GRAFTON — The Vermont Folklife Center was among 12 organizations that received a total of $59,000 in funding from the Windham Foundation, recognizing and investing in their ability to positively impact the lives of rural Vermonters.
The Vermont Folklife Center, which is based Middlebury, won the grant for its Discovering Community Education Program, specifically for the component interviewing Vermont public school students about their experiences and narratives of changes under the school consolidation law Act 46.
The center’s Discovering Community Education Program gets Vermont students out of their classrooms to learn from their diverse communities using media-making tools to document — and ultimately share — their experiences. The program emphasizes student voice, builds upon community connections, and recognizes the vast potential for learning available to each of us, in our communities, through observation and inquiry.
The goal is to partner with teachers and schools in creating educational experiences that are personalized and place-based, and that provide students with technical, personal and interpersonal skills for the modern world. More information is at discoveringcommunity.org.
Other grant recipients address girls and exercise, community gardening, theater, music and other dental health.
“We are proud to be partnering with wonderful organizations in every corner of the state,” said Liz Bankowski, CEO of the Windham Foundation. “Their initiatives speak to the empathy and creative problem-solving apparent in so many of Vermont’s nonprofits. We are eager to follow the positive impact of their work.”