There’s an old saying that goes if you find a job you truly love, you’ll never work a day in your life. Nothing could be truer for Norwich’s Jay Avis. He is a mechanical engineer by training (although he’ll tell you that he’s been “fighting it all along”) and has managed to couple those skills with his interest in primitive living and passion for helping others. From working as an outdoor educator and leading wilderness expeditions, to volunteering for Hospice and providing compassionate respite care, Jay has never lost sight of finding problems and helping people solve them. “It is a labor of love,” he says.

Jay and Amanda

Jay and his wife, Amanda Burns, came to Norwich in 2012 from the suburbs of Boston. Amanda had found a teaching position at the Lyme School. “She’s an inspiration as far as what someone who is truly a perfect fit for their job looks like,” Jay tells us. “The Lyme School is the reason we moved up here, and she and the school have been the most perfect fit since day one.” In Norwich they’ve found “everything we need – and nothing we don’t need,” Jay explains. With wilderness spaces to explore, Jay and Amanda are keeping up the nature connection they bonded over when they first met as wilderness trip and environmental educators in Wiscasset, Maine with the Chewonki Foundation.

When they moved to Vermont, Jay tapped into his love of the outdoors and primitive living skills with a new business venture. He combined the primitive life skill of foraging – searching and gathering foods found naturally in our environment – with engineering. The foraged food in question? Acorns! Born out of his hobby of making acorn flour for friends and family, Oaklore LLC was founded in 2014. Jay works out of his heated garage space at home with the help of two hired workers who also share his passion for primitive living. Together they harvest and process acorns to produce a high-quality acorn flour which is sold to specialty stores, restaurants, and other niche markets.

Why acorns? Jay explained that acorns are a ‘staple food,’ one that is “high in nutrients, can be gathered in abundance, and stores well for a long period of time.” They are unique in that they are high in fat and starch, but unlike many other baking flours, are gluten free. They are also high in protein and monounsaturated oils that help reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. For centuries, cultures around the world have enjoyed the benefits of this staple food. Jay has studied the way Native Americans have used the acorn and he has used his own technical skills to modernize production. “The wild foods I’ve consumed here in New England are varied, but I have a particular interest in the staple foods that sustained our ancestors.”

Jay’s outdoor education students learn about wild food gathering

The process that Jay uses to make his flour has been updated, of course, but he is reluctant to bring the process fully into the modern age. He could, for example, employ the use of ovens to speed up acorn drying time, but he uses his radiant heat floor instead which adds weeks to the process. It is part New England frugality and part historical reverence that has kept him from automating his process. “I am a problem solver. I like doing something unprecedented on a budget.”

Acorn flour

Jay calls upon the community quite regularly during harvest time. (The best time to harvest acorns is September through early December, when they fall off the trees.) If you’ve spent any time on the local Listserv, you’ll have seen his request. He seeks healthy, well-maintained, pet-and-pesticide-free lawns for acorn collection. One simply needs to contact him and he and his helpers will descend on your lawn to collect your acorns. “It’s a win-win for everyone involved. I get my acorns and the homeowner gets a clean lawn.” Oaklore uses acorns from Northern Red Oak trees, which are the most prevalent in the area.

His passion for primitive life skills comes into play during the harvest. He often challenges himself by asking, “how simply can I live? Is what’s outside enough to live on?” Interest in primitive skills and foraging can be traced back to his childhood in Maine when his parents sent him to summer camp. While there, he discovered wild foods that could be collected in the forest. (His first find was the Indian Cucumber or Medeola virginiana.) Fast-forward to his adult years and this curiosity is stronger than ever.

One would naturally assume that the founder of a unique company like Oaklore would be a specialty food connoisseur. On the contrary, Jay explained, “I’m not a cook. I’m not a foodie. I’m a problem solver!” His natural curiosity, successful networking, and hard work have made Oaklore a success. Help from the Vermont Small Business Administration and S.C.O.R.E. was essential as he was getting started with this first business. He was connected with a mentor, Sally Wilson – former owner of the Norwich Inn – who provided what he considered to be the most valuable piece of advice: “Focus on the flour. Don’t try to add to your product line now with specialty mixes [like muffins and pancake mix.] Do what you do best and the product will do the rest.” The advice paid off and now Jay is producing a niche product that is low volume, small scale, and handcrafted.

Gathered acorns

The business has put him in contact with a variety of people – restaurateurs, fashion designers, celebrities, film makers, brewers, and local news stations, just to name a few. His biggest celebrity client was Francis Ford Coppola who opened an American-Native-themed restaurant last year in Geyserville, California called Werowocomoco. Jay attests that specialty farm-to-table restaurants are his best customers. Another unique client was a brewery in Denver, Colorado that used his acorn flour to produce a specialty brew. While it was only a one-time exchange, it reminds us of the versatility of his product.

Despite the energy and enthusiasm Jay has for Oaklore, his curious mind has him on the lookout for the next adventure. He is currently seeking a buyer for his acorn flour business. “I’d love to find someone who has a passion for the concept and has some physical space they could devote to processing.” Jay said. The perfect buyer would be someone with “a variety of talents – from a love of physical labor for gathering and processing, to a desire to market the product.”

What’s next for this passionate, problem-solving engineer? He explained with a warm smile that he is most happy when he’s making other people happy. It should come as no surprise that his next venture directly involves focusing on people’s problems and helping them overcome them. He is interested in ‘bias reduction.’ He is going to explore the field of sociology as he finds a way to help individuals overcome their personal biases. This may indeed seem like a tough nut to crack (pun intended), but one that is necessary in our ever-changing world. He wants to create bridges between people, help diffuse tough situations, and humanize them. “I want to help people create a new way of looking at things.” He will certainly be calling upon his past experiences to bring success to this new enterprise. He’ll also be calling on you to explore more ideas as well. “I’m a networker and love connecting with people. I’m always looking for people to explore new ideas with.”

If you are ever out and about exploring the wilds of Norwich, be on the lookout for Jay and Amanda. They are an engaging couple with a great love of the outdoors to share. If you stop and chat a while, you’ll be sure to learn a thing or two about our natural environment and perhaps explore other perspectives.

Acorn waffles

****

If you are interested in learning more about foraging edible, wild plants, Jay suggests checking out Nature’s Garden by Samuel Thayer. For hands-on education you can also check out the R.O.O.T.S. School in Corinth, Vermont for information on wild food cooking and foraging classes. You are welcome to visit his website www.oakloreproducts.com to learn more.

