the Catamount Community Forest is also being studied to understand how to adapt silviculture, the growing and cultivation of trees, in response to climate change.
“Increased interest in recreational opportunities is shining a light on town forests and bringing more Vermonters into the conversation,” said Fitzko, noting that outreach and education from country foresters like Tapper is more important than ever. “If we can engage people in the visioning process to really think about what they want the forest to look like based on community values, and to understand that forests can and should be managed for multiple purposes, we can have some robust and exciting conversations about how to manage these incredibly valuable resources.”
Tapper agrees. “Forests and forest management are for everyone,” he said, “which is why education and outreach are so important. We can’t just rely on the partnerships of the past 100 years — we need everyone to be in favor of good forest management to support a healthy future.”
For more information about town forests, or to find your town forest, please visit vtcommunityforestry.org.
New Chapter®, a Brattleboro-based wellness company, is leaving a lasting impact on the local food systems by being Food Connects highest-level corporate sponsor. New Chapter’s® donations in 2019 have paved the way for the most successful first half of the year in Food Connects’ history.
New Chapter® was founded over 35 years ago to bring natural wellness to others. New Chapter® believes in the healing power of nature, and that’s why they are committed to using whole-food and quality ingredients to make their supplements. As environmental stewards focused on human health, New Chapter® works to increase accessibility to organic food, farming, and traditional herbal medicine. And as a Certified B Corp, they strive to use business resources to help solve social and environmental problems—in communities around the world where their ingredients originate from as well as locally right in Vermont.
New Chapter® generously granted Food Connects $15,000 in 2019 to go towards the Food Connects Cooler Campaign. This successful campaign focused on the build of a new 1,000 square foot cooler and freezer space at Food Connects’ location at the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation business park. With the help of New Chapter®, Food Connects’ was able to successfully complete this campaign and have a fully operational cooler and freezer going into 2020.
New Chapter® and Food Connects have a strong history of partnership. New Chapter® has a history of philanthropic support of Food Connects, helping the organization through its infancy and into a thriving organization. New Chapter® is not only an incredible source of financial support for Food Connects but, it has also provided volunteer support over the years including event support and a New Chapter® employee sitting on the Food Connects Board of Directors. Additionally, New Chapter® supports the food hub by purchasing food for its employee cafeteria and snack programs.
“Supporting Food Connects’ in their cooler campaign was an easy decision for us (New Chapter®) to make. Their mission of bringing fresh local food to those in need, right here in Southern VT, aligns holistically with our own mission and is something that we are proud to be a part of,” says Amerigo Pennoni, Director of Sustainability at New Chapter®.
The cooler and freezer that New Chapter® helped bring to life is supporting Food Connects through one of its busiest periods yet. The demand for fresh, local food due to the COVID-19 outbreak increased dramatically. Food Connects saw an over 200% year-over-year increase in sales in April alone, typically the slowest month for the organization. Without this additional space, the organization would not have kept up with the growing demand. The additional space ensured that Food Connects could continue to provide food for local co-ops, newly thriving farm stores and buying clubs, and students, through innovative meals programs, while also supporting local farmers and food producers a consistent and secure source to sell their food.
“Food Connects is so grateful for the generosity of New Chapter® over the years,” says Richard Berkfield, Food Connects Executive Director. “Their continued commitment to Food Connects and our mission lifts up and strengthens our local food economy. Their partnership is vital to our work.”
Food Connects plans to expand its refrigeration space even further in the coming weeks to keep up with the increasing demand for local food during COVID-19. If you are interested in becoming a corporate sponsor, learn more on their website: https://www.foodconnects.org/sponsorship.
For more than three years, Florida native Joshua Hayes was a member of the Old Guard, the U.S. Army’s ceremonial unit. Hayes was assigned to the presidential escort platoon, which, as he explained, serves as the president’s military face and “show of force” whenever foreign dignitaries visit the White House.
After leaving the Army in 2018, Hayes briefly worked on drilling rigs in Pennsylvania oil fields until he got laid off, and he and his fiancée returned to Vermont, where she grew up. That’s when the six-foot-four-inch vet became a different show of force: a mover for Grunts Move Junk.
