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Your support powers every story we tell. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
PUTNEY-Putney Community Cares is again opening "Putney Winter Cheer" to everyone in the community. This creates an opportunity for everyone who needs cheer in the community to receive a gift card from a local business.
Putney Community Cares, Putney Food Co-op, Putney General Store, and The Putney Diner will be collecting donations at their registers to go toward the purchase of gift cards from Putney businesses. Putney Community Cares will be managing the purchase and distribution of gift cards.
Those who know someone needing cheer this holiday season can fill out a form at bit.ly/PutneyWinterCheer2025 by Friday, Dec. 19. Putney Community Cares asks that forms be submitted only for those who have a true need for support.
Forms may be for a child, family member, friend, or neighbor - note the name of the person completing the form will appear with the gift card.
WILLIAMSVILLE-The Manitou Project is hosting a woods-inspired Winter Solstice community gathering Friday, Dec. 19, 3 to 5:15 p.m. in Williamsville. All are welcome to this youth-centered celebration of the season, and return of the light to the longest night, with woods lantern walk, music, stories, bonfire, and treats. It...
BRATTLEBORO-As usual, The Commons will not publish an edition for the last full week of the year. The next issue of the newspaper will appear Wednesday, Dec. 31, which will go to press early on Tuesday, Dec. 30. Deadline for news and advertising is Friday, Dec. 26. All of...
BRATTLEBORO-Windham & Windsor Housing Trust’s (WWHT) Green Mountain Home Repair (GMHR) program has launched a special initiative in cooperation with The Collaborative and Neighborhood Connections to support homeowners in the Mountain Towns of Andover, Jamaica, Londonderry, Weston, and Windham. According to a news release, eligible homeowners in these communities can now access grants of up to $25,000 to complete essential health and safety repairs. Funding for this targeted effort is made possible through a generous award from the Fanny Holt...
BRATTLEBORO-Petitions for Brattleboro town officers, Windham Southeast School District (WSESD) board members, and Representative Town Meeting members are available at the Town Clerk’s Office Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m., after Dec. 15. Before that date, petitions will only be available between the hours of 9 a.m. and noon. Town elections will be held Tuesday, March 3, 2026, at the American Legion, 32 Linden St. Annual Representative Town Meeting is scheduled to begin...
Brooks Memorial Library seeks trustee BRATTLEBORO — The board of library trustees of Brooks Memorial Library seeks an enthusiastic and dedicated library user to fill a three-year position on the board. Candidates must be residents of Brattleboro and should have an interest in maintaining a strong and visionary library in town. The board, which numbers nine trustees, meets at the library at 4:45 p.m. on the second Tuesday of the month. Members are asked to chair or serve on two...
PUTNEY-Next Stage Arts invites the community to celebrate the Winter Solstice with an afternoon of seasonal activities, creativity, and song Sunday, Dec. 21, from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at Next Stage Arts, 15 Kimball Hill. The event is free, and attendees are encouraged to RSVP at nextstagearts.org. This family-friendly celebration offers a cookie swap. Community members are invited to bring a batch of their favorite homemade cookies to share. Drop off 2 to 4 dozen cookies and a recipe card...
Obituaries • Sharon R. (Vesper) Elwell, 80, of Vernon. Died at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital Dec. 10, 2025. She was born in Boston on Feb. 26, 1945, the daughter of Herman and Margaret (Lehane) Vesper. Sharon attended local schools in Brattleboro and was a graduate of St. Michael’s Catholic High School, Class of 1963. Sharon enjoyed being a day care provider for many years. She truly loved spending time with her family and friends. Among her survivors, Sharon leaves her son,
BRATTLEBORO-Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) will host the first session of the Windham County Leadership series on Monday, Dec. 22. The event, which includes lunch, will be from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the Brattleboro Retreat Education Conference Center, at 1 Anna Marsh Lane. Parking is available on-site and signs guide the way to the meeting location. Register at tinyurl.com/2vj9ehad. The program will feature Kevin Chu, executive director of the Vermont Futures Project, a nonpartisan organization answering the mission...
