Did you know that community science nights happen every month at the Ottauquechee school? Activities are geared to elementary students to promote curiosity and interest in science.
These activities are organized and led by Dartmouth graduate students who are part of the SPARK @ Dartmouth outreach organization. This group is “passionate about expanding youth access to STEM education in the Upper Valley at an interactive and age-appropriate level. [They] collaborate with area elementary and middle schools to bring STEM to students, particularly for girls and under-represented and minority students.”

Students learned about biochemist Marie Daley’s discovery of the relationship between high cholesterol and heart disease by making Blood Slime.

In February, activities highlighted some black scientists in honor of Black History Month. Among the many activities provided, students learned about biochemist Marie Daley’s discovery of the relationship between high cholesterol and heart disease by making “blood slime.” They also learned about ophthalmologist Patricia Bath by navigating a laser image and modeling how eyes work. And, learning about the work of naval civil engineer Raye Montague, the students performed several experiments demonstrating the relationship between density and buoyancy.
Ottauquechee students who regularly attend the SPARK program were invited to a special event on February 3, at Dartmouth College, where they heard two former astronauts speak on “Launch to the NEXT Frontier.”

A SPARK @ Dartmouth graduate student with an educational display about ophthalmologist Patricia Bath, MD.

Mae Jemison and Jay Buckey spoke of their past NASA missions and what future exploration might hold. Jemison, a physician and engineer, was the first woman of color in space. She now leads 100 Year Starship, a nonprofit initiative seed-funded by DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Jay Buckey is a professor of medicine at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine, where he leads the Space Medicine Innovations Laboratory.
Given the fickle temperatures of March, Community Science Night appropriately tackled the topic of weather. Students made weathervanes and wind chimes and studied the turbulence of thunderstorms.

Students learn about the work of naval civil engineer Raye Montague.

The Ottauquechee community is grateful to the Dartmouth graduate students who organize and create such engaging, hands-on activities to inspire, not only curiosity, but also love of science and mathematics.
Special thanks to Dartmouth graduate students
Engie Mostafa
Megan Doty
Camilla Bobrowicz
Adrianna Milton
Bess Jones
Amanda Cruz Rivera n

Winter was not a time of hibernation for the Quechee DEI Council. Several events kept the Quechee community awake, aware, and informed.

Mobocracy and Abolitionism in New Hampshire and Vermont

On January 28, the Council hosted Dan Billin, a New Hampshire historian and former news reporter, who spoke on “Mobocracy and Abolitionism in New Hampshire and Vermont.” Billin began his talk by reminding the audience how important it is “to keep DEI going in these times.”
Billin enumerated how racism was not a “Southern” issue, because slavery divided northerners from each other, as well. There was, he said, a wave of lawlessness in the 1830s throughout the country, and violence erupted against Catholics, Irish, and other minorities, but especially against Blacks. Lynchings were rampant, and there was a huge backlash against any abolitionist movements. The Upper Valley was hardly spared the violence. Woodstock, in fact, witnessed much racist violence. Abolitionist and Baptist minister Orson Murray was so threatened by racist mobs that he was unable to deliver a speech there.

More than 90 people attended the production of Letters from Anne and Martin.

Perhaps one of the most unfathomable events of the 1830s racism was the movement of an entire school of higher learning. In 1835, abolitionists founded Noyes Academy in Canaan, New Hampshire, as a racially integrated school that also admitted women. The school opened in March of 1835, with seventeen African American students and twenty-eight white students. While the white students were from the local area, the Black students traveled far to attend. Several future and renowned abolitionists, such as Henry Highland Garnet, Julia Williams, and Alexander Crummell were among its first— and last — class. On July 4, 1835, only months after its inception, the townspeople of Canaan plotted the removal of Noyes Academy. On August 10, 1835, hundreds of white people, with hundreds of oxen, destroyed the school as they dragged it to the town common. Students had fled the night before.
In 1838, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech to the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois, and issued “a stark rebuke to the to the dangers of mob violence and an enduring defense of the rule of law.” In that speech, Lincoln warned against “outrages committed by mobs … from New England to Louisiana.” Lincoln’s urgent response to the violence of “this mobocratic spirit” was for “every lover of liberty” to revive the laws of the nation.

Letters from Anne and Martin

Undeterred by winter, on February 22, 2026, the DEI Council hosted another free event for the community: Letters from Anne and Martin, a production of the Anne Frank Center, USA. Actors Julie Sandler as Anne Frank and Andrew Tejada as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., with moderator Deb Radloff, brought together dual monologues reflecting on confinement and injustice. Integrating excerpts from MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail with Anne Frank’s diary, the performers brought to life both writers’ impassioned pleas for hope, resistance, and justice.
In the after talk with the audience (ninety attended in person and twelve remote), the actors shared their own reactions to this profound re-enactment of the written words. Julie Sandler said, “Anne didn’t know what her end would be … activism is important even if we might not know where it will go … her diary ends with her thinking people want to be good.” Andrew Tejada reminded the audience that MLK and Anne Frank believed that “more people want to love than hate.”
Perhaps we can all reflect on Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s words to keep us keeping on: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only Love can do that.”