Norwich has many fantastic trails around town, where people can enjoy exercising, botanizing, wildlife watching, or simply walking in the woods. The Trails Committee does an excellent job of monitoring and maintaining all the public trails, and many land owners are very generous in allowing trails across their properties. Fellow trail users, trail workers, and land owners are greatly deserving of courtesies and respectful treatment from all of us. What follows is a list of reminders about important components of trail etiquette. If you do not agree with what we lay out as appropriate trail etiquette, please do not hesitate to come and share your ideas and concerns with us.

In a previous article, we mentioned the importance of controlling dogs on the trails. It is worth repeating how off-leash dogs can upset fellow trail users and wildlife. There are many people who are not comfortable being approached by dogs they do not know. There are also many people who would rather see un-spooked wildlife in the forest beside the trail instead of a dog running rampant.

Recent work on Green Up Day reminds many of us that not all our fellow citizens adhere to the adage ‘leave no trace.’ People especially do not want to see refuse, including dog droppings, during their walk in the woods. Please ‘leave only footprints.’

And leave those footprints only on the trail. The trails are constructed to handle foot traffic, the forest floor is not. If the trail is a single-track, use it as such. Please don’t walk in a group four wide if the trail cannot accommodate that width of humanity.

Further speaking of footprints, it is important that all posted trail instructions be followed, even if the instruction is that the trail is closed. Permitted uses, redirected trails, trail closures (for mud season for example), and other trail instructions are decisions made by people dedicated to the long-term care and maintenance of trails, people who spend time learning about best trail practices. Those instructions about and temporary closures of trails are done to alleviate the damage that too many footprints can have on fragile trailside areas and soft, wet trails.

Regarding trailside areas, remember to also take only photographs.’ The plants within our trail corridors are part of natural communities and they have roles to play in their ecosystem. They are not there for a few of us to take, take, take. Collecting has already made wild ginsing very rare and cucumber root much less common. Let’s not add to the list of the over-harvested; let’s instead have all the plant species remain part of their ecosystem and be there for all to see.

Many of our trails are multi-use and these different ways of using trails can lead to some questions, the proper etiquette of which may be conditional. For example, on flat terrain it may well be appropriate for bikers to yield to walkers, whereas on steep terrain it may well be better for walkers to step aside for bikers; however, a biker should never expect a hiker to yield on a multi-use trail.

There can also be winter multi-use etiquette questions. If someone has gone to the effort of breaking trail and setting a ski track, be courteous by not obliterating their work with your snowshoes. Why not simply snowshoe beside the ski trail? Besides, snowshoes are designed to provide loft in unbroken snow, not tramp around on packed trails and ski tracks.

Well, mud season is a memory. Get out there, be courteous, and enjoy the trails!

~ Norwich Conservation Commission

Meet Callie, a six-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who was rescued last October. We – my family and I – adopted her on October 20th and just passed the sixth-month mark. We have been so lucky to have Callie come into our lives. As my daughter said to me early on, “Mom, I feel like something just snapped into place when we got Callie; like our little family fits right, now.”

Callie came from a puppy mill. She had what I call ‘whoa’ eyes in her picture… major whoa eyes. We could see the whites of her eyes the whole way around. My wife felt a connection with Callie; she loved the puppy’s “wooly-bear eyebrows,” serious expression, and her beautiful coloring. I wish I had saved a copy of her rescue photo.

She was a breeding dog at this mill, so from the time she had her first heat until approximately seven weeks before we got her, she was either pregnant or having puppies. A puppy mill tends to be a large-scale breeding facility – although they can be smaller breeders – where female dogs churn out puppies for profit with little to no genuine care for the health and welfare of the dogs.

These dogs are left to live in kennels for their entire lives with minimal human contact. The females are bred every heat starting at 6-10 months, and their puppies are either sold locally, online, and at pet stores nationwide. There are a few things that can get a dog kicked out of the puppy mill: 1) Being too old to have puppies; 2) hitting age two without getting pregnant; and 3) not being sold as a puppy.

Those dogs, the ones deemed unfit for the mills, are either grabbed by rescues ahead of time or sold at breeder auctions where rescue organizations try to purchase as many dogs as they can possibly rehome. Lucky for us, Callie was one of those dogs grabbed ahead of the auction block by a Vermont rescue organization.

There can be unexpected differences between adopting a rescue dog and adopting what is sometimes referred to as a ‘puppy mill survivor.’ All rescues will have had different life experiences that will color their reaction to their adoptive families and new life. Usually however, rescue dogs in general are excited to meet their new people, their house, toys, and love. Puppy mill rescues tend to be very shut down when you first adopt them. They don’t understand the concept of love, playing, toys, or humans that touch them kindly.

It took Callie about two months to start reacting excitedly when our daughter arrived, about four months before she began really reacting to me, and recently until she started behaving like she is one of the family, sometimes.

She still doesn’t understand what toys are for or how to play. We’ve introduced her to a few safe dogs, and my favorite, a Lab, scares her a bit because he’s too bouncy. She can’t figure out what he is doing when he is playing with us, with the cat, or trying to play with her. He’s learned to leave her alone.

Callie is a relatively happy dog now. She still has her oddities, but every dog does. She will always have the trauma of the puppy mill behind her, but every time she goes on a new adventure, every time she gets to cuddle up with our daughter, every time Callie gets a bone, she settles in a little bit more.

We work very hard to accommodate some of Callie’s issues that we know will never go away. For instance, we know that the only time she saw a groomer was when she was rescued. That groomer had to do several of the rescue dogs that day, so she had to work quickly, she shaved her down (likely due to mats in her fur from being stuck in a cage), clipped her nails very short, and the next day the rescue organization took Callie to be spayed.

Due to this experience, we are aware that Callie is scared of going to the groomers. There would be several other dogs there waiting and stressing, it is an unfamiliar place, and I wouldn’t be there with her. Instead, we chose to hire an in-home groomer. The groomer, Dirk who owns Fresh & Furry Pet Grooming, was fantastic. He spent about 15 minutes on the floor with her first, just talking to her and letting her sniff him, his equipment, and such.

Molly and Callie

When I put her on the table, she didn’t freak out or try to get away. She sat stoically, or stood, depending on what he needed, for a long time. I never left the room, he and I chatted the whole time – either to each other or her – and she took it in stride for a while. Dirk recognized the signs when she started to get overwhelmed, and he stopped. While her grooming might not have been entirely finished, he did a fantastic job. I was impressed with my girl and with him.

I have made a concerted effort to socialize Callie as one would a puppy. She goes into the stores where she is allowed, and she meets new people all the time. Together we walk up to ‘scary’ things so she can sniff them. And we recently took an obedience class with Caron Bronstein at the S.A.V.E.S. Canine Club.

