Vermont COVID Community Response Toolkit

One thing’s for sure in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic: local solutions matter. From big cities to the smallest towns, we’re all facing the same challenges: food access and social connections, remote education and health care. But in Vermont and rural communities, we have no choice but to come together with our neighbors and solve our problems.

Luckily, this is what Vermonters do best. We’re honored to be part of a small group of Vermont partners working to create a toolkit to help communities respond to COVID-19.

We’re working to compile community response resources, best practices, and success stories with the Vermont Council on Rural Development, The Space on Main, the Northeast Kingdom Collaborative, and Community Resilience Organizations.

Want to connect? VCRD is hosting weekly calls for community organizers. Visit them online to learn more and sign up.

About the Toolkit

It’s not perfect. It’s not polished. It’s never the same toolkit twice. We’ve pulled together some simple steps for how to start organizing a collaborative community response in small towns, and links to examples and resources from Vermont towns that are doing it well.

We invite others to contribute, suggest, share, use, edit, and remix. Let us know what you’re doing in a comment, so we can share your great work as well!

The Toolkit also links to an extensive, crowdsourced resource list. Dozens of people have contributed examples, links, tools and local or state resources. If you’re looking for resources to share with your own community, start here.