Vermont Beaver Association

Q: Can you give some background on the website project and how it came about?

A: After creating the Vermont Beaver Association, we were like, how are we going to get people involved? How are we going to get people to find us? What are we going to do? So we started a working group - we’re up to 25 different individuals across the state of Vermont, consisting of people from land trust organizations, river conservation, ecologists, biologists, and infrastructure specialists, and colleges. I mean, the list just goes on and on and on. It’s been really wonderful, but we had to have a way to connect everything and display all of the work. As a startup nonprofit, we never would’ve been able to afford a website. We were calling around getting quotes from $8,000 to $10,000.

It’s really expensive and we wanted it done right. We didn’t want something that was just hacked together because we were hoping that this stays around and that it’s a channel for everybody to go to. So the partnership that we formed with [the CCE] was just perfect timing, and we gave the student that we worked with free rein to do whatever he wanted. We met with him and told him, this is who we are, this is what we want to do. It’s your grade, it’s your thing. Have at it, and we trust you. He created the logo all by himself, and I’ll tell you, the logo is one of the best parts of the website.

He did a great job and it’s growing every day. It’s been about a year and we’re just taking off. It’s something that we never would’ve been able to do if it weren’t for the College. That’s why community engagement is so important because colleges and communities do have a symbiotic relationship. The colleges provide tax dollars and all this stuff for communities, and then the communities provide places for the young adults to go. To be able to bring the two together and work together, I just think it’s really important.

Q:How did you hear about the Center for Community Engagement? What was the first connection point?

A: My partner has done a lot with Middlebury College, and he has a connection with Alexis Mychajliw, Assistant Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies. She is the one that connected us [with the CCE] because she saw our vision and she knew we were struggling, and she was just like, Hey, let’s partner and help each other.

Q: There are many ways for Community Partners to get involved with the College. For the Vermont Beaver Association website, you plugged into the Community Connected Learning Course. Is that correct?

A: Yes, we put our project out there, and then this student picked our project. It’s funny because he didn’t know anything about beavers. He was like, oh, they’re cute and it seems like it’s really important! So he learned a lot of stuff too.

Once he picked us, we met once down at the college and we went through our expectations with one of his supervisors and basically gave him free rein to do what he needed to do. And it was nice because we kind of took him under our wing. His family actually came up and saw one of our beaver ponds. So it was a great experience, I think, for everybody. I mean, we enjoyed having him around and meeting his family.

Q: What advice might you have for a community partner looking to work with a student, and how to make that relationship and project successful?

A: I think depending on what the project is, you yourself have to be organized and flexible to be there to answer questions. The students are very busy and they have a lot to do, and some projects can take time away from other things that are important to them. I know that our student made some sacrifices to get things done for us, and we are very appreciative of that. So I think finding that match and giving them the support they need and being organized would be the big things to just give them that boost. I think if you’re not organized and you don’t really have a clear vision of what you want, it’s hard to communicate to somebody else who’s trying to learn something.