By Claire Pomer, Harwood correspondent
On October 2, Harwood students participated in the second annual Harvest Fest celebrations, which aims to give back to local communities and instill the importance of volunteering. The day included a morning of service, an afternoon assembly, and a student-staff soccer game.
Students were assigned to multiple locations to perform their service, including Harwood, the other schools in the district, and other locations throughout the community, like the Warren United Church and the Waterbury Food Pantry. They cleaned trails, tended to gardens, and read with elementary school students. Middle school students also participated, helping out at Living Tree Alliance, cleaning up Bridge Street in Waitsfield, and assisting on the farm at Vermont Youth Conservation Corps. “I liked it,” one student said about their service. “It was great to give back to my community.”
The assembly featured guest speaker Rose Friedman, co-founder of Hardwick’s The Civic Standard, which is a nonprofit “mobile cultural community center” to talk about her experience helping her community. Per its website, it is “dedicated to building community and collaborative good times.” In her presentation, Friedman introduced The Civic Standard and the events that it offers (including plays, bingo nights, free soup nights, and karaoke). Hardwick, like any small town, is full of incredibly different people, who “vote for different candidates, speak different languages, eat different food, and shop at different grocery stores.” Friedman wanted to make a community center, and she described how she had to “help people see each other as full human beings.” She created fun, non-divisive events in order to create community and bring people together. “We don’t have political motivations, we aren’t trying to change anybody’s minds,” she said, “we’re trying to just make them see each other and be in a shared space.”
Three staff members were also selected to talk about their experiences volunteering and helping people: Beth Gravelle, a STEM teacher; Jane Regan, a history teacher; and Sarah Popowicz, who teaches Personal and Future Exploration. Gravelle spoke about her experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bulgaria. For two years, she partnered with the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds to work on biodiversity conservation. Regan, who was a journalist for 30 years, spoke about her experience reporting in Haiti. “I am the richest person in the world because I am paid to help other people,” she said on her time in Haiti. Popowicz talked about her previous experience as a sustainability teacher at Crossett Brook Middle School, and how she was consistently awed by her students’ drive to improve their surroundings.