Callie still won’t let strangers reach for her to pet most of the time, even when she goes running up to greet them. They have to go for her sides, and sometimes I have to be petting her, too. But that is only true when it comes to adults. Kids are Callie’s one true love. She can be surrounded, in a way that might make another dog feel overwhelmed, and will be more comfortable than she is anywhere else.

We had thought about training Callie as a therapy dog. Now we know we have to. There is nothing she would love better than to show up in a place like the children’s cancer wing and bring smiles to the kids there.

When the historians finally compile the legacy of Norwich’s Dr. Dean Seibert, there may be a slight conflict when published. Will his distinguished medical career be in the forefront of that legacy or will his dedicated world-wide service to humanity take center stage? In both categories, Dean Seibert has become a living legend.

Perhaps we can take a hint from the man himself. During a visit to his Norwich home on a rainy spring morning, Dr. Seibert gave some insight into that issue. At age 84, he is still very active, both as a physician and for the last 25 years as a volunteer for the ACTS (Americans Caring Teaching Sharing) Honduras organization. ACTS was established originally in 1986 to foster cross-cultural understanding and to promote, with our Honduran partners, sustainable programs for health, education, agriculture and economic development.

After looking back at all those trips to Honduras, Dr. Seibert narrowed down his list of highlights and memories by reciting his favorite quote from American anthropologist Margaret Mead. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

“Yes, that is my favorite quotation and it sums up perfectly the work and dedication by ACTS volunteers.” Dr. Seibert noted. “For the last five or six years, I have traveled with a team of volunteers to Honduras twice a year. We would stay there anywhere from ten days to two weeks and I think that was a key to our success. Short visits to help the people there decide their priorities whether it be medical needs, engineering aid, or agricultural. Especially with supplying a source of clean water. Thanks to the Engineers Without Borders organization, that is becoming a reality. What a critical element. With clean water everything is possible.”

Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere and is roughly the size of Tennessee with a population of approximately 8.5 million. The economy in recent years has experienced slow growth, but the distribution of wealth is polarized with 50% of the population living below the poverty level.

“You have to realize that in Honduras, the residents there are extremely lucky if they graduate from the sixth grade. The poverty level is simply incredible and education opportunities are almost non-existent. There is no comparison to living here in an affluent community like Norwich and living in some of those remote villages. Traveling back and forth is a stunning shock to the system. It opens one’s eyes to the reality of this world.” Dr. Seibert stated.

When asked to break down all those trips and experiences and pick a favorite for the past 25 years, Dr. Seibert’s eyes sparkled and a warm smile spread across his face. He was quick to respond.

The dedication of the Dr. Dean Biblioteca in Honduras

“Well… five or six years ago, we started a project where we converted an old building in a local Honduras community and made it into a library. Now, you have to understand that very few of the people here have the ability to read and that is what made this so incredible. When completed, we had – believe it or not – a modern, high-tech library where they could learn to read and benefit from the educational offerings. My proudest moment came when they named the building The Dr. Dean Biblioteca (Library).”

Dr. Seibert’s complete résumé could fill many pages. He was hired by the Dartmouth Medical School in 1965 as an instructor in medicine and the director of graduate medical education. He was familiar with the school having done a fellowship in hematology at Dartmouth-Hitchcock from 1961 to 1963. Dr. Seibert earned his M.D. at Albany Medical College in 1958 and completed his residency at Albany Medical Center in 1961. In 2004, he was the recipient of his alma mater’s humanitarian award. Following that, he worked for a few years at the National Cancer Institute and then served as a commissioned officer in the US Public Health Service. From his earliest days at Dartmouth, he has helped to bring a more global orientation to the medical school and its students.

Dr. Seibert and his wife Anne moved to their Main Street home in Norwich in 1965.

When I was a student, I avoided history. Both my brothers and my dad are dyslexic, and sometimes I feel like I am, too, says Heidi Fishman of Norwich. “I never aspired to be a writer.” So how did she come to be the author of a compelling historical novel about surviving the Holocaust? The story that so strongly moved her beyond her experience as a student, and her practice as a psychologist, was the tale of her mother, Ruth ‘Tutti’ Lichtenstern Fishman, a child survivor of the Holocaust. The result of Heidi’s work is Tutti’s Promise.  Heidi gathered the anecdotes her mother had told her and her brothers as they grew up, and conducted research in Holocaust archives. The book is aimed at middle-school readers, but is a worthwhile read for adults as well. It is told largely through Tutti’s eyes. She was almost five years old when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands; her family had moved there from Germany in 1936 to avoid Nazi rule.

Knowledge and Points of View

Heidi Fishman

An adult reading the book hears the child’s voice which whined for more and nicer food, for time outside and trips to the park, and also understands the anger born of fear and frustration which drove Tutti’s father, Heinz, to snap at his family. Tutti’s mother, Margret, astounds the adult reader with her seemingly bottomless strength and calm. The parents’ obvious tension penetrates their daughter, stifling her complaints and leading her to help entertain her younger brother, Robbie.

The family’s situation was unusual and fortunate in two ways. Heinz was a metals trader, and his expertise and connections were especially valuable in the war. Furthermore, he had become good friends with Egbert de Jong, the Dutch minister of non-ferrous metals. The Nazi commissioner of the office of Reichs Metal wanted de Jong to stay at his job, and confided to him the Nazi plans for eliminating all Jews from the Netherlands. De Jong was not Jewish, but he was horrified by the Nazis’ plans, and, like a small-scale Schindler’s list, did what he could to get some of his Jewish friends declared essential workers as scrap-metal traders. The commandant of the transit camp was eager to turn it into a work camp for sorting scrap metal, since he knew most of the Dutch Jews had been shipped out, and he feared he’d be sent to the front if the camp closed.

This system worked for a while.

As you read, you can’t help thinking of the genocidal wars of the current era. Will help come from the outside if sufferers hold out long enough? Is escape to a safe zone possible? The parents’ efforts to hide the deadly reality of the situation from their children heightens these thoughts, by pointing out the ignorance of the big picture – and of the historical outcome – of the people involved.

Tutti’s Promise provides an excellent model for young writers. It is illustrated with relevant photos and images of documents, all usefully captioned. It has historical notes and references to further sources. It has pronunciations and translations of words from Dutch, German, and Yiddish.

Finding a Publisher

Ruth “Tutti” Lichtenstern Fishman

Heidi worked on her book for five years, visiting sites in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Germany, and researching archives in Europe, Israel, and the US. Eventually her thoughts turned to looking for a publisher, but she was given the usual advice to find an agent first. She began this daunting process in September 2014.

