July 22, 2026 Newsletter

Guests: Leo Storm and Lucia Freeman of the Brattleboro Area Youth Council, accompanied by Cassandra Holloway and Diana Wahle.

 

Garden Party — Sunday, 10:00 a.m.  - Next garden party Sunday 10:00 a.m. Strong turnout last weekend. She singled out Will, who was dubbed "Garden Hero" for edging both gardens by hand. Also, Londa stepped up, got stakes to tie the sunflower heads to support them.

Bingo Recap (Mona) - She, MJ and Evelyn volunteered. A quiet evening, likely the lowest attendance she has seen at bingo. That didn't stop the fundraising: $225(?) in the kitchen, $110 on baskets, and $20 on the 50/50, for a total of about $355 — from about 35 people. The ice cream sundaes were a hit.

Looking ahead: last bingo of the year, November 7, will be holiday-themed night with raffles; Firehouse is looking forward to having Rotary back.

District Governor Visit — September 9 - DG Ruth will speak. Roger asked everyone to try to make it for that date.

Tucker's Directorial Debut - Tucker reported the cast is set, and rehearsals started that week. The QR codes on the tables link to tickets for the performance at the Hooker-Dunham on Aug 21st and 22nd. The same QR code offers an option to donate to the effort.

Vermont Suitcase Company Short Film — Meals Needed (Tucker) - Tucker's 2nd announcement: Vermont Suitcase Company is shooting a short film right now. The film script was written by Jim Maxwell's son Wyndham, who is also helping with the production. People who grew up in Brattleboro and now live in New York and LA came back for the shoot, and others with no connection to town are coming in simply as friends of the project — including one crew member driving up from Brooklyn entirely for free with a truckload of equipment.

They need meals for 10 to 20 people, and Tucker said a few members could split one meal for ten if that's easier. Snacks and desserts are also welcome. Sign-up is informal: contact Tucker directly.  

Marlboro Music Festival (Will) - Marlboro Music Festival is heading into its second week. You can attend rehearsals, which are open. The rehearsal schedule is available from Marlboro Music. Concerts run Saturdays and Sundays.

 

Jim is still giving kids rides.

Londa played in a tournament 2 weeks earlier. She helped her partner, a woman with dementia, who has played at the golf club for 40 years. The same 5-6 people take turns partnering with this woman, directing her and keeping both scorecards. Londa played two days, 18 holes each day. She also let her drive the cart! The punchline is that she shot the best golf of her life. The combination of a high handicap and a personal-best round made her Net Champion of The Women's Senior League at Brattleboro.

Diane and Roger played in the Southern Vermont Realtors association’s 3rd annual United Way fundraiser at a pickleball club in West Dover. The event raised over $7,000.

Roger led off with a brag for Londa, who he said made a huge difference at the previous week's meeting with her helpful comments/feedback.

Tristam offered a brag for his wife, who suggested he have a full body scan to see if there are any hidden melanoma sites. They found two sites. Every night since, his wife has been patching and bandaging them.

Debra bragged on the club's student Rotarian, Tucker, who volunteered to walk her two big dogs on his free afternoons. It took about three weeks of patient trust-building: Tucker would get them halfway down the driveway before Honey Bear would simply sit down, and he would have to turn around, three times over. Then yesterday he took them on a spectacular adventure and brought them home exhausted.

Jim bragged for his son Wyndham, who is here for the summer with his wife Molly. Wyndham has just finished the Vermont Suitcase Company's tour around the state and is now writing the film and working with this group. Jim described what is forming as a true ensemble. He put in a $5 brag for Wyndham, Tucker, Ben, and everyone in the group.

Justin bragged for his wife, Jess. They saw the band Cypress Hill last week at the Treehouse. Jess happened to jump into the elevator with three-quarters of the band. Photo op! Justin has a tendency to pass out from time to time, and it happened at the show. A very drunk woman was standing at the railing next to him, sloshing a beer over him. His wife stood over him, raised her elbows, and created a safe zone so nobody could spill on him. She then brought some of the band over to say hello since he wasn’t feeling well.

