Collaborations
We ally with co-conspirators for justice to strategize and implement a wide range of innovative, justice-focused actions, from tactical work designed to alleviate the suffering of disenfranchised and dispossessed Vermonters to well-organized advocacy focused on bending history towards justice and beloved community.
Neighbor Care
Too many neighbors are falling through the cracks of overburdened, broken, overly transactional systems. Green Mountain Justice works to catch those neighbors, honor their humanity and equal opportunities to thrive, help connect them with services that meet their needs, and advocate for transformation to improve their lives. We see it every day: families and individuals just trying to survive the intersecting forces of impoverishment, trauma, health challenges, substance use disorders, racism, and other oppressions. Green Mountain Justice steps into those intersections with our neighbors. We help with some practical shortfalls by assisting with rent, groceries, transportation expenses, kids’ clothes, a meal, or something else. We listen closely and systematically assess our neighbors’ needs, and open connections for them to benefit from the compassionate services of our many community partners. As we come alongside our neighbors in need with holistic, integrated care, we always prioritize our relationships with those we serve and partner above the bureaucratic, transactional aspects of our interactions.
Being available, fully present, and relational, with resources and collaborative partners, we try to (re)instill a sense of dignity in the daily lives of our marginalized neighbors, whose needs and inherent worthiness are always centered in our work for justice. Your donations to Green Mountain Justice help us sustain this work, making you an essential partner in transforming lives for the better.
Consulting & Conspiring
If you ask marginalized neighbors, they will tell you that today’s status quo systems of care are failing. In some cases, they are breaking because they are overburdened. Some care systems were improperly designed. And other systems were deliberately constructed to enfranchise the privileged and disenfranchise everyone else. Assessing and addressing systemic marginalization, disenfranchisement, and oppression is a complex business. In his previous professional life, our founder spent almost four decades leading teams successfully analyzing, designing and planning, operating, and fixing highly complex information systems and even more complex social network systems. Green Mountain Justice believes that systems of care will only work well when their design and operation fully account for the needs of those they are constructed to support.
Green Mountain Justice consults with those most interested in dismantling harmful systems and creating equitable, just ones that improve the lives of our marginalized neighbors and enable beloved community. This is hard work. History shows that most privileged folks enfranchised in the status quo prioritize their comfort above the needs of the disenfranchised. Bending the arc of that history more towards justice will love-centric values, a transformative spirit, and a coming together of leaders committed to change. If you are ready to be part of such a transformational movement, Green Mountain Justice is prepared to co-conspire with you.
Advocacy
Green Mountain Justice advocates for unity, freedom, equity, and justice for all. We arm communities with information they can use to engage and work with their policy and decision-makers to bring about generative change. Policies and decision options often look different from the perspective of a neighbor who has been the victim of inequitable, unjust conditions. So we help organize and mobilize communities interested in ensuring the voices and needs of the marginalized are centered in those policies and decisions.
Stay informed on opportunities to advocate through our Caring & Connecting page. And reach out if you or your organization would like to partner on efforts to create systemic change.
Queerly Beloved
In collaboration with one of its core partners, Turning Point of Addison County, Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Society (CVUUS) launched “Queerly Beloved,” an addiction recovery group centered on the needs of our community’s LGBTQIA+ members this past summer. It meets at CVUUS regularly. TPAC has expressed out grateful they are that CVUUS is providing such a safe, welcoming space for connection among queer community members who do not feel safe in mixed-gender meetings.
If you are an LGBTQIA+ neighbor looking for connection and community that values your inherent worth and dignity, or you are an ally looking for ways to support our beloved LGBTQIA+ neighbors, please reach out to Tom for details on how to join Queerly Beloved.
Burlington Sunday Morning Breakfast
Innovation and inter-congregational collaboration are key to finding solutions to inequity and injustice. The good people of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington (FUUSB) are practicing their faith through just such innovation with their “Sunday Morning Breakfast” (SMB) program. Tom and his family have joined the FUUSB team as they served breakfast, handed out clothing items, and spent time over 100 members of Burlington’s unhoused community. Tom was invited to preach at FUUSB on the second anniversary of FUUSB’s SMB program.
If you want to join Tom in future collaborations with FUUSB like the “Sunday Morning Breakfast” program, please contact him.
Education Around Power, Privilege, and Justice
Supporting education that integrates theoretical and applied knowledge to create equity and justice, Green Mountain Justice is honored to collaborate with Middlebury College and the Privilege & Poverty (P&P) program in its Center for Community Engagement (CCE). P&P is a learning community that brings classrooms and communities together to address the causes and consequences of poverty, and cultivate lifelong ethical participation in society. P&P connects learning in the classroom to learning in the community, informed and enriched through our sustained, collaborative relationships with community organizations and coalitions, along with our collaborations with other institutions of higher education. We put learning to work to address the causes and consequences of economic inequality.
An example of a successful CCE P&P collaboration is the Clifford Symposium series, which in 2024 was entitled “Home: Housing and Belonging in Middlebury and Beyond.” For the first time, part of the symposium took place at Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Society (CVUUS). CVUUS hosted a “connection & action” lunch as well as filmmaker Bess O’Brien and a screening of her documentary Just Getting By.