About a year ago, Heidi was trying to track down the yellow star which Tutti remembered giving to a high school boy who was interviewing her in 1975. There was some thought that he’d donated it to a historical society… How to find out? The boy’s name… Was it Cutler? Confusion reigned. Heidi’s father was listening to this discussion, and interrupted to say the name was Catler, and he’d worked with the boy’s father, who was a manager for a heating and air conditioning company who had retired to Florida. Heidi hunted around and left some phone messages. Not much later, she was staying at her mother’s house, and her mother came bursting in waving the phone when Heidi was in the shower. “There I was, standing in my childhood bedroom, dripping wet,” talking to the former high school student. Heidi continues, “He remembers the story, the house, the doll, but not the star. And then he starts asking some really pointed questions, and I can hear a voice in the background saying, ‘Ask her…’” The voice belonged to the man’s partner, Margie Blumberg, principal of MB Publishing, which publishes books aimed at middle grade students, and had recently published a Holocaust book. It was an excellent match.

Heidi has been careful to keep the reading level of Tutti’s Promise appropriate for middle grades. “My mother tells the stories as she remembers them as a child, so that helps keep the level good for kids,” Heidi notes. “I had to be careful in the part about the metal dealers.” While she found fascinating the machinations of de Jong and the Jews he helped, she recognized that most children would not want too much detail on this topic. She’s starting to plan for a book she thinks of as Scraps of Hope to delve into the topic.

A Good Message to Take Away

Popje (“Dolly”)at the conservationist

Some of the wisdom Heidi’s mother hopes to impart with her visits to schools closes the book. “Don’t judge,” she says. “Don’t bully. Help when you can… When you see bad things happening in the world, step up and do something. Even if that thing is small. We all have to work to make this world better.… [M]y story… reminds us that we must never forget what prejudice and hatred can lead to if we don’t confront them together.”

Editor’s Note: For a few years now, the Norwich Times has been featuring our young people thinking, doing, and living outside the box. Rather than follow the traditional four-years-of-high-school onto four-years-of-college route, these adventurous souls are recognizing that there are many paths, and that some may lead to a whole new world to explore. Read about Ebben Whitehair, Gabrielle Alexandrescu, and Sarah Bibeau as they tell us about their exciting travels to distant lands and about their humbling experiences back home.

Nils Kingston, Ebben Whitehair (center), and Katrina Wheelan all did gap years in Chile.

Ebben Whitehair

I don’t plan anything in advance. Just ask my Mom. I started out my gap year knowing that college immediately after high school wouldn’t work for me. I also knew that I had no idea what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I hoped that by taking a gap year I could figure that out.

To give some background, I’d never been on a plane before this year. Take that as you will, but other than two roadtrips south with my family, I hadn’t seen much of the world. I knew that I wanted part of my gap year to involve traveling somewhere. But I needed money to travel, so I had to do some work as well.

Taken from Ebben’s time in Patagonia, Chile

I’d gotten my EMT certification a few months before school ended and realized I could use it to make some money to fund my travels. I got in touch with some friends who worked at a local ambulance service and secured a job as a per-diem EMT. It made me happy; I had spent time and money earning my EMT and now I had a chance to use it.

On my first shift, I was lost. Working in the real world was so much different than learning things in a class. In class, we just worked on simulated patients in fake situations. In real life, people’s lives depended on our actions. But I liked it! Never knowing what was going to happen next helped me get through every day and made me eager to come back. I started picking up more shifts, earned some money, and my hopes of being able to see the world became more of a reality.

Later in the year, my friend, Nils, and I decided to make a trip to Chile; my first real trip out of the country. Nils has extended family outside of Santiago, so we decided to start our trip there. We purchased some plane tickets and in mid-October we set off. We had two deadlines: we had to be in Santiago 24 hours after we took off in order to use a borrowed car, and had to meet another friend two weeks later over 1000 kilometers south. It was the first time I’d been far away from home, just a friend and me, with a whole country to explore. We travelled all over, speaking extremely broken Spanish and trying to spend as little money as possible. We ended up in places I never imagined, and admittedly made some mistakes. One time, we misread some directions and ended up on a dead-end road, literally ending in the ocean. The whole trip made me feel free; and I wouldn’t have changed anything.

Back in the states from my Chilean travels, I longed for more adventure. But once again I was short on money. Winter had arrived and I was back to my ambulance job, and I had also returned to ski patrolling. While most of my friends were off at school, I was working between seventy and eighty hours a week. Admittedly, it may have been too much for me. But, once again money was adding up, making more traveling feasible.

Once ski patrol was over, I looked at my travel choices again. I was looking for a few things, but the most important was a place to stay for free. After talking with some friends, I concocted a plan to visit a friend in Germany for a few days, head to Holland and stay with some family friends for close to a week, and then go to London and spend a week with yet another friend who was studying abroad. This trip felt different than South America. I was on my own, going from country to country on my own. If nothing else, I felt like I’d grown up and found some courage to get out into the world.

I learned that college isn’t the only answer after high school. At this point, it doesn’t look like I’m headed off to a four-year school next fall. I hope to continue to do what I’ve been doing: help people through my ambulance work, find myself through some travel, and grow up into the person I want to be.

Gabby Alexandrescu

Gabby with new friends at a volunteer-based school for laboring children

Taking a gap year has, without a doubt, been the best decision I’ve made. I made the decision quite late, about three weeks before graduation. I wasn’t entirely sure of what I would do with my year, but I knew that I wanted to make it meaningful. With that, I decided I would spend the first half working, and the second half traveling and volunteering abroad.

I learned a lot more than I ever imagined by working. The purpose was to give myself some real life experience, to see what life outside of high school is like, and what life without college would look like. I worked at my mom’s chocolate shop, My Brigadeiro, as a full-time manager. Being there was a positive experience. I thought it would be very difficult to ‘stay behind’ while all of my close friends went to college. If anything, it gave me a whole new outlook on life and the sort of person I would like to become. Working made me grateful for the opportunity to go to college, and eager to set and achieve higher goals than I had ever previously imagined. Along with all of that, it was wonderful to spend that much time with my mom we became absolutely inseparable. More than the work experience, I am most thankful to have spent that time with her.

As for the second half of my year, I knew I wanted to go abroad, but it took some time to decide on where and what kind of experience I wanted. I finally determined that what was most important to me was to give my time and energy to someone else while immersing myself into a culture far different from my own. With that, I decided to spend time in Nepal, working with several different childcare initiatives.

