Fall is just around the corner in Vermont. The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t stopped folks from visiting their favorite farm stands and orchards to go apple picking and finding the perfect pumpkin to carve. Local food is on everyone’s mind as bountiful harvests fill the shelves of local co-ops. And it wouldn’t be possible without the essential workers who grow our food—some native Vermonters and others traveling from worlds away to help our food system flourish. As part of Food Connects’ series highlighting how our food system connects us, especially in unseen ways, we sat down with Mr. Lionel Henry, Scott Farm Orchard crew leader, to learn more about his experience living and working in Vermont as part of the H-2A Temporary Visa Program during this global pandemic.
Mr. Henry, as he goes by, is from Thompson Town, Clarendon in Jamaica. Although Jamaica is his home, Mr. Henry has spent each summer since 1979 in the U.S. as part of the H-2A Visa Program. He’s cut sugar cane in Florida, grown tobacco in Connecticut, and harvested apples first at Alyson’s Orchard in Walpole, NH, and now with Scott Farm Orchard in Dummerston, VT, where he’s been since 2001. Out of respect for Mr. Henry’s rich cultural heritage in Jamaica, where Patois is the mother tongue, we have left his words intact as much as possible, even though we are aware that his style of speaking may seem unusual for readers who don’t have much experience with Jamaican Patois.
Farmworkers are essential to our local food systems, and H-2A Visa workers are heavily relied upon to help local farms, like Scott Farm Orchard, successfully operate from year to year. Many of the H-2A Visa workers have been coming to the same farms for many years and their historical knowledge of the farms is invaluable—they know the farm and the apples like the back of their hands. “Our boss need us to help,” says Mr. Henry. “So we have a lot of different varieties (of apples), lots of different varieties, and whenever time we down here and like your boss would like this variety here now to pick, he stay down here and send you up there, you have to know exactly where it is, the perfect row that you are going and get it.”
And their hard work doesn’t go unnoticed. At the end of the day, Mr. Henry feels like his work is valued and appreciated by the community—instilling a sense of pride and loyalty. “I really observe that a lot of these people care for us… and we also care for dem and love dem too and try to do great work (at the farm). Lots of people came here at the farm stand to buy, they always appreciate what we do, the good work, and lots of dem tell we ‘Thanks!’”
Mr. Henry is the leader of the crew and takes pride in the work he does each day. “I try to work very honestly, and work with dem (the crew) honestly, work with the boss honestly, yea, and try to doing a good job… they have a lots of respect for me, yea, because me have a lots of respect for dem.”
So, how has COVID-19 impacted their work and travel? And what does it look like back home?
Concerns for his family in Jamaica are still strong. Since he came to Vermont in early July, the number of cases in Jamaica has doubled. Mr. Henry also noted that, like many in the U.S, people in Jamaica are losing work. Back home he does farming—planting yams, bananas, and other crops so his family can bring them to the market. The pandemic, however, has slowed the process of selling their food. They’ve had to adapt to new ways of delivering food and must go less frequently. But, as Mr. Henry says, “people still have to eat!”
And eat they must. Despite the challenges surrounding COVD-19, Mr. Henry still made the journey to Vermont this year. The H-2A Visa Program provides a vital income source for those who participate in it. Because of the money Mr. Henry earned through the program his daughter was able to go to university in Kingston, Jamaica. “So, you know, being as we have our family to take care of and we need some help, so we come and risk, try to risk ourself and try to, you know, do the best we can to keep social distance and everyting and safe.” And they come back each year to not only build themselves up back home but also with a sense of dedication to the crops and farm.
The high risk and the challenges surrounding COVID-19 has changed the experience this year. The journey from Jamaica to Vermont was different. Normally he would fly to Florida and take a bus up but this year they took the plane all the way to Manchester for safety reasons. Working day to day, they have to think about their safety and how to protect themselves. Like many of us, they must now social distance while working and frequently use hand-sanitizer—an added stressor to the already demanding nature of their work. And still, they came. “We come and risk…we have is this crop here and our boss need us to help.” Farmers are able to turn to and rely on the H-2A workers in meaningful ways and that value and vulnerability creates a long lasting connection between two different cultures.
But it’s a risk Mr. Henry is willing to take. The unemployment rate in Jamaica is projected to reach 12% due to ramifications from COVID-19. Because there are no other options, some may turn to crime. So, does he recommend the program to the younger generations? Enthusiastically, yes. “We all encourage younger people if they can come in the H2 program and fi do this work because you know some of dem down there don’t have a job and if they come here they get something to do…I mean you just work and make yourself be comfortable and you contact your people dem, back home, your family back home and make dem know that you alright and they alright. You just try to be comfortable in yourself.”