DE&I Council members at the Mobocracy and Abolitionism event.

Courageous Conversations

The DEI’s Courageous Conversations continued its book discussions for anyone interested, in person or remotely.
March and April discussions focused on the recently published book How Equality Wins: A New Vision for an Inclusive America by Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow. A book to be read by both the “DEI orthodox” and the “DEI non-believers,” the authors create bridges of communication to stem the flood of polarization. They look, for example, to Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of Congress who allows for “imperfect allies.” Her pragmatic point is to get support where possible for “basic nondiscrimination protections” and for access to “medically necessary care.” Supporters needed for these measures “may oppose trans-people in participating in sports.” Be that as it may, McBride does not “dismiss them as bigots or remove them from our coalition.”
The authors urge equality advocates to make space for dialog with allies and doubters in order to hear their concerns. They agree with human rights advocate Suzanne Nossel who writes in her book, Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All, “concerns of diversity and inclusion can — and must — be reconciled with robust protections for speech.” While those concerned for diversity and inclusion worry about how speech can harm members of marginalized groups, those whose concerns are about free speech worry about stifling of “authentic self-expression.” Yet Nossel’s point (and the authors’) is that speech and equality most often work together. Speaking inclusively can make it possible for everyone to be heard. Yoshino and Glasgow assert the “marriage between equality and free speech needs to become a rallying cry for the new era of equality work.” The attorney authors remind us that changing unjust laws can be a long process. Thurgood Marshall led the way in how to pragmatically overturn the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision that said segregated schools were separate but equal. He did this little by little, with stepping stone cases that showed how wrong this decision was.
There is no room for cynicism in the path toward justice. Yoshino and Glasgow exhort us not to collapse into fatalism but to follow Dr King’s words: “accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.”

Upcoming Activities

Abenaki Garden
Earl Hatley, who has been a major creator of the Abenaki Garden, reports there was a successful community fundraiser last fall, which will help defray the cost of maintaining the garden. There will be new plantings of pawpaw and butternut trees, wild plum, ground nuts, service berries, and guild plants. There are also plans for more varieties of the “three sisters” (corn, beans, and squash), sunflowers, ground cherries, sunchokes, and bush beans. “Provided the woodchuck stays out of the way, we should have a plentiful harvest to feed our needy Abenaki families, and continue building our stock of seeds for future giveaways. … This is a community effort to help Abenaki feed Abenaki while teaching our agricultural and cultural practices and history,” said Hatley.
For more information and/or to sign up for work day announcements and updates go to AbenakiGarden.org.

Annual Frederick Douglass Fourth of July speech
On July 4, 2026, the DEI Council, in partnership with the Quechee Library, will present its annual reading of Frederick Douglass’ speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” at the gazebo on the Quechee Green. Kent and Amy Hikida attended this even last year, and Kent noted how moving the reading was. The reading on the Green led Kent to bring the production of Letters from Anne and Martin to Quechee!
This year’s event will include the presentation of a $1,000 scholarship to the winner of the Declaration of Interdependence Essay contest. Sponsored by the Quechee DEI Council and the Quechee Library, the scholarship competition invites Hartford High School juniors and seniors to reflect on what freedom, responsibility, and civic life mean today. Students are asked to create their own Declaration of Interdependence “that shows how your voice, talents, and actions can help shape the future of democracy.”

The Quechee Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Quechee Reads group recently read and discussed the book, Courageous Discomfort: How to Have Important, Brave, Life-Changing Conversations about Race and Racism, by Shanterra McBride and Rosalind Wiseman.

Wiseman is best known for her book, Queen Bees and Wannabes, which was the basis for the hit movie, Mean Girls. McBride is the founder of Marvelous University, a social enterprise that offers leadership development for girls and young women. It was their decades-long friendship and their shared interest in building the self-esteem of young women that give the foundation for their book on race and racism.

DEI members, discussing Courageous Discomfort, were forthright in describing their own experiences of race and racism. Member Matt Donahue admitted he came from “ground zero about the whole phenomenon [of systemic racism],” having come from the middle-class white world of Lowell, Massachusetts. It was his son, who teaches in Oakland, California, who was the first to sound the wakeup call, telling his dad that he was “clueless.” With that moment of truth, Matt began peeling the onion, he says, of his own “blissful blindness.” He admits that, as a lawyer, systemic racism should have been obvious when he started out in 1986. “[Systemic racism] has been in my face forever and I didn’t see it! That is a revelation!” he says. He now understands how easy it is to live in denial when you live in a segregated world, isolated from the larger reality.

