On Thursday October 24, all members of the Lunenburg and Gilman community are invited to come together for a free community dinner and the opportunity to be an active participant in sharing and developing ideas for the future vitality, quality of life, and prosperity of Lunenburg-Gilman.

This event is the first step of the Lunenburg-Gilman: One Community Working Together process — a three-step series of facilitated discussions coordinated by the Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD) to brainstorm ideas for the future, identify top priorities for their town, and connect to key resources. All community members – year round and seasonal residents, business owners, those that work in town, youth and students, and anyone who cares about Lunenburg and Gilman – are invited and encouraged to join the process to shape the future of town.

Attendees of the October 24 event will participate in a series of forums to discuss assets, challenges, and opportunities for action. The forum topics were chosen by a representative group of Lunenburg and Gilman community members. VCRD will facilitate the forums for step-one of this process from 4:30-8:30pm in spaces around the Lunenburg Common. Community members will be joined by a Visiting Team of state, regional, federal, and non-profit leaders who will be there to listen, share reflections, and support the community as they begin this work.

All community members are invited to any and all forums that they are interested in. Forum topics include:

4:30–6:00 pm – Community Connection & Communications @ Congregational Church
4:30–6:00 pm – Recreation, Business, & Tourism @ Methodist Church

6:00–7:00 pm – Free community dinner and live music @ Lunenburg School

7:00–8:30 pm – Youth & Young Adult Engagement @ Congregational Church
7:00–8:30 pm – Infrastructure & Affordability @ Methodist Church

The Vermont Council on Rural Development was invited to the community by the Lunenburg Town Selectboard. 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 90 communities across the state to bring residents together through their facilitated and structured process to share ideas and move toward common solutions.

Alyssa Johnson, VCRD’s Community Visit Program Manager says, “We’re excited to be working in an active and passionate community with so many opportunities. This process is a chance for residents from every corner of the community to share their ideas for the future of their town and access the support and resources they’ll need to be successful in that vision.”

Community members can also share their ideas through an online survey. More details on the event and the survey can be found at bit.ly/LunenburgGilman. Childcare will be provided at the Library during the forums. Anyone interested in help with transportation to the event should contact Alyssa Johnson at 802-222-6896.

Steps two and three of the three-step process will take place on November 19 and December 17 when community members will come back together to champion action ideas, set priorities, and sign up for task forces to take on each priority or initiative. A team of technical and financial resource providers will join the community in the final step to help support the work of the new task forces as they create action plans to move their priorities forward.

Lunenburg-Gilman: One Community Working Together is funded with support from the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development, the National Life Foundation, USDA Rural Development, Northern Border Regional Commission, the Vermont Community Foundation, and VCRD supporters and donors.

For more information, visit bit.ly/LunenburgGilman, or contact Alyssa Johnson at VCRD at 802-222-6896 or [email protected].

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 facilitated over 85 Community Visit processes, resulting in hundreds of locally defined projects including new childcare centers, wastewater infrastructure, downtown redevelopments, and much more.