The work he and other H-2A Visa workers do is not easy and requires sacrifices including time away from family and friends. Mr. Henry is grateful for the opportunity it provides, despite these challenges, and is motivated by the care the community shows for him. For now, we celebrate this interdependence between our local farms, much of the local food many us eat, and the Jamaicans working hard to support us. “Lots of thanks, lots of thanks, lots of thanks, lots of thanks! Because if never this way (having H2A work), things were going to be worse…you have to put something to use…(so you) make yourself very comfortable with your family.”
MONTH/YEAR YOU WERE APPOINTED TO CURRENT POSITION: August, 2018
What makes you hopeful for the future?
I believe that I am, by nature, an optimistic person (though I’m also told I’m naturally anxious, so go figure). There are three things that are giving me life right now: 1) the wonderful creativity and spark that is demonstrated every day by artists and cultural workers who are continuing to create, tell stories, and make a difference; 2) the systemic improvements in accessibility and inclusion that the pandemic has forced us all to undertake as we move our work to different platforms; and 3) the amazing, deep, and continuing support of the broader community for arts and culture in these difficult times. We can see every day that our community believes in the power of art and culture to bring healing and strengthen the bonds of love.
What’s the most challenging part of your work currently?
As has been noted by others, we are all Buddhists now. Living day to day and sometimes hour to hour as the pandemic changes and mutates our systems and institutions is incredibly difficult, especially for a community organizer like me. I am a planner, and the times we are living in don’t encourage thinking ahead. That said, we have become experts at pivoting on a moment’s notice. We are taking advantage of the uncertainty as well as the pause in live programming to evaluate our work in the new reality, let go of what no longer serves us, and add in new strategies for uncertain times. We even have space now to think about how we can reduce our carbon footprint in meaningful ways!
How have you changed as a leader in the last six months?
I have become more adept at living in the moment and letting go—both important qualities that I sometimes struggled to embrace in the past. I hope that I am also learning to be more patient with myself and others as we build the capacity we need to create stronger communities through the humanities and the arts. The pandemic is a huge tragedy, and largely one of our own making, but there is an opportunity here to really understand how our current systems are failing us, to think about our own culpability in that failure, and to begin the process of rebuilding with more strength and resilience. We will need these lessons, because Covid-19 is likely just the first of numerous mass disruptions coming at us in the next few decades.
What are you prioritizing?
During this time, I have really encouraged my team to think about how we work in service to Vermont’s broader cultural community—the libraries, museums, galleries, community arts centers, and performance halls that together build our cultural life. Even before the pandemic, Vermont Humanities was making this shift, prioritizing collaborative work, engaging in changemaking, and telling previously unheard stories. Now, during what we call the twin pandemics of Covid-19 and systemic racism, we are eagerly embracing the opportunity to share our platform and to center the voices and stories of others—especially Black and brown folks who are disproportionately impacted by the twin pandemics. My board chair, Katy Smith Abbot of Middlebury College, and I have had a running mantra of late—”you can’t make change without actually changing.” This seems obvious, but it is amazing how often we say we want change, while actually doing little to back it up. We can have all the best intentions in the world, but if we keep doing everything the same way we’ve always done it, we will never see progress. Along with all of its tragedy and disruption, Covid-19 offers us a gift—to take advantage of this moment and really be accountable for living our expressly held values, especially around diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.
How do you see your relationship with your audience evolving over the next five years?
I believe that we have already seen some significant shifts in our audience over the last eight months, although truthfully we won’t really know until we are able to gather in person again. Nevertheless, we know that virtual programming is much more accessible to many people—those without cars, those who can’t travel at night, people who may find our beautiful churches and libraries where much of our programming took place in the “before times” to be less accessible than they need them to be. That said, there are many people in Vermont who don’t have access to broadband internet, and they are missing out on this great flowering of grassroots streaming content. When we are able to start programming in person again, I believe that we’ll see many new participants. I’m especially hopeful that our continued focus on centering unheard storytellers will help us reach beyond our traditional audience.
How can cultural institutions and organizations participate in the current call for creating a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive world?