I discovered Nepal through an organization known as IVHQ which connects volunteers with local NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in countries looking for assistance. The thing that appealed to me the most about volunteer-based travel is that you are completely out of your element (culture, language, etc.), all while making a difference.

I spent my first two weeks in Nepal touring two different cities. The highlight by far was being able to ride and bathe an elephant, and getting an elephant trunk shower in return! After my initial travel, I was ready to start my volunteer work.

Every child made an impact on Gabby’s life, including at the Rainbow Children Home Nepal

One of the best things about being in Nepal was being able to live with a host family. This truly allowed me to experience day-to-day life within the culture, rather than as an outsider. I lived a 20-minute walk from the tourist hub, in a suburb known as Masbar, entirely local with very few tourists venturing anywhere near. I really enjoyed this because it made me feel a part of the culture, and less like a tourist. After a while, I became very familiar with my neighbors and really felt like I was living there, not just staying for a period of time.

I have nothing but positive things to say about my host family: father, Dharma; his wife, Sandhi; and their two sons, Santosh (16) and Sabodh (13). The first thing that my host father said to me when I arrived will always stick with me: “Starting today, we are your second family and we will care for and love you as we do our own children. Welcome to your new home.” They were beyond kind to me. I can never thank them enough for all that they did for me.

I spent most of my time in a local orphanage known as Rainbow Children Home Nepal. The orphanage cares for 43 children and is run by a woman named Goma and her family who welcomed me with open arms each day. Although the orphanage itself is rather self-sufficient, it was still struggling. The children only had two sets of clothing; their school uniforms and one set they could wear when not in school. The living situation was not ideal. Eight children (ages 3-19) shared two sets of bunk beds per room. In other words, two children per twin bed!

Gabby at the beginning of her trek to the Everest Base Camp

Before I left for Nepal, I started a fundraiser through GoFundMe to help raise some money to donate to the orphanage. With the help of my friends and family, I was able to bring around $1000. One of my favorite days in Nepal was going with the orphanage owner to buy new school uniforms and bedding for all 43 of the children. I felt that the orphanage was the place that needed the most help, and the gratitude I received was indescribable.

In addition to the time I volunteered at the orphanage, I helped my host father who ran before-and-after-school tutoring sessions for the local village children. I also discovered and helped out at the Laboring Children’s School Project which focused on local children who cannot go to school because they, in fact, work to provide an income for their families.

I will never be able to fully describe my experience working with the children that I came across. Each one made an impact on my life and I can only hope that I did on theirs as well. The whole experience was nothing but a blessing. What was most amazing to me is that these kids, whose lives are more difficult than I could ever imagine, are some of the happiest people I’ve ever seen. All smiles all the time. They find happiness in nearly anything.

To round out my experience in Nepal, I was fortunate enough to join a trekking group and spend 20 days in the Himalayas. This gave me the opportunity to experience a whole other layer to Nepal, and a different kind of beauty that I had never seen before. Being able to see some of the tallest mountains in the world (Mount Everest especially) was one of the most special moments of my life.

Sarah Bibeau

Sarah in an apartment in front of Saint-Michel

I never intended on taking a gap year or gap. I wanted the typical college experience: get paired up with a roommate, decorate a dorm room, go on an orientation trip… When I got my acceptance letter to Colby College, there was a slight hitch. I had been accepted into their Global Entry Semester Program. Instead of driving up to Waterville, Maine, in the fall, I would be flying across the ocean to Dijon, France.

Summer quickly passed and then it was time to go. We reached the airport and I recognized one of the girls in my group. We said our awkward hellos and our parents introduced themselves. Soon it was time for us to say goodbye to our parents, and then it became real. I would be with these people for the next three-and-a-half months in a foreign country.

Our group of fourteen and our program director/professor, Jon Weiss, arrived in Dijon after a two-hour bus ride. That night we stayed in a hotel and ate pizza in Jon’s apartment in the center of town while easing into getting to know each other. We made it back to the hotel and after almost twenty-four hours of traveling, it was finally time for bed. I just lay there thinking, “This is real, this is happening, this is my life.” I was excited and terrified at the same time.

The next couple of days consisted of getting settled and going through our orientation. After a couple of days, we finally moved in with our host families. Being an only child, I had asked Jon for host siblings, and he delivered. I had five host siblings under the age of fourteen. They were funny, cute, and kind and helped me feel more comfortable in my new home. My host mom, Éliette, and my host dad, François, were wonderful as well.

rah helping host brother, Séraphin, ice skate in Place de la République, a square in Dijon

We began classes at the Université de Bourgogne. At first we were split into two groups for an intensive language course before we would start our normal classes. After one week of that, we took our first official excursion to two chateaus. The next week, we had another excursion to the south of France. We took a bus down with our history professor. We explored incredible Roman ruins, swam in the Mediterranean Sea, and danced until we dropped. It was an incredible week and brought our group closer together. We drove back to Dijon and resumed classes for a week.

Then the next Monday, we took off for Paris. We stayed in a youth hostel about a five-minute walk from the Seine. Each morning we would wake up to see whatever Jon had scheduled for us, and by noon we were free to explore the city for ourselves. It was a magical week.

After Paris and the Loire Valley, we traveled back to Dijon and got back into classes. Although I was in a classroom for a couple hours every day, my proficiency in French was growing exponentially outside of the classroom. Sitting at the dinner table, eating at a restaurant, just walking around the city… everything helped. We met people everywhere who were interested in our ‘American-ness’ just as much as we were in learning their language.

For the next couple weeks, we stayed in Dijon and before we knew it, it was our ‘fall break.’ We had a week off from classes and many people’s parents came to visit, including mine. We traveled the whole week. We started in Dijon and drove to the border of France and Germany where we spent two days exploring Vieux Charmant and Colmar, cities of my great-great grandparents heritage. We then crossed into Germany and then continued on to Bern, Switzerland. We finished our exciting week in Paris. Having the opportunity to share with my parents what I had been experiencing for the past six weeks was a gift.

The day my parents left, I caught a flight to Scotland to visit one of my best friends at Saint Andrews University. After I landed in Edinburgh, I was lucky enough to find a Saint Andrew’s student heading back to school who helped me navigate the bus to the university. As we chatted, the student revealed that one of his dreams in life was to hike the Appalachian Trail, which happens to pass through Norwich! Hearing this, I once again realized no matter how far you travel, the world really is quite small.

