Reflecting on a visit to Bakersfield, Vermont

Through our education and outreach initiatives our staff and interns travel to various locations throughout the Lake Champlain watershed.

The snippet below is our summer intern reflection on one of these events: 

“I had never been to Bakersfield, Vermont until I was scheduled to teach the watershed model lesson at the town’s Fourth of July parade. After narrowly avoiding parking the Prius in the lot for tractors, antique cars, and firetrucks that were actually in the parade, I was greeted enthusiastically by a member of the town’s conservation committee in front of the Historical Society building. She immediately whisked me off to a corner by the silent auction and showed me the watershed maps of Bakersfield while I set up the model. I was not only blown away by how knowledgeable and passionate she was but by how willing she was to help me, someone she had met not two minutes before. She would go outside every hour or so to try to “drum up some business” and apologized profusely that no one was inside. She needn’t have apologized, because although I could probably count the people that stopped by on one hand, the conversations that I did have were wonderful. Kids with sprinkles on their faces from ice cream at the parade got their hands equally dirty playing with the sprinkles they put on the watershed model to illustrate how “pollutants” move through a landscape. A couple that was biking through the town stopped in to hear about the town’s watershed and how it connected to Lake Champlain. I even met someone who knew my own small, obscure hometown in Massachusetts. And in between my presentations, members of the town were happy to give me lessons in the town’s history. I left Bakersfield that afternoon feeling extremely grateful to be a part of the conversation that the conservation committee had already started: taking care of a place because you are proud of it.”