I’ve really been talking about this throughout the interview, but it’s worth saying again—you can’t make change unless you actually change. And I would add that we must put in place mechanisms to hold ourselves accountable as organizers and cultural workers. For example, we insist on gender parity in our First Wednesdays Humanities Lecture Series, and 20% of our First Wednesday speakers this year are people of color. Is that enough? No, it’s not, but it’s a start. I’m reminded of Justice Ginsberg who was once asked, “How many women on the supreme court is enough?” Her response was simple—“Nine.” Here at Vermont Humanities, we are slowly but comprehensively working our way through everything we do to identify what our historical baseline has been in serving our whole community, and setting goals to strive for if we claim to truly serve all Vermonters. We do ok in some areas, but truthfully, we have a lot of work ahead of us. We’re taking it one day at a time and one step at a time. We’re shifting our board dynamic, analyzing our grant-making practices, evaluating what books we use, re-writing our HR and personnel policies, and more.
What are some lessons learned or advice that you can share with other organizations who are grappling with the multi-faceted challenges of this time?
Engage in deep collaborations. Support each other. Share resources. Move the center. I am reminded of a conversation many of us had with Jarvis Green of JAG Productions a little over a year ago where we talking about how to move traditional cultural organizations to more proactive support of equity. Some of us had noted that we should “center the margins”—that is, that we should put untold stories and unheard artists in the center of our work. Jarvis made a different suggestion—that instead of asking marginalized folks to change what they are doing to come join us, we should instead move the center away from us. It’s a difficult concept for many us who have worked in historically white spaces, but I believe that is the challenge of these twin pandemics. Our systems have long been broken, Covid-19 has made the breaks both more obvious and more damaging. We now have the opportunity to dive deep, learn more, share our resources, and get out of the way.
The story of von Trapp Brewing begins fifty years ago in the forested hills behind the resort, where a natural spring bubbles clear water up to the surface of the earth. The spring is fed by moisture that condenses on the forest canopy, gathering on leaves, twigs, and pine needles until eventually it drops to the ground into the fertile soil and filters down to the aquifer below.
“It’s a lovely spring,” said Johannes von Trapp, president of Trapp Family Lodge, a forest ecologist, and the youngest of the famed Trapp Family Singers. “It was the inspiration for the brewery.”
The Trapp Family Lodge property encompasses 2,600 acres—70 acres of which are developed, 130 of which are in pasture, and 2,400 that remain forested. Photo by Erica Houskeeper.
Von Trapp discovered the spring in the early 1970s when the reservoir that supplied Trapp Family Lodge with water ran dry. After lugging three truckloads of 40-gallon milk cans from the local creek back up to the lodge, von Trapp dug out an 1890s U.S. Geological Survey topographical map and located a spring up in the hills above the lodge. Fresh from Yale School of Forestry, von Trapp put on his hiking boots and headed out into the forest to find a better solution. He ended up with not only a new spring to feed the lodge, but also the idea for a brewery.
“Natural spring water is particularly favorable for brewing lager,” said von Trapp, noting that many of the early breweries in Austria, where his family originated, were located near mountain springs. “The pH balance and trace minerals found in spring water are important to the taste of the beer. It’s something I always wanted to do.”
The quality of the spring water, located a mile and a half from the brewery, and the resulting lager, is very much a product of its environment. Situated deep within 2,400-acres of forested land on the property, the spring is intimately connected to the health of the surrounding forest.
Healthy forests, clean water.
To fully appreciate the relationship between a healthy forest and Vermont’s craft beer industry, von Trapp looks back to the deforestation of Vermont’s landscape in the 1800s, when 80 to 90 percent of Vermont’s forests were cleared for agriculture. “The impact on streamflow was severe,” said von Trapp. “Vermont took a hit, but we learned a lesson.”
The von Trapps maintain more than 100 kilometers of trails on the property for year-round recreation including hiking, mountain biking, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing. Photo by Erica Houskeeper.
Without leaves and branches to intercept and slow the fall of precipitation to the earth, extreme runoff and flash flooding events became more common, and higher elevation soil was washed down the hillsides to permanently reside in Vermont’s rivers and streams as sediment. Without that rich layer of forest humus to collect and retain water, the earth became dry and susceptible to forest fires that scorched more than 20,000 acres in Vermont in the early 1900s.
The forests we see around us in Vermont today are the result of an intentional effort to return pasture land to forest and prevent uncontrolled development. Those revitalization efforts began in the 1920s, eventually leading to the establishment of the Green Mountain National Forest in 1932. However, as von Trapp notes, “the trees that were left were the trees that nobody wanted,” resulting in a “mono-aged” forest of primarily low-grade wood, a challenge for today’s forest products industry.
