'Conserving lands, healing people' is the title of a wonderful piece by Julia Purdy in the Mountain Times about the June event at Spring Lake Ranch to celebrate a double anniversary: Spring Lake Ranch’s 84th and Vermont Land Trust’s 40th. The two organizations became partners in 1993, when Spring Lake Ranch put a major portion of its property into the land trust.

"The two organizations share complementary missions: while the Vermont Land Trust conserves cherished old Vermont farmland, the Spring Lake Ranch Therapeutic Community nurtures and treats adults with psychiatric illness through productive physical work amid a tranquil farm-and-forest setting." 

Elaine Ezerins of the St. Albans Messenger tells the story of local maple sugar maker Branon Family Maple Orchards in Fairfield, to illustrate how integrating bird conservation practices into their forest management plans helps to protect birds and their habitats.

Elaine interviewed Cecile Branon and Audubon Vermont conservation biologist Steve Hagenbuch for an original and detailed piece that explains how the project works and its benefits as well as any we've seen. Education on bird-friendly habitat and recognizing participating maple producers are both goals of Audubon Vermont -- a win-win for people, business and the birds!

Judiciary Court Administrator David Kennedy and a volunteer Vermont Guardian ad Litem (GAL) were interviewed in a WCAX news series on a pilot program in Franklin county to address the need to recruit more GALs. Explaining how a GAL advocates for a child in the court system can be complex, but news anchor Alexandra Montgomery did a great job!

Watch the news series on WCAX to learn more.

In what is (to some people) a dry and technical field like energy engineering consulting — for healthcare, higher education, multifamily, manufacturing and other large commercial and industrial facilities, no less — it can be challenging to attract substantive attention from the media.

So we are all celebrating the in-depth profile of Cx Associates and its principals, Jen Chiodo and Matt Napolitan, in the May issue of Business People Vermont. Check it out.

The headline in the Spring 2017 issue of the national Audubon magazine starts the story, "Maple Syrup Makers Are Turning Their Forests Into Prime Songbird Habitat." And then the story continues by introducing one of the maple syrup producers participating in Audubon Vermont's Bird-Friendly Maple prgram.

For maple syrup producers Steve and Amy Wheeler, a good year isn’t only measured by buckets of sap. It’s also marked by the number of pewees singing in the woods, the rows of woodpecker tunnels lining the sticky trunks, and the sight of nuthatches clownishly piling into tree cavities.

Read the full article to learn more about how the program works and the at-risk birds that are benefiting the most. 

New website for CCVS

Just in time for the annual celebration of Crime Victims Rights Week, the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services launched its new look, website and social media accounts.

The CCVS website and social media accounts pick up the beautiful, soothing colors artist Carol Boucher used in the sunset pastels she has graciously given CCVS permission to use in printed posters for many years. The site was also reorganized and rebuilt to be mobile-friendly and to meet W3C standards for website accessibility for persons with disabilities.

Call2Recycle, Inc., the appointed battery stewardship organization in Vermont, announced over 114,000 pounds of batteries have been collected statewide in 2016, vastly exceeding its goals for the year. This is a 187% increase from the previous year, prior to the legislation that led Vermont to become the first state in the U.S. requiring producers to finance a collection and recycling program for single-use (primary) batteries.

We're delighted to welcome Spring Lake Ranch, a licensed nonprofit residential treatment program, to the Marketing Partners' family of clients with a mission focused on healthcare.

Since its founding in 1932, Spring Lake Ranch Therapeutic Community has offered a healing community for people with mental illness or dual diagnosis. Beginning at the working farm in Cuttingsville, Vermont and moving to a range of options in Rutland, Spring Lake Ranch assists residents in progressing from a period of crisis to a satisfying life. 

At a Statehouse news conference, Net Zero Vermont Co-CEOs Deb Sachs and Dan Jones announced the winning design team for the Montpelier 2030 Design Competition $10K prize is “Team Bridges,” a collaboration of 12 professionals from 10 companies and organizations.

Building Bright Futures unveiled the latest “How Are Vermont’s Young Children and Families?” report at a State House press conference Wednesday, January 11. The statewide media were all in attendance and individual key findings in the report were selected for coverage by WCAX, WPTZ, Vt Digger, the Times Argus, and the Associated Press. Favorite quotes and findings include: