Sharon, VT Community Members Encouraged to Share Ideas June 8

On Thursday, June 8, all members of the Sharon Community are invited to a community gathering to discuss ideas for the future of Sharon from 5:30-8 p.m. at the Sharon Elementary School. A no cost community dinner and childcare will be provided to all who attend. 

During the evening, Sharon community members will review, discuss, and vote to prioritize ideas for action gathered from previous town conversations and plans. Through a voting process, participants will turn a list of action ideas into priorities to implement. Community members will then sign up to join local task force groups to move each priority forward. 

“Sharon has so many volunteers, nonprofits, committee members, neighbors and individuals who do good work and make our community a great place to live,” says resident Dee Gish. “This conversation, and those that follow, will help improve communication and collaboration to further build and strengthen our community. Every voice, idea and contribution is important – you are welcome, valued and needed.”

The community dinner will be catered by Four Corners Kitchen and Cookadoodle Pizza. Childcare will be provided by the Sharon Academy high school students. Transportation will be provided upon request by calling Suzanne Jones in advance for arrangements at 802-763-2813.

“We have been so impressed by the commitment and resourcefulness of this community, and this gathering will help reinvigorate the connections between people and initiatives in Sharon,” says the Vermont Council on Rural Development’s Climate Economy Program Manager Laura Cavin Bailey. “The ideas and outcomes from this conversation will help prioritize next steps for Sharon to take on together.”

The process will be facilitated by the Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD) who was invited by the Sharon Energy Committee. VCRD is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to the advancement of Vermont communities. In the past 20 years, VCRD has worked with over 87 communities throughout Vermont to bring residents together through their facilitated and structured process to share ideas and move toward common solutions, including in Sharon in 2019 as part of the “Our 4-Town Future” Community Visit process.

This process is part of the Climate Economy Resilient Communities program made possible by VLITE, the Sharon Energy Committee grant funding, and other generous partners. For more information, visit vtrural.org, contact VCRD at 802-223-6091, or email Laura Cavin Bailey at laura@vtrural.org.

Vermont Council on Rural Development
The Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of the locally-defined progress of Vermont’s rural communities. VCRD is a dynamic partnership of federal, state, local, nonprofit and private partners. Actively non-partisan with an established reputation for community-based facilitation, VCRD is uniquely positioned to sponsor and coordinate collaborative efforts across governmental and organizational categories concerned with policy questions of rural import. The organization has successfully completed 87 community visits, resulting in locally defined projects like new childcare centers, wastewater infrastructure, downtown redevelopments, and much more.