Shires Young Professionals, an organization dedicated to empowering and developing young workers in southern Vermont, has made three new appointments to its advisory board and announced that the agency has become a nonprofit corporation.
Beth Wallace, family and community partnership manager at United Counseling Service and at Bennington County Head Start and Early Head Start, was named chair of the 2022 advisory board, and Bennington residents Sarah Krinsky and Carolyn Gilbert have joined the board as new members. Krinsky is owner of My Generation Vintage and co-owner of W. Collective, and Gilbert works for an international development nonprofit.
The eight-member board oversees group membership retention and expansion; event and social planning; advocacy efforts; volunteer activities; community partnerships; and additional organization development.
The board appointments were made amid news that the Young Professionals had become a nonprofit corporation in Vermont at the end of 2021.
“It was always the plan for this group of young professionals to form their own legitimate organization,” said Matt Harrington, executive director of the Southwestern Vermont Chamber of Commerce, which reinstated SYP in 2018. “Part of our regional vision for the Chamber was to create a group that would mature into an organization that could service and support the growing need for young workers in the region.”