Bowl of Life -  "I survived a plane flight that lost cabin pressure at cruising altitude, and ended up the trip sleeping on a beach in a rainstorm." Kevin started and guessed Tristam— who guessed Ben. Roger was guessed and disqualified himself, since he had read the tag; the group charged Ben fifty cents rather than let him off. Ben then guessed Evelyn, who guessed Desiree, who guessed Jim, who guessed Tristan Toleno – CORRECT!

The story: in 8^th grade, on graduation from Marlboro Elementary School, Triston was sent on a Marlboro College8 biology and anthropology field trip to the Yucatán Peninsula. Just after reaching cruising altitude the cabin lost pressure; the oxygen masks dropped, and the crew took the plane down to 10,000 feet as fast as they could. Passengers panicked and wrote goodbye notes to loved ones. Tristan, in eighth grade, thought it was exciting. They were put on a new plane an hour later, which got them into Cancún in the middle of the night — where the hotel refused to take them. So, the entire group slept on the beach in the rain. They had camping gear but hadn't thought to cover themselves.

Leo opened with the question the council was built to answer: what happens when young people are invited to help solve community problems? The Brattleboro Area Youth Council was created in 2022 as a youth-led initiative of Building a Positive Community, developed in partnership with Vermont Afterschool. It was designed by 20 youth volunteers and is now a group of 17 youth, ages 12-19, from across the Brattleboro area, representing Windham County.  

The council works in four primary areas: community safety and belonging, shared power in schools, civic engagement, and career and vocational exploration. Lucia described the council's role as advocating for peers and collaborating with community decision-makers — working alongside community leaders, educators, policymakers, and local organizers to create solutions that improve young people's lives and strengthen relationships across generations. When adults genuinely invite youth into conversations, young people show up, and when youth and adults come together, good ideas emerge.

Leo described work to strengthen relationships between youth, local businesses, and community members: recognizing and promoting youth-friendly businesses and spaces, holding community conversations with legislators, school administrators, and business owners about making downtown feel safer and more welcoming, and working with the unhoused population to build connections. Members may have seen the "Youth Are Welcome Here" stickers on storefronts downtown — the council recognizes businesses that create welcoming spaces, whether by hiring youth, inviting youth in, or having policies that make young people feel respected. Recognition is decided by a vote of the council, informed by perspectives gathered from youth outside it.

Last fall the council convened nearly 70 youth and adults — local leaders, law enforcement, educators, and a broad cross-section of the community — to talk about safety, belonging, and what it would take to keep young people engaged in Brattleboro. The strongest message from that event, in Leo's words: youth want to be partners, not bystanders, in local leadership. Participants said they wanted opportunities in career shadowing and internships. Many said they feel safe in Brattleboro and appreciate its creativity, walkability, and sense of community, while also identifying areas for improvement. The council consolidated those into a short list of priorities, built action plans, and is now working with schools, local organizations, and town leaders — including conversations with BUHS administration on engagement and attendance, providing information on local political candidates, and pursuing career shadowing opportunities in the area.

Lucia reported that in February 2026 the council hosted a legislative breakfast on education, bringing together six Windham County legislators and local youth to discuss school climate, student engagement, and educational opportunity. Council members have also met with WSESU administrators about attendance and engagement. Youth identified three barriers: mental health challenges, lack of connection to trusted adults, and disengaging classroom experiences — and pointed toward restorative and relationship-centered approaches that strengthen student voice, belonging, and student-staff connection.

BAPC and the Youth Council co-create and co-facilitate the WSESU school leadership trainings for students in grades 5-8 and their adult advisors. The trainings build leadership, communication, and problem-solving skills while encouraging adults to become stronger partners in youth-adult collaboration. This October, approximately 30 student leaders and their advisors will attend. Over the past year, council members have met with roughly 20 leaders through legislative meetings, community dialogues, and events.

Leo described this subcommittee, which began around June and has already published a website, zines, and a community event model, all aimed at increasing youth voting ahead of the March local elections.

The hook: Brattleboro is currently the only municipality outside of Maryland where 16- and 17-year-olds can vote in local elections. Leo argued that gives local youth an unusual opportunity and responsibility. The drive's goals are to register 100 new voters and to raise turnout among registered 16- and 17-year-olds to 60%, a 10-point increase over the last elections. 