NEWFANE-The ninth annual “Writing to the Light Writing Circle,” led by writer and educator Deborah Lee Luskin will take place in person Sunday, Jan. 4, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Moore Free Library, 23 West St. The workshop will start promptly at 1 p.m. and end at 4 p.m. No registration is required. At this annual fundraiser for the library, writers of all kinds and all levels of experience are invited to reflect on the light in their life...
PUTNEY-Next Stage Arts and Twilight Music present contemporary folksinger-songwriters Antje Duvekot and Seth Glier Saturday, Dec. 20, at 7:30 p.m. Together, Duvekot and Glier will create an evening of storytelling, they say, “songs of heart, conscience, and connection that illuminate both the inner and outer landscapes of our lives.” Duvekot is a German-born, American-raised musician whose work “is celebrated for its hard-won wisdom, dark-eyed realism, and street-smart romanticism,” wrote organizers in a news release. “Her bi-cultural upbringing and relative newness...
Green River Carol Sing Dec. 21 GUILFORD — Guilford welcomes the return of a holiday tradition, with the 62nd anniversary of the “Green River Carol Sing” Sunday, Dec. 21, at 5 p.m. at the Green River Community Church in the historic village center of Green River. This community event started in the early 1960s to raise funds to restore, rebuild, and maintain the 1838 Green River Community Church. Traditionally scheduled for the last Sunday before Christmas, the Carol Sing is...
BRATTLEBORO-Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) and HatchSpace are partnering to offer a seven-week training program designed to help adults explore careers in the construction and building trades. This hands-on class will introduce adults to foundational construction skills and provide practical career guidance and skills to support next steps in training or employment. Class will meet twice weekly from March 3 to April 16. Tuesday sessions will take place at HatchSpace, 22 High St., and focus on introductory carpentry and construction...
BRATTLEBORO-The Brattleboro Music Center (BMC) presents its 24th annual New Year’s Eve concerts Wednesday, Dec. 31. A tradition for over 25 years, the Amidon-Bode-Murphy-Tracy families continue to bring their family-friendly songs along with traditional tunes to a musical celebration to close out the year. The BMC welcomes Emily Miller, of the Sweetback Sisters, joining this year’s cast as a special guest. Performances are set for 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and will feature performers Keith Murphy, Becky Tracy, Zara Bode,
BRATTLEBORO-Read Miller operates Dwight Miller and Son Orchard on Miller Road in East Dummerston. The farm goes back eight generations to 1792 — Millers all the way. Read studied at the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at the University of Massachusetts, where he had the good fortune to meet his future wife, Malah. Together, they have three children and now one grandson, and they continue to work the farm with their son Will, another generation. Many of you are aware of...
PUTNEY-Yellow Barn’s 17th season of Artist Residencies brings 2025 to a close with the Ize Trio, a multi-cultural ensemble drawing influences from jazz, classical, and Middle Eastern music. Their weeklong residency culminates in a free public performance Friday, Dec. 19, at 7:30 p.m. in the Big Barn. Composer and pianist Chase Morrin is a familiar presence at Yellow Barn and in Putney, reaching back to 2012, when he spent three summers in Yellow Barn’s Young Artists Program. Of this latest...
BRATTLEBORO-All those familiar with downtown Brattleboro know that it has a sizable homeless population. On a recent morning I was walking along Flat Street and passed by what looked to be a homeless person next to some Brattleboro Police officers. What struck me most about the encounter was its respect, cordiality, and humanity. Yes, there seemed to be some kind of issue. No, the police were not treating the woman as an inferior person. There was even what sounded like...
Bert Picard is an activist, having retired as a Teamster truck driver who has organized with various unions and a workers’ center over the decades. GUILFORD-Make Billionaires Pay was the theme of a recent protest here in Brattleboro, and I heartily joined in. However, while the simplicity of the slogan is seductive, it also gave me some unease. Not that the rich should not pay more taxes — far from it. But the slogan ignores that wealth is not capital,
BELLOWS FALLS-Municipal Manger Scott Pickup is leaving Rockingham and Bellows Falls at the beginning of the new year to take a similar position with the nearby town of Springfield. Pickup came to the municipalities in October 2020, making his five years in the position one of the longest tenures in recent history. After several turbulent years, town leaders say Pickup brought a much-needed calm and stability to the position. That was also noticed by the Springfield Selectboard, which voted unanimously...
