Collaborations
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 are poorly engineered, serving the systems’ administrators more than the people they claim to serve. And other systems were deliberately constructed to enfranchise the privileged and disenfranchise everyone else. Addressing systemic marginalization, disenfranchisement, and oppression is complex work. Green Mountain Justice believes that systems will only work justly when their design and operation center the needs of those they are constructed to support.
What most non-profits refer to as “programs,” Green Mountain Justice calls collaborations. And we build collaborations one connection, one relationship at a time, across a full spectrum justice ministry. We collaborate with those most committed to 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 toward justice will require love-centric values, courage, a transformative spirit, and a coming together of leaders committed to change.
If your spirit feels mobilized, if you hear the call to fight inequity, dismantle oppressive structures, heal and liberate each other, and clear the way for a beloved “community of communities”—support us, and come explore how you might co-conspire for justice.
Neighbor Care
Green Mountain Justice catches neighbors who are falling through the cracks. We create relationships that 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.
Neighbor Care Neighbors
Our Neighbor Care Neighbors (NCN) program is the heart of Green Mountain Justice’s relational approach to community care. Rather than operating through impersonal systems, we carefully curate a network of volunteers who understand that true support comes through authentic human connection.
Our NCN volunteers undergo thoughtful training in active listening, cultural humility, and trauma-informed care. We prioritize relationships above bureaucratic interactions, helping to (re)instill dignity while centering the needs and inherent worthiness of our marginalized neighbors. They build authentic relationships, provide emotional support during difficult times, connect neighbors with our extensive network of community partners, and offer practical assistance when needed—ensuring no one faces their struggles alone.
This isn’t charity work—it’s justice work. By getting proximate to those who are suffering, our Neighbor Care Neighbors gain insights crucial for transformation and co-liberation. They embody our core values of interdependence, love, and generosity while building the beloved community where everyone’s voice matters.
This calling isn’t for everyone, which is why we curate our volunteer network mindfully. If you’re drawn to ending relational poverty and isolation while potentially making a profound difference in someone’s life, reach out to Tom to learn more about our next training session.
Neighbors’ Table
In stressful and divisive times, we need spaces where we can connect authentically with one another. The GMJ Neighbors’ Table is our answer—a nurturing “third space” that’s not home, not work, but somewhere we can come as our full selves and know we belong.
Designed especially for neighbors whose voices are too often unheard, the Neighbors’ Table centers the needs of those facing life’s greatest challenges while creating space for authentic connection through mutual care, deep listening, and beloved community. This gathering is where we practice the heart of Green Mountain Justice: ensuring every neighbor feels truly valued, heard, and held.
We prioritize the wisdom and experiences of those most affected by injustice and inequity through our “third space” methodology—a welcoming environment that brings neighbors of all walks of life into meaningful relationship. Meeting in person at Fenn House (Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Society) with Zoom access for virtual participation, our gatherings are shaped by participants’ needs, interests, and hopes for connection. We create space where neighbors can share struggles, celebrate victories, and offer each other practical and emotional support.
The Neighbors’ Table embodies our belief that the people most affected by injustice hold the keys to solutions. Through storytelling, deep listening, and shared meals, we build the “community of communities” where no one has to face their challenges alone. Our approach responds not only to the suffering experienced by our marginalized neighbors, but also to the moral injury being experienced by so many of us.
Whether you’re someone navigating life’s challenges or someone called to walk alongside others in solidarity, you belong at our table. Every voice matters, every story has value, and together we’re building beloved community one conversation, one connection, one caring act at a time. For information about upcoming gatherings, contact Tom or follow our updates on the Caring & Connecting page.
Green Mountain Justice collaborates 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.
Voices from the Edge Podcast Series
At Green Mountain Justice, we believe that real change happens when we stop talking about people and start talking with them. “Voices from the Edge” lifts up the stories of disenfranchised Vermonters whose experiences are too often overlooked or misunderstood—neighbors who are living a precarious existence, struggling with housing and food insecurity, working essential jobs for wages that don’t cover basic needs, and navigating systems that seem designed to keep them out rather than help them succeed.
Green Mountain Justice centers the humanity and needs of these marginalized neighbors. Through intimate conversations in people’s homes and communities, this six-episode series reveals the impossible contradictions our neighbors face: a working mother who fought for nearly two years to secure stable housing while raising three children and volunteering as an EMT; a veteran navigating racism and systemic barriers while experiencing homelessness; and a couple who fell from middle-class stability into sleeping under bridges after health crises devastated their finances. These are hardworking people earning too much to qualify for assistance yet too poor for housing, essential workers who serve our community daily while fighting for their own stability, and resilient individuals whose stories challenge our assumptions about poverty, homelessness, and what it means to belong in Vermont.
Produced by the amazing storyteller Corey Hendrickson, each episode drops every three weeks starting this September, offering a chance to truly listen to the lived experiences of our neighbors and discover our collective power to create meaningful change. Because transformation isn’t just personal—it’s communal, and it starts with the simple, revolutionary act of listening.
Advocacy
For Green Mountain Justice, advocating for unity, freedom, equity, and justice for all starts with having relationships with neighbors who embody the results of division, servitude, inequity, and injustice. We are present to advocate for and with every neighbor in our network of care. We also 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.
Freedom & Unity: Voices from Our Community
Green Mountain Justice partners with the Addison Independent newspaper in Vermont’s Champlain Valley in their “Freedom & Unity” editorial series, amplifying diverse voices on justice, equity, and interdependence in our communities. This award-winning collaboration showcases perspectives from neighbors who are often marginalized—including those experiencing homelessness, poverty, mental health challenges, and systemic oppression.
Recent contributors include neighbors in recovery, advocates working in rural communities, and those with direct experience of homelessness and intersectional marginalization. These authentic voices demonstrate that those most affected by injustice hold crucial insights for transformation and healing.
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 in the Summer of 2024. It meets at CVUUS regularly. TPAC has expressed its gratitude for CVUUS’s generosity in 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.
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.