The kobzar
Home & garden
Ukrainian musician revives spiritual tradition
Beware! Jumping worms invade Vermont
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Volume 52 Number 16
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shelburnenews.com
April 20, 2023
HomeShare Vermont offers housing option with broader meaning
Head’s up
LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
PHOTO BY AL FREY
The CVU girls’ ultimate Frisbee team in action against Burlington April 12. The team lost 14-7. More sports on page 11.
Shelburne resident Cathy Bergeron has been volunteering with HomeShare Vermont for nearly a decade and has seen firsthand its positive impacts, especially in a difficult housing climate. “From being a school counselor, I was looking for something meaningful to do and I’ve done volunteer work all my life,” she said. “I was looking for something to kind of jump into and have a more meaningful role. A friend of mine had been volunteering with HomeShare for several years and was about to move out of state. So, as she left, I slipped in on her coattails.” For more than 40 years, HomeShare Vermont has been bringing
two or more people together to share a home for mutual benefit. Simply, a person offers a private bedroom and shared common space in exchange for rent, help around the home or a combination of the two. It differs from a typical roommate situation because, at its core, it is about two people helping each other. Each home-sharing arrangement is tailored to the unique needs and interests of the people involved through an extensive application process overssen by case managers and volunteers with the organization. The program operates mostly from state and local grants and although there is no fee to apply See HOMESHARE on page 16
Irish Hill Path project receives long-awaited funding LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
Shelburne’s long-awaited Irish Hill Path project — the cyclist bridge over the LaPlatte River at the intersection of Falls and Irish Hill roads — will soon make some headway after receiving $235,000 in grant money. After costs for the project
skyrocketed to $400,000 — primarily for the 100-foot bridge component over the LaPlatte — due to supply chain shortages and other rising costs, the town submitted a grant proposal in September for $294,000 that “may have gotten lost in cyberspace. No one knows,” according to Shelburne town manager Lee Krohn. “So that one didn’t happen.”
Although that grant proposal failed, Krohn announced at the April 11 selectboard meeting that another grant proposal had been accepted under the Transportation Alternatives Program. That program “provides funding for projects defined as transportation alternatives, including on- and off-road pedestrian and bicycle facilities, infrastructure
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projects for improving non-driver access to public transportation and enhancing mobility, community improvement activities and environmental mitigation,” according to the Vermont Agency of Transportation. Voters at Town Meeting Day last year also approved allocating $168,000 as the town’s local share in building the pedestrian bridge,
and in 2019, the town received a state grant for more than $100,000 for engineering, municipal project management and other work. “We are analyzing current hopeful cost estimates now to see where we are in the total funding arrangements,” Krohn said. “It now See IRISH HILL PATH on page 13
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