Classes resumed in Dijon for the next couple of weeks, and our group became even closer. The following weekend, my three closest friends and I hopped on a train to Switzerland. We were able to stay at a family friend’s house in the beautiful city of Lausanne. We walked around the city, I rode a horse, and two of my friends jumped in Lake Geneva. It was a perfect weekend.

After another week of classes, a large number of us planned a trip to Barcelona for All Saints Day long weekend. We got an AirBnB in the center of the old part of the city and made the most of our three days. After a beautiful, warm, relaxing weekend in Spain, we returned to Dijon where we once again dove back into our studies.

Group lunch at the Chateau Comarin

My last weeks in Dijon were incredible. The city had been decorated with lights and the Christmas markets were in full swing. For my last weekend in France, instead of traveling I stayed home and spent it with my family. I had no desire to add another country to my list; I was home, and it was perfect. The last five days flew by, and suddenly it was my last meal with my family, my last sleep in my bed. I said goodbye to each of my siblings, holding on as long as I could. I sat on my bed and burst into tears. I was excited to go home, but I was heartbroken to leave. The hurt made me realize what I had accomplished in only three-and-a-half months. I had become a part of a family. I fell in love with a city, a culture, and a language, and I had found a new home. If you had asked me what my goals were at the beginning of the trip, I would have said to become fluent in French, to travel as much as possible, and to make great friends. While I accomplished all of those, I gained more than I could have ever imagined. I will never forget my time in Dijon, and will be forever grateful for the opportunity I didn’t even know I wanted.

In the Upper Valley, members of various faith and secular communities have come together to form the Upper Valley Refugee Working Group. The Working Group focuses both on refugees coming to the immediate area, as well as helping the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program based in Rutland, VT. In January, The Upper Valley Refugee Working Group hosted Light the Way, a benefit for both the Upper Valley Haven and the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program.

Light the Way announced goals, “on a practical level, every household needs a lamp or two to brighten the home! …Light the Way will collect gently used table and floor lamps to be given to resettling refugee households to brighten the years ahead.” Also, Light the Way was intended to be “a space of refuge to raise community awareness of the needs of those seeking shelter among us: refugee families arriving in Vermont and New Hampshire during the coming year, as well as those families seeking refuge already present in our communities.”

I had the chance to speak to Julie Püttgen, the organizer of Light the Way, about the project and the Upper Valley Refugee Working Group. The Working Group was started, in part, by Paul Manganiello and Our Savior Lutheran Church in Hanover, NH. Julie wasn’t part of the original group, but she joined when she saw a post on the listserv last year.

It’s amazing, she noted, “I’m a Buddhist, I didn’t have much contact previously to being involved with this group, with the local church communities, and it’s been terrific. I feel so glad to be connected to so many people of good will and good faith.”

There are members of many different area churches that come; there are Mormons, Jews, secular Atheists, and more. Julie was amazed by this mix of faiths, because, as she pointed out, we are quite good at hunkering down in our immediate worlds, and this group isn’t like that.

For the Light the Way event, one of the members of the Working Group, Sarah Nordstrom, approached her church, The Church of Christ at Dartmouth College, to see if they would be willing to donate their space for the event. And boy were they willing!

Julie said, “I felt like I kept pushing the envelope,” as thoughts grew. Through both her own ideas and suggestions from friends, it evolved from collecting lamps to a whole weekend event. After Friday’s opening events, Saturday was full of panel discussions, tai chi, a protest march, refugee yoga, a community dinner and dance, and Sunday held a closing event. Every time she approached the Church with more plans, they responded positively, further offering up their space.

“I felt like there were opportunities for people to show up to Light the Way with whatever their gifts were… some people donated just beautiful, beautiful things. One guy came in, and his mother-in-law had been a refugee from Czechoslovakia, and she had moved to this area, and she had made this beautiful ceramic lamp base and the lamp had on it this beautiful handmade lampshade.”

For Julie, Light the Way was significant for many reasons. Julie is a first-generation immigrant from Switzerland, and from 1974 to 2006 was a resident alien in this country. For some time, she went abroad and screwed up a bit; she reentered the country on a tourist visa which ended up making her deportable for a period. Julie noted that while she had less to worry about than others, as being sent back to Switzerland wasn’t going to be horrific, but it wasn’t where she wanted to be. She said “I had the tiniest taste of what it felt like to be an illegal immigrant in this country,” and, during that time, she met several families struggling to stay together which made a strong impact on her.

She also spent a good deal of time working with refugees in various countries, struggling to make it out of dangerous situations. “[Recently] I got a message from an Iranian woman I was working with in France last year, and she was writing to tell me that she and her husband had just been officially recognized as asylum seekers in the UK and they went the most scary, dangerous way possible in that they snuck onto a truck. They paid ‘people smugglers’ to take them from Gallés, France to the UK.

When I was there, they were trying every single night to do this, and she was pregnant, and she fell off a truck and had a miscarriage. So, in this really short time that I knew her, I just had this sense of the total desperation of their case, and I couldn’t believe it, they did it, through this completely perilous route, they found refuge.”

But as much as we might hear about those horrible experiences overseas and wonder what we can do, Julie wanted to make sure this event demonstrated that refugee work doesn’t have to be about international events. Refugees are also living among and coming to our community, and there is immediate work to be done.

With spring just around the corner, Norwich residents are looking forward to the return of greenery and spending time outdoors. As the weather warms, the volunteers who keep Norwich green are rolling up their sleeves and ready to get to work maintaining the town’s trails, forests, parks, and conservation easements. These eager volunteers are supported by a large network of organizations both in Norwich and across the Upper Valley.

The new pump track at Huntley Meadow is maintained by a wide range of volunteers, including Emily Biolsi’s class at the Marion Cross School. This fall, the students worked together with community volunteers and Ryan Johnson, a member of the Norwich Recreation Council. Johnson showed the students what work needed to be done and gave them instructions on how to use the tools, which were supplied by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. Jill Kearney, Director of the Norwich Recreation Department, says of the student volunteer day: “Days like that just are a highlight. It’s fabulous to see that the kids have a teacher who is so excited about environmental stewardship. When the kids go back there they don’t want to leave trash on the side of the track because they worked on it. It’s great to see these values being passed on and see the kids caring for the community and being a steward.”

Nick Krembs and Jim Faughnan, Norwich Trails Committee members, with UVTA staff on Gile Mountain

John Girard is a former teacher at the Marion Cross school and another member of the Norwich Recreation Council. When he isn’t coaching basketball and baseball, Girard leads an annual cleanup of the baseball diamonds. He organizes a Saturday morning Green Up Day at the baseball diamond and invites all the parents of the season’s players. The Recreation Department supplies shovels, edgers, and wheelbarrows; the volunteers also care for the base pads and rake the infield. This all-volunteer annual event gets everyone (including the fields) ready for spring baseball.