MARLBORO-I would like to thank Rep. Becca Balint for her commentary in the Reformer on Sept. 19, taking a stand against genocide in Israel. I appreciate her voicing what so many of us know to be true. As someone who has supported the dream of Israel as a free democracy, a homeland for Jews after so many countries turned the survivors of the Holocaust away, it pains me that I can no longer support Israel in its current form. For...
NEWFANE-The Crowell Art Gallery at Moore Free Library is exhibiting photos taken in Mexico by Kate Cleghorn through Tuesday, Dec. 30. The photographs featured are from Cleghorn’s 2024 book, Mexico: Spirit of Place. “They’re photographs taken from all over the country. I’ve been east, west, north, south. I’ve been to a lot of rural villages. That’s where I particularly like to go,“ explains Cleghorn, of Putney. She is pretty familiar with Mexican photographers and photography and mentions a few that...
TOWNSHEND-The Windham Central Supervisory Union will pay a historic $250,000 in damages to two Black students who allegedly faced discrimination, under a settlement agreement signed last month. The consolidated lawsuit had alleged that school authorities did "little or nothing" to deal with the complaints reported at the Leland & Gray Union Middle and High School in Townshend. As part of the settlement, the school district also agreed to centralize and improve its recordkeeping and implement training sessions to better handle...
WESTMINSTER WEST-In response to two letters published in the Dec. 10 issue ["Yes, towns can reject petitions for useless and frivolous Town Meeting articles" and "All we are asking is that Town Meetings stick to town business"]: Imagine a Town Meeting, in a parallel universe, where after all the town business has been discussed and articles have been voted on, the meeting addresses an article that was added to the agenda as a result of a petition signed by 10%
-For the third year in a row, the Brattleboro Bears girls’ basketball team has won the Leland & Gray Tip-Off Tournament. The Bears took the season opening showcase in Townshend in convincing fashion, defeating the Mount Anthony Patriots, 65-28, in the opening round game Dec. 12, then defeating the Arlington Eagles, 65-29, in the championship game the following night. Early season basketball games can be misleading, and most teams take time to get their footing — especially if they have...
Rick Holmes is a retired newspaper editor. MARLBORO-In the spring of 1971, President Richard Nixon faced crises on all sides, from the Pentagon Papers scandal to the rising tide of opposition to his Vietnam War. So he announced a War on Drugs. Nixon’s motivations for launching his war were largely political. Use of marijuana and other drugs was associated with Black and Hispanic people and with long-haired college students, his chief policy advisor later explained, and those were all groups...
Tom Franks has experience in private, nonprofit, and governmental organizations. He has a master of science in environmental management and policy from Rensellaer Polytechnic Institute. He is a Brattleboro Representative Town Meeting member representing District 9. BRATTLEBORO-As a volunteer, I have been supporting Brattleboro town staff with research and analysis about curbside collection of waste since April. They have worked diligently and creatively to achieve the objectives set by two consecutive Selectboards for a municipally funded program. Based on new...
BRATTLEBORO-Brattleboro Memorial Hospital is reporting the departure of its chief financial officer just weeks after the exit of its CEO amid a projected $14.5 million annual budget shortfall. The 500-employee not-for-profit facility — the main health care provider for about 55,000 people in southeastern Vermont — has replaced CFO Laura Bruno with interim leader David Sanville, a former executive at hospitals in Berlin, Randolph, and Windsor, it said in a press release sent after the close of business on Dec.
PUTNEY-Vermont Suitcase Company (VSC) is back with yet another zany, fast-paced “winter tale for winter people,” as the theater troupe calls it. This time, following the first two years’ shows centered on the same main characters and setting, The Continuing Adventures of King Wenceslas and his Page Edith is touring the area through Sunday, Dec. 28. The 45-minute romp features the same basic outline of VSC’s previous two King Wenceslas shows but with new scenes at the core featuring the...