Exeter, Rhode Island is holding an innovative community visioning meeting for citizens as part of the Borderlands Project. All you have to do is show up at the high school at 7 p.m. There will be pizza, and it’s free. Really free. Some guy in Vermont is paying for it. The Orton Family Foundation, backed by the people who started the Vermont Country Store, believes in small towns and the people who live in them.
With the help of the Rhode Island Foundation and Northeast Utilities, Orton created the Borderlands Project and picked Exeter and Killingly, Conn., to try something that has never been tried before. Each town has received a treasure chest — tens of thousands of dollars worth of expertise, ideas and ways to apply new technology to solve one of the oldest
problems faced by people living in communities: How do you grow without spoiling what you like best about where you live?