“Forests that are untouched will change anyway, and not necessarily in the way you want them to,” said von Trapp. “We can manage the forest to provide the products and environment we want, but we have to do so intelligently.”
So, what does that have to do with craft beer?
Water is the main ingredient in beer. More than 95 percent of beer is water, and more than half of America’s water comes from our forests. In Vermont, where we now have more than 4.5 million acres of forest covering about 75 percent of the state, many of Vermont’s craft brewers point to the quality of their water as a critical ingredient to the taste, mouthfeel, aroma, and color of the final brew. In 2019, the Vermont Brewshed Alliance was formed to “protect the state’s waters where many people enjoy it most—in a pint.” Recognizing that “clean water is integral to the health of people, animals, farms, and forests, and is also the prime ingredient in great tasting beer,” the initiative highlights the importance of clean water in making high-quality beer.
According to an article in Beer Connoisseur, different styles of beer originated geographically, depending on how the purity, pH, and trace minerals of local water sources interacted with hops, yeast, and malt. Today, many brewers around the country can alter municipal water for desired results, but von Trapp Brewery works with the natural composition of their spring, brewing seasonal and year-round lagers, which have won numerous awards in national and international competitions.
Keeping forests as forests.
The von Trapps raise Scottish Highland Cattle, produce maple syrup, and maintain more than 100 kilometers of trails on the property for year-round recreation. Photo by Erica Houskeeper.
All told, the Trapp Family Lodge property encompasses 2,600 acres—70 acres of which are developed, 130 of which are in pasture, and 2,400 that remain forested. A beautiful example of how working land can be actively managed to meet a myriad of interconnected objectives, the von Trapps raise Scottish Highland Cattle, produce maple syrup, and maintain more than 100 kilometers of trails on the property for year-round recreation including hiking, mountain biking, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing. Visitors to the resort this fall may notice neatly stacked timber piles along Haul Road, the yield from an active harvest that will, in part, supply the lodge with firewood.
And all of this, notes von Trapp, is compatible with protecting the spring that supplies the Bierhall with fresh, mountain water and preserving large tracts of forest for wildlife. Any frequent visitor of the trails will surely stumble upon deer, bear, fox, or moose at some point. And most will certainly appreciate the protection of the canopy during a soft rain or gentle snowfall. To ensure that the property and the trails will be “retained forever in their natural forested, scenic, open space, wildlife habitat condition,” von Trapp donated a 1,100-acre conservation easement to the Stowe Land Trust in 1995.
Sam von Trapp explores and recreates in the same woods that his father Johannes enjoyed as a child. To ensure that the property and the trails will be “retained forever in their natural forested, scenic, open space, wildlife habitat condition,” Johannes von Trapp donated a 1,100-acre conservation easement to the Stowe Land Trust in 1995. Photo by Erica Houskeeper.
Today, von Trapp’s two adult children, Sam and Kristina, along with his four grandchildren, enjoy exploring and recreating in the same woods that Johannes himself enjoyed as a child. While his stewardship of the forest is guided by his training as a forest ecologist and decades of practice, he notes it has always been the place where he finds solace. “These woods are magical,” adds Sam, who has inherited his father’s love for the land and von Trapp agrees. “The forests are home to birds, insects, and animals; they are a carbon sink; and they provide us with the water we need to live. I get a little claustrophobic most places east of the Mississippi, but here I can breathe.”
When New York City shut down in mid-March, Eliza Fitzhugh and Andrés Gutierrez already had a lot on their minds. The couple was expecting their first child, due on April 9th, along with a packed household of ten guests, from Eliza’s Vermont family to Andrés’s parents from Bogotá, Colombia. Flights were booked and the couple had reserved space in the apartments above their Brooklyn brownstone to accommodate the extended family.
By mid-March, everything began to change. Both Eliza and Andrés were still working, but now from home. The neighborhood parents’ group was buzzing with dozens of daily emails as soon-to-be parents across Brooklyn assessed the risk of delivering their children in New York hospitals, which were already overflowing with cases of COVID-19. “We had been going back and forth, back and forth,” said Eliza, about the possibility of going to Vermont to have their child, “and we had decided no.”
But on March 22nd, she received an email in the parents’ group that informed her partners would no longer be allowed in the hospital during a birth. This was a heavy blow. “It’s his kid, too. He should see the beginning of his kid’s life,” said Eliza of the possibility that Andrés would miss the birth. “In this moment, I lost it and said, ‘OK, let’s see about Vermont.’”