Matt wants to move forward with what he has learned from Courageous Discomfort and believes that the book has provided him with tools to continue the conversation. He says that it is not going to be comfortable or pleasant and he may not feel like there is an impact. He has even mentally rehearsed discussions in preparation to respond to someone’s biased or racist remarks. He acknowledges, “Quechee is a white resort – this effort to have this discussion may feel strange to people.”

Matt is proud of his four sons who are aware of their position of privilege as white males in America. While his sons are aware, Matt looks around and sees white folks who would balk at the notion that the economic and power system is skewed in their favor. Yet he is connecting the dots more and more – of how wealth is inherited and connections are built on generations of privilege. There was an anecdote in Courageous Discomfort how a curious white woman touched the McBride’s hair – Matt quips, “Who has ever come up and touched a white man’s hair? “This points to how white men have not endured the indignities that people of color have.

Retired college professor and administrator Sue Mackler describes Quechee as having been isolated, a place where “people could protect themselves from uncomfortable conversations… [but] the national conversation has changed.” Although Sue has experienced her college community of forty years in Northhampton as a place where there were open conversations, she feels now in Quechee it may not be easy and she “will have to be more patient.”

Sue remarks how we can “get carried away with the beauty [of Quechee] and forget the lack of diversity.” However, she has become very aware herself because members of her diverse family love their time in Quechee and she wants them to enjoy the pool and other resources without the underlying discomfort they sometimes experience. Similarly, DEI member Myrna Brooks also wishes for her two granddaughters, who are Black, to be able to enjoy club activities feeling safe and comfortable.

Sue joined the DEI Council to explore systemic racism and bias at the club. She quips that Jewish guilt helps her do the right thing, confessing that, in the 1990s, she had a transgender friend who wanted Sue to take her shopping for clothes while transitioning. She was uncomfortable with this and lied to her friend that she was unable to go. Later she admitted to this person that she had lied. Her regret has deepened her commitment to do the work [of ending bias and bigotry] “because it’s the right thing to do.”

Similar to Sue’s story of being in a college setting where diversity was discussed is Sandy Reavill’s story. Before coming to Quechee, Sandy was head of the math department at a Virginia high school. Confederate flags flew, and Sandy discussed this with her students. The students of color felt the Confederate flags were an assault – an affront to their family heritage of slavery. Meanwhile, the white students didn’t see any problem with the Confederate flag since their families’ heritage had been soldiers who had fought for the Confederacy. The white students were still enmeshed in “old ideas of protecting [their] legacy” says Sandy. Yet the school communities where she worked strived for inclusivity, creating a multi-cultural environment of educational experiences. Sandy is hopeful: “Awareness can change,” she says, seeing how the elders in her own family have evolved in thinking.

Terese Flaherty, the facilitator of the DE&I Quechee Reads group, suggested the book, Courageous Discomfort. She initially met McBride at a girls’ leadership camp in New Hampshire where Terese’s daughter had enrolled. “What Shanterra did for my daughter was amazing,” states Terese. She then contacted McBride and asked “What can I do?” Terese began her journey with the book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, and when Courageous Discomfort was published, she reconnected with McBride. Terese said she had happy tears and was “blown away by the honesty” of the Quechee Reads group. And wants the courageous conversations to continue.

DE&I member Andrea Pitera connects her own family history to the “need for white men and women to speak up” noting how she was raised in a home that emphasized the danger of hatred. “My father lost most of his family in the holocaust. He knows too well what happens when we pre-judge a race or religious group. My high school was equally Black and white. But after reading the book, I’m feeling I owe some old friends some apologies.”

Courageous Discomfort speaks out becoming allies or advocates and to take action against injustices and oppression and discusses how being an ally is about acknowledging another’s experience as wrong and acting on that acknowledgment.

The Quechee community may be known for what is seen: beautiful golf courses and a lovely ski hill. However, there is more than meets the eye, as Ginny Stone can attest. Ginny is the wellness coordinator of the Quechee Club Health Center, and she presents a holistic approach to exercise that incorporates spirit and mind into the body experience.

Having graduated from Springfield College in Massachusetts with a degree in exercise physiology, health, and wellness, Ginny is imbued with the school’s holistic approach of the connection of spirit, mind, and body.

When I came to interview Ginny in her little office at the club, she immediately showed me a beautifully drawn thank you card from a young staff member who was leaving to attend graphic arts school. Practically every nook of Ginny’s office space was filled with cards of gratitude. Her goal is to touch people’s lives in a helping, healing way. Evidently, those she has touched would agree that she has.

