All New Haven community members are welcomed and encouraged to join the third meeting of the New Haven Comes Together Community Visit process on Thursday, January 15th from 6:00-8:30 pm at the New Haven Town Hall. Attendees will review points of vision for the future of New Haven, and join task forces to advance community priorities. Community members can sign up for these task forces by attending the meeting or online at bit.ly/NewHavenTogether. Dinner and drinks will be served, and childcare will be provided.

On December 11th, New Haven residents came together for the second step of the New Haven Comes Together process to review a list of 22 opportunities for action, generated from the input of over 160 community members, and choose their top priorities for action. Through a two-round voting process, New Haven residents chose two priorities and are forming local task forces that will work to:

  • Expand Housing Opportunities

  • Create Community Gathering Spaces

At the meeting on January 15th, participants will create action plans and identify resources for each action priority with support from a team of state, regional, and Federal partners. Members of the Visiting Resource Team who will attend the meeting and provide support include staff from the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development, Vermont League of Cities and Towns, Preservation Trust of Vermont, Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, Vermont Housing Finance Agency, Addison County Regional Planning Commission, Addison County Economic Development Corporation, and USDA Rural Development.

Community members are invited to come to the meeting and join a task force, regardless of whether they have participated in the process so far. Alyssa Johnson, VCRD Community Visit Program Director says, “The upcoming meeting is an exciting turning point where community members will transition from conversation and prioritization to action planning, and begin the work to make their community priorities a reality. Now is a great time to join your neighbors to help support the future of New Haven!” Community members can sign up online at bit.ly/NewHavenTogether, or come to the meeting on Thursday, January 15th from 6:00-8:30 pm at the New Haven Town Hall to learn more.

The Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)’s Community Visit process was invited to the community by the New Haven Selectboard. In the past 25 years, VCRD has worked with over 90 Vermont towns to bring residents together through their facilitated and structured process to share ideas and move toward common solutions.

The New Haven Comes Together Community Visit is funded with support from the Northern Border Regional Commission, Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development, Vermont Community Foundation, National Life Foundation, Lintilhac Foundation, Wisdom Connection, Porter Medical Center, and VCRD supporters and donors.

For more information, visit bit.ly/NewHavenTogether, 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 community prioritization processes with over 90 towns, resulting in hundreds of locally defined projects including new childcare centers, wastewater infrastructure, downtown redevelopments, and much more.