The Upper Valley Trails Alliance (UVTA) works throughout the Upper Valley, but has a strong focus in Norwich due to its office location in town. UVTA works with the Norwich Trails Committee and the Norwich Fire District to assess trail maintenance needs, such as trail re-routes, bridge planning, and treadway clearing. Volunteers from UVTA recently completed a five-year-long project in Norwich on the beloved Gile Mountain trail, installing stone steps to make the trail more sustainable for the thousands of hikers who come annually. Over 100 volunteers worked with UVTA and the Norwich trails committee at Gile Mountain, averaging one to two volunteer groups working on the project per week during the trail season. UVTA has also worked with volunteers from King Arthur Flour to complete bog-bridge improvements on the “Spirit in Nature” path, as well as clearing portions of the King Arthur Trail. This spring, UVTA will be working on a trail project near the Dresden Athletic Field, connecting to the King Arthur field. They are also planning out a new mountain bike area for kids around the Dresden Athletic Field during the 2017 trail season.

The Upper Valley Land Trust (UVLT) manages several conservation easements in Norwich. They acquired the Norwich Gateway property in 2009, which had been previously abandoned and was overrun with invasive buckthorn and honeysuckle. With the help of over a thousand volunteer hours from Hypertherm and Norwich community members, there’s virtually no buckthorn or honeysuckle left on the property, giving native plants a chance to compete and thrive. Volunteers continue to maintain the habitat and remove the invasives each year, while educating the community about habitat restoration. UVLT also manages the Milton Frye Nature Area, which is connected to the Marion Cross School. The students use it as an outdoor classroom with the help of environmental education coordinator Lindsay Putnam. The students learn about invasive species as part of the curriculum and work alongside UVLT volunteers to keep the invasives at bay.

Students from Ms. Biolsi’s 6th-grade class working on the Pump Track with UVTA and Norwich Rec

At the Brook Mead Conservation Area, UVLT owns the land at Norwich Farms, which is used by Vermont Technical College as a teaching farm, as well as having forest areas and trails on the land. Every Earth Day, UVLT trains community volunteers to help with easement monitoring. There are 15 vernal pools on the property, and UVLT volunteers help collect natural resource data from the pools and submit the data to the state. UVLT is also partnering with a researcher at Dartmouth College who is conducting research on wood frogs and a reptile survey on the property. “The land is here to serve lots of values. The citizen science part is very important to us,” says Jason Berard, the Stewardship Director at UVLT. In coordination with Norwich Trails Committee, UVLT is also working to link the Brook Mead trails to neighboring trails on Parcel 5 and the Blue Ribbon Trail on Gile Mountain.

Berard encourages community members to reach out to UVLT with ideas and suggestions for ways to better serve Norwich residents. “We’re always interested in hearing how we can be of use to the community.” he says. “Our portfolio is here to serve the whole community. We want to hear needs the community has for land we own.”

Publisher’s Note: The Norwich Times’ mission is to uplift, inspire and build positive community through the printed page. We do not publish anything pertaining to national or even local politics or any other sensationalist or potentially divisive content.

While running this article, seemingly about the Women’s March, could be construed as political, my intention is not about politics at all. What inspired me to walk this fine line, and to tell the stories of local people who attended one March or another, was the overwhelming takeaway for each was peace and love. No matter which side of an issue one is on, it’s hard not to agree that peace and love are common values among all humans.

When reaching out to some of the women whom we knew had attended, we specifically asked them to focus on the inspiring stories and positive feelings they felt during the whole experience outside their political views. While some of their agendas are embedded in their stories, our intention is not to promote their viewpoints, but rather to let their voices speak to the power they felt by taking action for something in which they believe strongly, and in the overall uplifting and inspiring experiences they each had.

~ Jen MacMillen

Ann Marie Smith, Norwich VT

Ann Marie Smith and Allegra Lubrano in Boston

I knew from the time the March in DC was announced that I had to participate. I needed to do something. I worried that I couldn’t get to DC, and was delighted when Marches were announced for other cities; I knew then that I would go, I didn’t know where, but I knew I had to be at one. When I read that Elizabeth Warren would speak at the Boston rally, I was hopeful to go there. Being a displaced New York suburbanite, I was lucky my friend Allegra Lubrano (of Hanover, NH) who knows Boston, also wished to go. We were very glad to be there early to witness the ease at which everything unfolded that day. People simply flowed into the city all morning; they kept coming and coming. There were no bullhorns or sirens, no need for direction. Everyone was polite, cheerful, supportive, and to our pleasant surprise, there were no counter protestors, just one lone elderly man standing on a street corner with a sign and a ‘you know what’ hat. There were women and men of all ages, carrying children of all ages. It was wonderful to see every generation, gender, color, and culture represented. The synergy was palpable; you truly could feel the power of the people. We were lucky enough to be standing in the right spot when Elizabeth Warren’s car entered the Boston Commons. She rolled down her window and I reached out to shake her hand, she took it. I said “thank you,” to which she replied, “No, thank you!” Her speech brought roars from the already energized crowd and that heightened the preexisting feeling of unity and pride. The Mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh, spoke next and although it didn’t seem possible, he was even more spirited than Senator Warren. The crowd was ebullient, yet at the same time, the moment and the occasion itself, was bittersweet. As happy as I was to be there, I was filled with conflicting feelings. That we, in 2017, have to rally and prepare to defend the reproductive rights and equality for women is truly astonishing to me. That we are still fighting for equality, for women, people of color, immigrants, and the LGBTQ community makes me very sad. I saw so many women who were there rallying for the same causes they had spent their youth rallying for.

Team March by Cindy Pierce

Cindy Pierce of Etna, NH; Norwich resident, Kristin Brown; Elizabeth Keene of Springfield, NH; Laurie Harrington of Walpole, NH; and Andrea Johnstone of Plainfield, NH unite as women with a voice.

When our friend, Norwich resident, Kristin Brown booked rooms right after the Women’s March was announced, our plans for a road trip were set alight. Elizabeth Keene of Springfield, NH, Laurie Harrington of Walpole, NH, and Andrea Johnstone of Plainfield, NH (three Hanover High School guidance counselors), Kristin, and I started our drive at Laurie’s on a Friday afternoon.

Unified to step up to a whole new level of activism was sparked by the fact that we felt our country had hit rock bottom. Laurie explained her motivation to join the March, “Activist is not a word I would have ever used for myself. I went to DC to show solidarity…and to show that our country values compassion and tolerance over isolationism and fear.”

