Wednesday, Dember 3, 2025
Guests: Jim Douglas, Paul Ralston, Joy Verplanck
Liz Marino as President
No birthdays or Anniversaries to report.
Rotary Anniversary - T Tall, 42 years
Bill Brooks, 11 years
Announcements:
Liz announced that the Parent Child Center will have a clothing drive. She will have more details at our next meeting.
HOPE Food bags for local schools -December 18th at the American Legion, please let Geoff Conrad know if you are interested.
Maureen announced we will be looking for support for gift cards to be given out to people at the Friday Night Community Suppers that Dotty Neuberger runs.
Eric will be running our next meeting, and championship athletic teams will be attending.
Eric announced that there will be a regional Rotary meeting in South Burlington on December 13 from 8:00 to noon.
December 17th will be our annual Holiday Party, and we will have a Yankee Swap again this year.
Fines.
Late - Ben, Fran F, Liz S.
Happy dollars.
Larry will be heading to Tuson and continuing his travels if all goes well with his wife's medical tests. He will be back next summer.
Eric was happy to celebrate his father's 96 birthday!
Liz was happy to announce that you get a Christmas Tree in the National Forest for just $5.
Neal was happy to spend Thanksgiving in Florida where it was warm and sunny every day! He was also happy to be celebrating his son's 50th Birthday.
John B. is looking forward to going to Tuson for a few months to visit his son and grandchild.
Liz M. is happy that she will be visiting her daughter next week.
Speaker: Paul Ralston.
Maureen welcomed our guest, and he introduced his farm manager, Joy VerPlanck.
He is now retired, but his new "job" is running a vegetable farm on Case Street in Middlebury. He donates his vegetables to help feed the people in this area who are struggling with food insecurity. He said he has made mistakes in his new endeavor, but he has learned from every one of them.
Paul said that there are 67,000 SNAP recipients in Vermont which is 11% of our population.
He purchased a portion of the Dow farm which has excellent soils and a 1928 barn that he has spent a lot of time and money rehabbing. He has also spent a lot of time rehabbing the soil on his farm through composting manure and adding it to the soil.
He has had volunteer groups assisting with his gardening, and he donates all his produce to help feed the food insecure people in this area.
He built a kitchen to process and freeze or can excess food. When he went to get licensed the State of Vermont considered his operation to be a commercial caterer because they did not have a category that he fit into. This has caused him 2 years of regulatory nightmare! The Agency of Natural Resources is asking him to put in a septic system that far exceeds his needs for septic. He has even hired a lobbyist to try to get the state to create another designation for a business like his.
He feels very strongly about what he is trying to do. Farmers need to be able to add value to the food they grow to survive
as small farmers. There is a need to not waste the food we grow, but instead to be able to make into something that will last beyond the growing season.
Government has not resolved this issue yet, and he plans to continue his fight into the next legislative session.
Paul answered several questions before ending his presentation.
Cow Tag: Mike K. was the winner,