 

Leo said his favorite recent Youth Council work has been registering people to vote at Gallery Walk. His said well-intentioned adults need support in working out what is best for youth, and some of that support has to come from youth directly, to reduce miscommunication between youth, adult advocates, and policymakers. Lucia said youth need to be taught to share their ideas and to lead. Making them feel safe and understood is the heart of the Shared Power in Schools committee's work.

Leo closed with the partnership case: Rotary brings experience, mentorship, professional expertise, and a service ethic; youth bring fresh perspective, creativity, and energy, through mentoring, service projects, career exploration, and intergenerational dialogue. He noted that youth consistently say they want to stay in Vermont and contribute here but need to be able to see a future for themselves. Leo has led the council's fundraising over the past year, supported by sponsors including the Brattleboro Elks Lodge and 802 Credit Union, and the council is actively building more community partnerships.

Specific questions stated in the presentation and again in Q&A:

Will asked whether the guests were aware of the Rotary Scholarship Program. He then asked how the council's relationship with the school administration is going.

Leo said, early on it was difficult to keep an open line of communication, largely because administrators are very busy — and, separately, the council has often had difficulty finding youth willing to talk to administration, because of a sense of harm, particularly with the BUHS administration. Over time the relationship has strengthened, and they have had success with joint meetings, especially on truancy.

Lucia added a concrete illustration from her own interviews: students were initially scared to be honest because they thought they would get in trouble. After the principal made a point of “giving them permission” to be candid, students shared and gave her a great deal of useful material.

Tucker asked whether the council works with the BUHS student council — noting that Danny Schmidt, previous Rotary guest speaker, was involved, that they do a lot of work with administration, and that turnover in administration has been a recurring problem.

Leo said they have not explored a partnership with the student council so far. Diana Wahle added that there have been partnerships in the past — student council leaders helped run the council's leadership trainings and were excellent — but many of those students have graduated, so she was glad to hear about new people to be in touch with.

Jim asked how the work is organized: how many members, how often they meet, and how they coordinate.

Lucia said 19 members generally meet once a month, with the rhythm shaped by school semesters; between semesters there are fewer meetings.

Leo explained the committee structure, which the council started in 2022, lost, and has recently re-implemented — a change he credited with much of their recent progress. Committees such as the Brattleboro Youth Civic Engagement Drive meet roughly weekly, outside general council meetings. Meetings are kept as youth-led as possible: youth facilitate, draft the agendas with support from Cassandra, hold each other accountable, and clean up the space afterward. A facilitation team of about six is elected each semester to set agendas and run meetings.

A member thanked Leo and asked for the current state of attendance and truancy in the district, and the trajectory over recent years.

Leo is not on that committee and no longer attends BUHS, but his understanding is that it has been rough since the pandemic, with high truancy rates. There have been studies attempting to identify causes, and no single cause is identifiable — there are large social and economic factors at work. The council's approach has been to work with BUHS administration on finding reasons youth might want to come to school and push those, and the Civic Engagement Drive has been reading State of Vermont reports on what has worked in other towns. Truancy has been a state-wide problem since the pandemic.

This is a national trend as well. Diana ran the school district's attendance committee for a period and was making progress, getting the figure down to about 7% of students missing 15+ days. Now about 30% of students are missing 15+ days unexcused.

Cassandra described the community-side response she is involved in: a recent meeting convened by One Brattleboro with the state's attorney, DCF, and the school, and an initiative being pushed by Rebecca Baruzzi, the new director of United Way.

Leo reinforced this from experience: the council reads reports and navigates the policy side, but youth involvement matters because they know the students who are truant. He noted he was himself a truant student in middle school, and that this personal experience lets them connect with students on more than a policy level.

Debra told the two students how impressive they are — showing up to give a professional presentation in the middle of their summer, with evident care for their town and leadership taken at an early age. She called it heartwarming and thanked them for bringing the work to the club. She then asked them to restate what they were hoping Rotary's involvement would be, which produced the summary of asks captured above. Leo added, candidly, that he hadn't really known what the Rotary Club was before that morning and had been glad to find out.

Cassandra framed the value of the morning: She and Diana are trying to connect youth with people who are doing things in the community, and this was a chance to meet other civic leaders. 

 

Cards: Queen of Spades – in the deck