Growing up between the small urban center of Montpelier and rural Northfield, Eliza said hers was the kind of Vermont childhood where you just “know everybody.” Her father, who ran his own business, also hayed the fields and tapped maple trees in the surrounding fields and woods at his Northfield home.
“Everyone is really busy in New York, working insane hours,” said Eliza. “I really like the idea of community, knowing people around, and really getting involved in the lives of the people around you.” For the last two years, the couple had begun to look for a potential home in Vermont. “We wanted to give [our son] a safe place to grow up, a sanctuary,” said Andrés. But prior to the pandemic, this had still felt distant from their current Brooklyn life, still a year or two away.
A disastrous month of altering plans, searching for new doctors, and assessing risks altered this timeline completely. “The stress level in New York was insane,” said Andres, of the start of the pandemic in New York City. “I felt like I was crying every couple of days,” Eliza added. The knowledge that they couldn’t be together during the birth was the deciding factor. By early April, they had moved into Eliza’s father’s home in Northfield, breathing a sigh of relief for the space and safety it afforded. In New York, even taking their dog, Limón, for a walk had begun to feel like too high of a risk.
Still, future plans were murky. Maybe they would shelter in Vermont a few months before returning to the city, they thought. Yet the news of New York did not improve. By May, Eliza and Andrés ended their lease in Brooklyn and officially moved everything to the garage in Northfield.
They began the search for a Vermont home, which proved difficult. “We looked at every single property in the market,” said Eliza. Little was available. They considered buying Eliza’s father’s Northfield home, but the isolation of the rural location and the lack of immediate neighbors didn’t feel like the community that they had hoped for. When a home appeared in a cozy suburban corner of South Burlington, a few minutes away from Lake Cham-plain on the Burlington bike path, they were thrilled. With its excellent school system, diversity, and urban proximity, South Burlington felt right.
Other plans have shifted as Eliza and Andrés adapt to their new surroundings in South Burlington. Andrés’s architectural firm in New York, though it kept its employees working as long as possible, no longer has enough work. Andrés will begin the job hunt for work in Vermont and feels apprehensive about the availability of opportunities. Eliza, who had planned a 6-month maternity leave, is back at work as a creative director after only four months away. She wonders whether, once offices resume work in person, she may have to face a return to the city for her job.
For now, the proximity to safe spaces, nature, bike paths, and extended family has provided sanctuary for the couple’s transition to new parents. Although raised in the urban landscape of Bogotá, Andrés says that even be-fore he met Eliza, “it’s always been a dream to live in a place like Vermont. It’s a dream come true.”
“It’s always been a dream to live in a place like Vermont.”- Andrés
This story by the Vermont Futures Project originally appeared on https://vtfuturesproject.org/. Photos by Anna Watts.
Almost twenty years ago, Jean and Jack Sharry’s son went to summer camp in Vermont. At the end of his stay, his parents visited and they were hooked on the outdoor spaces, community, and natural beauty. Six weeks later, they bought a house next to the hairpin, tree-lined curves of Mad River Valley and across from the covered bridge marking the town of Warren, Vermont.
Until their three children were out of high school, the couple would bring the family to Vermont for every Christmas and Thanksgiving. Both were able to work remotely for extended periods and continued to increase their time at their second home. By the fifth summer of owning their home, they were staying in Vermont the entire summer.
This year, Jean and Jack, whose children no longer live at home, arrived in March to their Warren home, intend-ing to only stay a week. That plan quickly turned into a five-month stay that has yet to end. “That’s when every-thing happened,” said Jean, in late summer after five months of sheltering in Vermont. “And we feel so fortunate to have this slice of heaven. We will definitely stay here through October or November. We’ll just spend more time here in general. We love the valley, the people, and it’s just safer.”
Since they first moved to Vermont in 2001, the two have been active members of the Warren community and long involved in an effort to recruit more young professionals and families to Vermont. But, in order to be successful, Jack says, Vermont communities, “need to embrace and welcome second homeowners. They take us for granted. People want to know how to connect. There’s a level of fear here due to the pandemic, but second homeowners all came up here in March. They’re just as safe as Vermonters now. We have to be more embracing of these new folks and include them in the community.”
“Vermonters need to embrace and welcome second homeowners.” – Jack
This story by the Vermont Futures Project originally appeared on https://vtfuturesproject.org/. Photos by Anna Watts.