The St. Albans-based company tackles in-state residential and commercial moving jobs, as well as junk-removal projects. Its crews clean out sheds, basements, garages, storage units and rental properties, then haul away old refrigerators, sofas and other unwanted clutter. Some items get landfilled, but others are recycled or sold.
“Grunts Move Junk was the perfect place for a guy like me to start working,” said Hayes, 23, who’s been with the company since March 2019. “You never have a dull day. You’re always doing something new, you’re always meeting new people and you’re always getting challenged, mentally and physically.”
Grunts Move Junk was cofounded in 2014 by Champlain College graduate Mitchel Durfee, himself an Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Durfee launched Grunts Move Junk as a way to offer fellow veterans a “landing zone” as they transition back to the civilian workforce. Because newly discharged service members tend to be young, fit, hardworking and accustomed to heavy lifting, they’re ideally suited to the job.
And, as the company’s current owner pointed out, there’s no shortage of civilians who could use a little military muscle to get their houses in order.
“Everyone has too much crap in their lives,” said Bart Newhouse, who bought Grunts Move Junk from Durfee in June 2018. Because moving and clutter often cause people a lot of anxiety, he added, “both of the major categories of our work alleviate stress.”
Newhouse, a 43-year-old Stowe native, worked for years in his family’s business, Hooker’s Furniture, which opened in 1956 but finally closed its Barre store in 2014 and Waterbury store in 2016. Two years later, Newhouse bought Grunts Move Junk and, while not a veteran himself, he agreed to maintain Durfee’s mission of hiring recently discharged vets.
“To be honest, the transitioning element works perfectly for us,” he said. Newhouse had one veteran work for Grunts Move Junk while he was training for a career as a diesel mechanic. He hired another right out of the Army and, six months later, the guy landed a job as a Middlebury police officer. Other employees attend college and only work for Grunts Move Junk during their summer breaks.
Though most companies want to avoid turnover, it hasn’t been as much of a concern for Grunts Move Junk. The workload tends to expand and contract seasonally. Over the winter Newhouse had 10 employees. But he expects to ramp up to as many as 35 in the spring and summer, when more people are moving and decluttering their homes, offices and storage spaces.
Currently, Grunts Move Junk doesn’t have the federal permits needed to accept interstate moving jobs. That said, the company opened an office in northern New Hampshire a year ago and plans to open another in southern New Hampshire later this spring. In fact, last year, after Hayes notified his boss that he was planning to move back to Florida to help out on his family’s cattle ranch, Newhouse opened a Grunts Move Junk branch in Jacksonville and asked Hayes to manage it.
Since that branch opened on October 1, Hayes has expanded it to a staff of five. And he’s continued the company mission of serving as an employment “stepping stone” for military personnel coming off active duty. As Hayes put it, “Every person I hire on, I want them to learn something good that they can take somewhere else if they decide to leave.”
Meanwhile, Newhouse continues to expand his services in northern New England. When he bought the company two years ago, he had just three pickup trucks, three trailers and a box truck. He has more than doubled his fleet since then and plans to add even more trucks and crews in New Hampshire. Newhouse has also acquired additional storage space in Williston and is looking for more in the Barre-Montpelier area, in order to reduce employees’ drive times and make the company even more efficient.
His company’s biggest challenge? Newhouse concedes that it’s difficult to find employees in the current tight labor market. (Grunts Move Junk hires non-vets, as well, he noted.) The shortage is particularly acute among veterans, whose unemployment rate tends to be even lower than that of non-veterans — 2.9 percent in December 2019 for veterans, compared to 3.4 percent for non-vets, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
As his business expands, Newhouse hopes to attract new employees with additional workplace benefits, such as free breakfasts, gym memberships and paid time off.
“I think maintaining the mission is as important as anything else,” he said. “As long as I treat people fairly and customers are happy, that’s the most important thing.”
A version of this article first appeared on March 17, 2020 on sevendaysvt.com and in the Seven Days newspaper, a Burlington-based newsweekly presently published on Wednesdays and distributed for free at more than 1,000 locations in northern and central Vermont and Plattsburgh, N.Y. Photo by Luke Awtry.