Ginny began her career in the ’80s working at the YMCA in Springfield, MA. There, too, the motto was about integration of spirit, mind, and body. Ginny feels that this motto represents her calling even as far back as high school where she was an all-state star field hockey player and all-state gymnast. Based on her scholastic achievements and athletic talents, Ginny was awarded a scholarship to Averett College in Danville, VA. While playing field hockey there, she became an athletic trainer for the women’s basketball team. An Averett professor who was an alumnus of Springfield College suggested that she transfer to his alma mater. His perspective was that while playing sports could take her only so far, having a career in health and wellness, which she was already devoted to, would be a rewarding path for her.

Never one not to have a colorful life, while at Springfield College, Ginny met and married a fellow athlete who was a bodybuilder. He became Mr. America and Mr. Universe, which led to their touring all of Europe. When they divorced, Ginny remained in Springfield and, at age 28, became the Senior Program Director at the oldest YMCA in the country. An adjunct instructor at Springfield College, she was also teaching health fitness, first aid, CPR, and lifeguarding, and bringing health education to the community. Her work included AIDS education and smoking cessation. In the 1980s, AIDS was devastating the gay community, and awareness of the negative health consequences of smoking was burgeoning.

At the start of the ‘90s, a professor at Our Lady of the Elms School of Nursing (Chicopee) stepped into Ginny’s life, suggesting that Ginny go to nursing school. So she did. Again, Ginny excelled, graduating in 1991 as valedictorian and receiving the nursing honor achievement award.

Ginny’s most memorable life transformative experiences may have been her work as a pediatric nurse, starting with the Massachusetts Migrant Association, where she provided health care and meals to migrant workers’ children. This led her to medical missionary work. On three trips to Colombia, sponsored by Save the Children, she assisted oral and facial maxillary surgeries. Children there (and elsewhere) suffer facial deformities such as cleft palate, due to malnutrition and lack of prenatal care, and such deformities prevent these children from being a part of the community.

Her fourth medical pilgrimage, sponsored by Hasbro Hospital, was to the Dominican Republic, where she worked with malnourished children on sugar plantations. She raised money for this trip, brought as many medical supplies as she could, and took a group of high school students with her to do service work.

“My medical trips changed my perspective on gratitude. People would invite you to their hut and have you sit in their only chair and offer you what little food they had,” Ginny said. She noted how much we have here in the US, wondering how we could utilize resources where there are so many places with not enough medical supplies.

Ginny’s path of helping people in the integration of spirit, mind, and body then led her to Children’s Hospital in Providence, RI and to Nepal to learn Reiki, a Japanese healing practice that aims to promote balance and healing in the body with the use of light and noninvasive touch.

To enhance her pursuit, Ginny attended Bancroft School of Massage Therapy in Worcester, MA while continuing her work as a nurse. She graduated in 2005 and has been board certified in massage ever since.

Ginny came to Vermont with her second husband, an executive with the Ibex Company, in 2011. She stayed; he left to live in New Zealand. Shortly thereafter,  Ginny began working at the Quechee Club where today she is the Wellness Coordinator. Not only does she manage and teach classes for all ages and fitness levels, she also provides healing massage. In 2016, Ginny traveled to Kaua’i to learn Lomi Lomi, a Polynesian method of kneading massages integrated with Hawaiian indigenous religious beliefs. With this trip, her training now includes shamanism and an immersion in the culture and heritage of the indigenous people of Hawaii.

Amidst all her striving to learn and to help others integrate the spirit, mind, and body aspects of their lives, she herself has had setbacks. Carl Jung coined the term, “wounded healer,” to describe people in the helping professions who themselves have experienced setbacks in their lives – emotional or otherwise. Ginny is indeed a wounded healer, having had a brain tumor twelve years ago which entailed several surgeries. Due to this, she was no longer able to do bedside nursing. That was a loss for her but perhaps, ironically, the gain was having a near-death experience in surgery where she felt held in the light she describes as “Beyond benevolent, beautiful love.”

Now at the Quechee Club, she says, “This is my home, my tribe, my community.” Still certified as a nurse, wellness coach, and personal trainer, she has accompanied people to the ER; as Wellness Coordinator, she has mentored young employees. Ginny’s calling, she says, has always been to help people be healthy and in balance of spirit, mind, and body. It is about “empowering people to take on their well-being beyond physical activity.” She notes, “We have a great staff and a great variety of programs.” However, these programs and classes are not only body pump or ski conditioning, but also meditation, reflexology, and breathwork. Ginny also offers a profound light energy healing experience, “Tibetan Bowl Sound Healing Baths” with Kirk Jones and Jed Blume, a handpan instrumentalist.

It is Ginny’s dream that more programs can be offered that provide the possibility for self-discovery – not just the body discovery of tight hamstrings and bulging biceps! She envisions a “Holistic Healing spa.”

She quips, “lots of good things are happening here because there are a lot of good people who want to be healthier [and whole]. Not only can I make them sore but also un-sore!”