Starksboro Gathers on Virtual Front Porch

Starksboro, VT — When Dan Yonkovig reported “five big garbage bags tossed off the side of Ireland Road about a mile up” on Starksboro’s Front Porch Forum at 7:28 a.m. on March 1st, it didn’t take long for neighbors to chime in. By the next morning, Jeanne Cunningham posted a message tracing the debris to a construction site in Vergennes. Thanks to Front Porch Forum, the Sheriff’s office was notified and Ireland Road is again garbage free.

Front Porch Forum (FPF) has been connecting neighbors across Chittenden County, VT since the spring of 2000, when Michael and Valerie Wood-Lewis launched their first online forum in Burlington’s Five Sisters Neighborhood. FPF now hosts a network of 130 online neighborhood forums to which more than 13,000 households contribute.

Starksboro’s enthusiastic entrée to the Forum marks a new way in which the online initiative is invigorating communities. The Orton Family Foundation and FPF have developed a partnership in which the Foundation covers the expenses for FPF to expand its network to Starksboro, the Forum’s first community outside of Chittenden County. After one year, Starksboro’s Front Porch Forum will be self-sustaining and continue without Foundation support.

“The Foundation is interested in how Front Porch Forum can serve as a tool, or catalyst, for citizen engagement and communication,” said Betsy Rosenbluth, Northeast Director of Projects for the Foundation. Only two weeks after FPF became available in Starksboro, more than 100 households out of a total of 670 had subscribed.

“We’re amazed at how quickly FPF is being adopted by the good folks of Starksboro,” said Michael Wood-Lewis. “As we’ve seen in more than a dozen other Vermont towns, people are eager to connect with nearby neighbors to build community, and Front Porch Forum makes that easy." “Each Front Porch Forum is private—strictly limited to the people living in each neighborhood—so it’s a place where neighbors can post messages about simple stuff or local issues,” Wood-Lewis explained.

Every day more Starksboro residents are making connections on the virtual Front Porch. Recent posts run the gamut, from moose sightings to library programs to cars for sale to signs of spring to Planning Commission candidate bios. Resident Wendy MacCardle wrote: “I think this will be an incredible asset for our community… Yahoo! Elated in Starksboro.”

FPF members also organize group yard sales and block parties, borrow shovels, help ailing neighbors, announce concerts, find babysitters and more. All this is done with clearly identified nearby neighbors through email and a web site. Users do not need to be web-savvy to join; all they need is the ability to receive email, and send some, if they want.

Any resident of Starksboro or the 19 towns of Chittenden County can learn more and join at FrontPorchForum.com.

The Orton Family Foundation, based in Middlebury, Vermont, and Denver, Colorado, seeks to help small cities and towns discover and describe their heart and soul—the collective attributes that make communities unique—and build on those attributes in planning toward a vibrant, enduring future.

For more information, contact:

John Barstow
Orton Family Foundation
802.388.6336
jbarstow@orton.org
www.orton.org