We felt the unity expanding beyond our group every time someone honked or waved in response to the “HEAR OUR VOICE” sign taped to the back of our car. Five educators driving for eleven hours provided ample opportunity to catch up on our families and work, as well as discuss how the changes in laws and policies would impact marginalized people in the country. We did acknowledge our own privilege to be able to make the trip and stand together for issues important to us.

Sea of pink hats

From the moment we entered the crowded subway in the morning, until we were walking away from the dispersing march, we were overwhelmed by the positive energy, warmth, and openness of all the participants. We were bolstered throughout the day by the meaningful (and hilarious) signs, the powerful speeches, and being surrounded by wildly interesting people. By the time we were getting off the subway, we knew that change and hope would prevail if we could avoid divisive anger. When we saw the news of marches around the world, it was clear that the revolution had begun.

Patriotic Marchers

Elizabeth described what inspired her to carry on with activism, “The March was inspiring and powerful, but what stood out for me the most was a renewed hope. It felt good to be doing something and being around the hundreds of thousands of people who were all there for a similar cause – a shared concern that our country might go backward.”

Laurie reminded us that showing up isn’t enough and that we need to respond to the call for action by the inspirational speakers like Gloria Steinem, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Moore, and the organizers of the March. Laurie has committed to make letter-writing, phone calls to her representatives, and finding ways to be involved in local politics a regular part of her life. “We all need to be activists now!”

As we got closer to home, Kristin reflected, “The March experience was like an ocean. We were a wave that crashed into DC. Our journey home was the wave retreating but with renewed energy and life picked up along the way, which will energize us through these next four years.”

Maggie Tiblier Pepper, Norwich, VT

Crowds of supporters

Thinking of friends around the world, I booked one of the very last seats on a round-trip overnight bus from Lebanon, NH to DC. Ten pm departure, 9am arrival. Eight pm departure, 7am arrival.

I took to the streets wearing my hand-knit pussyhat to stand united with the people. To protect each other; locally and globally.

I was raised to identify with the “oppressed,” not the “oppressor,” to question authority and especially the patriarchy.

Born in New Orleans and raised in San Francisco, I grew up navigating race, gender, and class. Some of my earliest memories include sitting in our family’s van singing “Ain’t gonna let that Henry Kissinger turn me around, turn me around, turn me around…”

I have had the privilege of single sex education, choice, and travel. I have walked the desert of Palmyra, seen check-out lines on American Indian Reservations, explored the halls of yadvashem, looked through the bars on Robben Island, stood in Tiananmen Square, seen the spinning wheel in India, and was arrested protesting “the first Gulf War.” To live is to witness, to question, and participate.

On January 21st, there was no other choice for me but to “represent,” set an example for our children, and question today’s leadership in America.

As history shows us, the people united will never be defeated.

John Pepper is living proof that even during these turbulent times in which we now live, the American dream of achieving corporate success is alive and well. However, spending time with Norwich resident John Pepper will quickly convince you that even with his history of

overwhelming corporate success, he has broken the mold for a top executive. No fancy board room for John. His Norwich home serves as his corporate headquarters, as well as a single desk in shared office space across the river.

“We want all our employees to excel,” says Boloco’s John Pepper.

John serves as CEO and cofounder of Boloco that was once described as “A Boston-based family of 22 restaurants and over 450 team members that serves globally inspired burritos, bowls, salads, smoothies and shakes with locations in MA, VT, MD, RI, DC, and of course, Hanover, NH.” John has modified that description.

“When the corporation went through financial difficulties in 2015, I returned to Boloco, bought out our institutional investors, and have since reduced the number of restaurants to 11. I now base everything right here in the Upper Valley. My wife Maggie and I pretty much had our choice as to where we wanted to live when I first left Boloco in 2013. Debating between Boston, San Francisco, and the Upper Valley, the whole family agreed on Norwich. This is where we call home.” John stated.

He is certainly no stranger to Norwich and Hanover. John has long been a fixture in both locations having graduated from Dartmouth College in 1991 and The Tuck School of Business in 1997.

“I really got to know the area as a second-year Tuck Student,” he explained. “I rented a house in Norwich up on Hawk Pine in the mid-’90s and later bought our first home way up on Turnpike and lived there for six years starting in 2003. All of our kids were born here. As Boloco was based in Boston, I commuted every week on the Dartmouth Coach and later Cape Air. That got a little tiring, so we left Norwich for 5 years to be in downtown Boston when the business was expanding quickly, but returned to Elm Street in 2014. We love it here.”

Once established in the late ’90s, Boloco and its cofounder charted a course that most powerful restaurant chains had not followed. Boloco’s mission statement placed its workers’ welfare over maximizing bottom line profits, an unheard-of policy in most corporate worlds. The following is a portion of Boloco’s mission statement: “Creating a platform to safely and systemically amplify the voice and increase the income of low-wage workers in retail, services, and hospitality. Most importantly, however, its long-time mission to positively impact the lives and futures of people who work in fast food through bold and inspired food practices has put the company on a different playing field.”

“We want all our employees to excel. Our workers should be able to move on in their lives and earn a wage that supports their families. We offer food service safety courses, ESOL classes, and leadership retreats that allow them to move forward and take management positions at Boloco or elsewhere. We believe in a higher wage not just as the right thing to do but as an effective long-term business strategy. Our average wage in Hanover, for example, comes to around $14.50 an hour, double the minimum wage,” John said. Today, Boloco is also one of the few restaurant companies in the country that is a certified B-Corporation, joining the likes of King Arthur Flour in legally recognizing a triple bottom line – people, environment and profits – as a company’s fiduciary responsibility.

Studying John’s self-written résumé will explain his passion for his workers and his dedication to the cause. Here is how he once described himself. “Passionate about finding and developing technology that aids the restaurant business and most importantly its hourly workers. Working on new technology start-up as of late 2014. Part-time Lyft/Uber driver, drone pilot, wannabe/try-to-be writer, inconsistent blogger, nervous but passionate speaker and enthusiastic adventurer. Got lucky one year and won the 2012 Regional Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year.”

John Pepper is not your average executive. He is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio and his wife Maggie was born in San Francisco, CA. They have established Norwich as their home base and have three children, daughters Tibby, age 13, and Izzy, age 11, and newest addition son Bo is three years old. At age 47, John hopes to add another challenge to that résumé.

“I just announced that I will run for the Selectboard here in Norwich. I am hopeful I can bring some new ideas and creative concepts to that position.”

John Pepper with Boston Mayor Menino