Sprucing up
Good news
City to welcome new art installation on Williston Road and White Street
Vermont to give local media priority for state advertising dollars
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For female school athletes: No white shorts, no worries BRIANA BRADY & LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITERS
For anyone with a period, the anxiety is familiar: the worry that standing up from a seat or bending over to pick something up might reveal a red stain, that a tampon or pad might leak and everyone else will notice. For girls playing for their middle school or high school sports teams, a new initiative from the Vermont Principals Association contends, that worry adds to the reasons why one in three girls quit sports by the time they’re 14 years old. For Lauren Young, the VPA’s executive director of activities and athletics, there’s one obvious solution: no more white shorts. On the first Thursday of every month, Young said, the VPA hosts a “Girls and Equity” conversation. The organization invites coaches and athletic directors, primarily women, to talk through the issues that girls might be facing when they participate in school sports. Most importantly, Young said, the group has also been hearing from the girls themselves. Different girls’ teams from schools around the state have shared about their lived expe-
rience, Young said, and have covered issues from harassment to small crowd sizes. “Then (there’s) this whole thing around period anxiety and being comfortable in their uniforms,” Young said. “Which, man, that goes back decades for me — having a uniform that fit and I felt confident in.” The VPA has made available small grants for schools interested in phasing in darker shorts for their girls’ teams. With support from the National Federation of State High School Associations and the GRL Initiative (Young’s organization promoting women’s leadership in sports), the state association is helping schools buy new shorts for their teams — they’re also getting a discount on uniform bottoms from BSN Sports. “When I put the requests out for what people needed, I was just overwhelmed with how many people took me up on the offer,” Young said. She said the VPA needs about $20,000 more dollars to complete the requests for this year. Lamoille Union High School Athletics Director Tim Messier
CORNINSPIRED FOOD & DRINK SPECIALS
See SPORTS on page 10
VOLUME 50, NO. 32
Pollinator friendly
PHOTO BY SOPHIA BALUNEK
A butterfly — it looks like an Aphrodite Fritillary — pollinates a purple bee balm flower.
Healthy Living appeals labor board decision upholding employee union BRIANA BRADY STAFF WRITER
Small grocery store chain Healthy Living has taken another step seeking to invalidate its employees’ recent vote to form a union. The company — which has locations in South Burlington,
Williston and Saratoga Springs, New York — last week submitted an appeal to the federal National Labor Relations Board, two weeks after that board’s regional director summarily dismissed Healthy Living’s initial objections to the union election, approved 105-69 in an April vote. “Despite their ostensibly
progressive image, Healthy Living is looking to Trump and his administration to overturn the results of our democratic election,” Adam Franz said at a press conference at the Workers United offices in Burlington July 31. See HEALTHY LIVING on page 3
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