Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Dragonheart Vermont’s Board of Directors announces the closure of Survivorship NOW, a wellness center for cancer survivors in our community. Begun in 2011 and based in Williston, Survivorship NOW has helped 400 Vermonters with their cancer recovery. Survivorship NOW will continue its free wellness programs until July 31, 2017.

According to Executive Director, Penni Cross, “Dragonheart Vermont has worked tirelessly for 6 years to help Survivorship NOW thrive. Our goal has been to provide needed support services to help cancer survivors find their ‘new normal’ after their cancer diagnoses. This difficult decision to end the wellness center resulted after careful consideration of Survivorship NOW’s programs, costs, and community outreach. We concluded that it is time to move on to new goals.”

Vermont Business Magazine Healthy Living Market and Cafe has partnered with Hope Lodge in Burlington to provide educational resources for patients and their families. Hope Lodge offers free lodging to cancer patients undergoing treatment at the University of Vermont Medical Center.Through this partnership, patients have access to information and recipes to make nutritious food choices while undergoing cancer treatment, and making healthy changes that they'll then take home with them once they leave treatment. Not only are we stressing the importance of making healthy, nutritious food choices, we're showing folks how they can implement changes into their everyday life.

by John McClaughry As the Republican Congress struggles to “repeal and replace” Obamacare, the political landscape is steadily shifting. Since the Democratic Congress enacted Obamacare in 2010 (without a single Republican vote), Democrats have increasingly been on the defensive about their creation. The individual mandate that Obamacare relied upon to corral healthy young people into insurance pools has failed to do the job – partly because the tax penalty was not severe enough, and partly because the Obama administration felt compelled to create 14 different types of “hardship exemptions” that exempted millions of young people from the penalty.

Vermont Business MagazineUSCitizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will present 82citizenship candidates to the USDistrict Court Vermont District during two separate naturalization ceremonies in Chittenden County,June 21 and June 23. The first will be at Essex High School and the second will be atEthan Allen Homestead in Burlington.

Weds.,June 21:

USCIS to hold citizenship ceremony at the Essex High School

by Senator Christopher Bray, New Haven Two weeks ago Governor Scott vetoed both of the state’s “must-pass” bills—the budget and the tax bill. His vetoes set us on a course for a shut down of state government on July 1st. This did not need to happen. The governor’s vetoes are both surprising and disappointing. In January, the governor issued a challenge to the legislature: pass a budget that relies on no new taxes or fees. In a time of rising cost of health care costs, an opioid epidemic, and a housing shortage, this was a difficult test—one that required months of hard work and compromise in the both the Senate and House.

Vermont Business Magazine Valley Vista, the 99-bed inpatient alcohol and chemical dependency treatment center in Bradford, is partnering with CDPHP, a Capital District health plan with nearly 400,000 members, to provide addiction recovery services to the health plan’s managed care members. As a new CDPHP provider, Valley Vista offers addiction treatment services to adult men and women, as well as adolescents ages 13 to 17. The partnership became effective June 1, 2017.

“As we continue to serve a growing number of members who require addiction services, we are proud to expand our provider network to include Valley Vista,” said Robert Holtz, vice president of behavioral health at CDPHP. “This partnership will allow CDPHP members access the additional care services they need at a time and place that’s convenient,” added Robert.

Vermont Business MagazineTwenty-nine students from the Class of 2017 who received diplomas at Southern Vermont College’s (SVC) commencement exercises onMay 13 in Bennington also celebrated the support they received from the TRIO Program, the federal outreach and student service support program, which provides services for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds.

SVC's federal TRIO grant, the only TRIO Student Support Services (SSS) program at a private college in Vermont, is administered through the College’s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL).SVC's CTL provides a full range of free academic support and career-building resources, including academic counseling, tutoring, learning differences support, and help with strategic skill development, such as organization and time management, delivered by highly trained professional staff, to help students achieve their highest potentials.

Vermont Business Magazine The number of Vermonters working in the clean energy sector increased by 1,366 since last year, a 29 percent increase since 2013. A steady increase in the clean energy job market is detailed in the 2017 Clean Energy Industry Report released today the Clean Energy Development Fund (CEDF).The report states that there are over 19,000 Vermonters employedinclean energy, 12,000 of which are full time jobs.With one in every 16 workers - or about six percent of the State's workforce - now part of the clean energy economy,Vermonthas thehighest number of per capita clean energy workers of any US state.

Vermont Business Magazine Mayor Miro Weinberger today announced that the City of Burlington has joined 13 cities from across the country, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland, in preserving public research on climate change by posting the deleted Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Climate Change data pages to the City’s website on June 13. Burlington and other cities followed the lead of City of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who announced on May 7 that Chicago had posted the pages deleted by the Trump Administration. Chicago created a website called "Climate Change is Real," encouraging other municipalities to post the climate change research to their cities' websites.

by Timothy McQuiston Vermont Business MagazineVermont Auditor Doug Hoffer today released a report on the Vermont Department of Buildings and General Services capital projects that says it not only suffers cost overruns, but that it also does not have processes in place to even know how to fix the problem. Average costs of a sampling of projects ran nearly a third over budget and some as high as 71 percent above projected costs. The report concludes that “the department’s reputation is at risk.”

Vermont Business MagazineBlue skies and green rolling hills were the backdrop for the third annual Breakfast on the Farm event hosted by the Hall, Purchase and Ayer families at Fairmont Farm in East Montpelier.On June 17^th, the families opened their farm to the public to showcase what farmers do to produce local, wholesome food in Vermont.

The free, public event included a pancake breakfast and self-guided tours of the dairy farm, which was recently named Vermont’s 2017 Outstanding Dairy Farm of the Year.Their excellence in dairy farming was on displaySaturdayas a record crowd of 1,200 people attended the breakfast and farm tour.Visitors got a peek into the life and business of dairy farming in Vermont – home to over 850 dairy farms that make 63% of the milk for New England, according to USDA data.

Vermont Business MagazineThe Northeast Association of Electric Cooperatives represents the nine electric cooperatives in the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York State.Together they provide electricity to over 120,000 members in these four states. Electric cooperatives were formed by executive order in 1936 to provide rural America with electricity.Seventy percent of the United States landmass is served by electric cooperatives. Electric cooperatives are member-owned and operate under the Seven Cooperative Principles that govern cooperatives world-wide.

This year’s annual meeting was held in Woodstock, Vermont from May 24 through May 26 at the Woodstock Inn and Resort.The event pulls together Directors and CEOs from the NEAEC member organizations for several days of education, advocacy and planning.