On the Frontlines in 2026: Forward Together, Not One Step Back!

I joined the Vermont Workers Center shortly after moving from Massachusetts to the Northeast Kingdom just a few years ago to be in the middle of the community where I'd been a seasonal resident for the last decade — to establish Green Mountain roots with my amazing, beautiful new family who'd been lifelong summer residents (and winter skiing visitors).

My VWC membership has been critical to knowing my neighbors and finding ways to help all our families, both in good times and these more challenging ones: to preserve and protect our paychecks but also to protect our rights to basic public resources, achievable almost entirely by starting with a conversation. It's very practical even when it feels a bit magical: Sometimes astonishingly, I've seen how People Power really works. How do I know it works? I saw it. In December, 2025, Rutland Regional Medical Center announced its planned closure of the region's only pediatric inpatient unit despite the lack of authority to cut that critical service. They announced a public presentation to mark that decision and, before it could happen, overnight, we mustered hundreds of neighbors to demand they call off the closure. And they did. The announcement presentation was canceled. The Green Mountain Care Board made a statement asserting the due legal authority that they have over our hospitals, their services, budgets and rates. But with your help, we did that.

We all need to protect our families' health. Our regional health facilities — our hospitals, primarily — are being forced by drastic & undue, mandated cuts both to their operating budgets and their public-funded revenues, to reduce critical services, things like OBGYN, pediatric care, pharmacies, emergency services, dialysis, and primary care. It's happening right now. One hospital will "consolidate" these critical services by placing them under the management of another, sixty miles or farther away, with no way for those in kidney failure, or labor, or lack of transportation, to access them. I was having trouble breathing. I had to drive a hundred miles which took over two hours each way, for a necessary 20-minute pulmonary test. I have a car. I didn't have to miss work. This was a one-time deal. Others have it far worse, and many don't realize the scope of the problem, let alone its causes. I believe we need a lot more purposeful conversations in this extreme moment.

I was taught, and I believe today, that every person deserves and ought to expect real access to decent fresh food; pure water; the voting polls; safe & affordable housing; and the full range of vital, local, heallthcare services. We expect and require sustainably public education; sufficient fuel both for warmth and transportation to a meaningful job, with proper wages and paid leave. With each other, these fundamental needs are all achievable in this vastly wealthy country. We don't need charity -- nor reliance on politicians -- only our own mutual care; our sovereignty. There are costs involved, from printing informational documents and other, mostly little necessary things to share in order to bring us together.

Please help me to help Us. Send five bucks now, or as much as you can, or just come along with us and join the conversations. In any case a little bit does go an extraordinarily long way, really.