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.… Read More

Informed by books such as Differently Wired: A Parent’s Guide to Raising an Atypical Child with Confidence and Hope by Deborah Reber

This is a statement of gratitude and love, and a call for action for learning what is often difficult. My focus is to say thank you to my granddaughter and our family for helping me to continue my commitment to all human beings to fully learn from differences and embrace the possibilities we together must create. I know now that my intellectual training, my life experiences, and my love had not prepared me for what I needed to learn.… Read More

For New Englanders, spring is a much-anticipated season. These first warm, sunny days after a bitter winter bring purple crocuses, budding trees, and singing birds, as well as feelings of renewal and joyful anticipation of time spent outdoors. As May approaches, it seems like every corner of our landscape is home to beautiful vistas and diverse wildlife. In Vermont in particular, these treasures of a healthy ecosystem are part of our identity. 

“Vermonters are very proud of their state,” says Kate Alberghini, Executive Director of Green Up Vermont and herself a lifelong Vermonter, “they’re not too good to pick up a piece of trash.”… Read More

Ballet dancer. Lawyer. Writer. Three professions with wildly different levels of certainty, not often found in the same person, but Leigh Abramson, a Quechee writer whose first novel “A Likely Story” is coming out with Simon & Schuster this March, has already been all three.

Growing up the daughter of two creatives – an artist and children’s book writer – in downtown New York City, Abramson was always interested in writing.

However, her first major creative passion was dance; Abramson was a serious ballerina studying at the American Ballet School. But, at age 15, missing school and other typical teenage activities for dance while attending the Professional Children’s School, Abramson decided to make a change.… Read More

On Earl Hatley’s first visit to Quechee in August 2017, he drove by the Polo Field and saw a sign for the Scottish Festival games taking place that weekend. Having a Scottish great-grandmother on his father’s side (his father was Cherokee/Shawnee) he pulled in and walked around.

“I immediately got goosebumps all over as I felt I was standing on ancient sacred ground,” Earl recalled. “I saw a vision of Indigenous Peoples dancing on that ground and thought, how appropriate. This ground could someday host a celebration of the Abenaki Nation and the Scots and in doing so, the original peoples and the settlers will be honored on the same ancient ground.” … Read More

“Food Vision” Prize Partners with Local Quechee Business and Supports Local Growers

Vital Communities, the non-profit organization working to cultivate the civic, environmental, and economic vitality of the Upper Valley and engage Upper Valley people, organizations, and communities to create equitable solutions to our region’s challenges, was recently awarded a $200,000 New England Food Vision Prize for a multi-partner project.

This prize will enable the development of a regional farm ingredient-sourcing supply channel that will help create broader markets for the region’s food growers, especially farmers from the BIPOC and immigrant communities.

The central partner in this project is our own Quechee-based Global Village Foods, an African-inspired prepared food producer.… Read More

Actually, the Quechee Times’ first edition was published 150 years ago in 1872. However, the ‘modern-day’ version began in November 1972. Please indulge me as I tell this full-circle tale.

L. John Davidson was the founding visionary of the Quechee Lakes development. He was on a quest to find the perfect setting to create a four season resort community where families could live, work and play in the beauty that only Mother Nature can provide, while still having access and relative proximity to high-level cultural amenities and city centers. Quechee was just that spot.

While it sounds nice in the movies, it’s not a given that ‘if you build it, they will come.’… Read More

Matt Pickell, food program associate at the Upper Valley Haven, succinctly sums up the work that the Haven does in five straightforward words: “Good deeds happen here daily.”

Completing its 40th year in service, the Haven has long been providing shelter and education to those experiencing homelessness and food and other assistance to those in need. “The work here is very tangible,” Pickell says, “People come here, they need groceries and they leave with groceries.”

The Haven began its work in 1980, founded officially in 1982 by a group of five Upper Valley citizens in an old farm building on Hartford Avenue, formerly Taft Avenue.… Read More

Ten years ago, my family was living in Baku, Azerbaijan, because of my husband’s job as a government contractor. I was working as a teacher and soccer coach at Baku International School. The soccer team was on its way to a match against an elite local soccer club. When we arrived, a security guard boarded the bus, looked around, and asked (in Azeri) who was in charge. My interpreter indicated to the security guard that I was in charge and he informed me my team was not being granted permission to enter the soccer stadium. Through my interpreter, I asked “Why?”… Read More

When local resident Cindy Gould retired four years ago, she reflected on ways she could use her time and professional experience as a volunteer. So, in 2019, Cindy reached out to Gail Ferney, president of the Quechee Lakes Landowners Association (QLLA) Charities, Inc. to see how she could help. It wasn’t long before Cindy became deeply and passionately involved in the organization, specifically its CHaD Gala.

“Since I’ve considered myself to be a sort of jack-of-all-trades in the development world during my working years, I thought it would be a good fit, and it has,” she said.

For the Gala, Cindy maintains its prize database by keeping track of donations; getting the word out through various social media platforms and through the Quechee Club’s website and publications; and creating such print materials as signage, the invitation package, and the program booklet.… Read More