On Sunday, a Vets Town Hall was held in Middlesex. It was the first event of its kind in central Vermont, where veterans were invited to speak and community members were invited to listen.

With the end of pandemic restrictions, places like doctor’s offices, salons and dental practices say they are seeing a surge in demand – both from residents who delayed appointments during the pandemic, and from people who recently moved to the state. The surge comes as many businesses are dealing with staffing shortages. With the end of Vermont’s COVID-19 restrictions, many appointment based services are seeing a spike in scheduling requests. A lot of these businesses are already understaffed and now overwhelmed with their workload. More from VPR: 'We Need This!': Arbor Farm Market Offers South Hero One-Stop-Shop Access To Local Produce Ellie Trono is the owner of Di Moda Salon in downtown Burlington. The high-end hair salon near the waterfront remained open throughout much of the pandemic. “We were open in June of last year, and we stayed open the whole time, and I always felt – we – always felt safe; everything felt great. We definitely stayed steady, but now there is just an

For the past year, Courtney "Coco" Casper has focused on creating therapeutic support spaces that are free to participants and are safer and easier to access for Black, Indigenous and other people of color in Vermont. Casper's Winooski-based practice, Bad Indian Wife , aims to help Vermonters of color move away from unjust social conditioning and move towards becoming their best selves.

What does it mean to be an ally? Depends on who you ask. In this installment of (Un)fractured, we have two panels lined up: one of white Vermonters who consider themselves allies and the other BIPOC Vermonters.

From high materials costs to project delays: How has the homebuilding industry weathered the COVID-19 pandemic? This hour, we talk with Vermont homebuilding experts Chris West and Jim Bradley about industry trends, and we answer your questions.

El Viaje Más Caro , or The Most Costly Journey , is an initiative from the Open Door Clinic in Middlebury, along with several other partners, that shares the stories and experiences of migrant farmworkers in Vermont. The stories are told using illustrations drawn by New England cartoonists.

When Erika Hoffman-Kiess first heard about people applauding for frontline workers in big cities, she didn’t think that would work so well in her town of Thetford.

Bordering Canada and Lake Champlain, Franklin County has a rich economic, cultural and military history. This hour, we talk with historian Jason Barney about his new book Hidden History of Franklin County, Vermont , which explores many of these themes and reveals an intriguing piece of Vermont's past.

In our weekly health update, we get an update on Vermont's COVID-19 vaccination rates and look at some of the issues that still concern state health officials.

The emergence of the 17-year cicadas has dominated bug news of late, but in the northeastern parts of the U.S. and Canada, another cyclical menace has emerged that has the potential to do more lasting damage.

The clock is ticking on federal and state orders that stopped evictions for more than a year. The federal moratorium is set to expire at the end of June. Vermont’s eviction ban will expire on July 15.

Vermont is about to embark on a new effort to address racial and other disparities in the health care system.

It's no secret that this past pandemic year, students, teachers and school staff have experienced an extraordinary amount of change: the national reckoning on race, the presidential election, added to the normal challenges of navigating teenage life. And at Winooski Middle High School, some 60 students made a podcast about it.

Saturday is Juneteenth. It marks the day in 1865 that enslaved people in Texas received word of their freedom, more than two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. The holiday has been a mainstay of the Black community for over a century, but as of Thursday, it is officially a federal holiday. In Vermont, some municipalities are holding their first-ever Juneteenth celebrations.

Next week, Vermont lawmakers will hold a special veto session in an effort to overturn three of Gov. Phil Scott's vetoes. This hour, we preview the session with a roundtable of reporters, and we answer your questions.

A Manchester woman who played soccer at Burr & Burton Academy and at Williams College has turned a campus work-study job into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: being part of a national broadcasting team at the 2021 Summer Olympics in Japan.

Juneteenth is a holiday that dates back to 1865, when the last enslaved people were set free in this country. There’s a national debate underway over how racism and slavery should be remembered. This story originally aired on North Country Public Radio. You can find the original piece, here . But Black activists in Vermont and northern New York say the celebration has been re-energized in recent years and hope Juneteenth spurs a better understanding of Black history in America.

A statewide network of Black, Indigenous and people of color in Vermont are planting the seeds to advance racial equity in land, the environment, agriculture and foodways.

Summer begins on Sunday, making this the perfect time to go over some best practices to keep and maintain a healthy garden. This hour, garden expert Charlie Nardozzi joins us to talk about tips and tricks for best results, and to answer your gardening questions.

Even though Vermont has reached its 80% vaccination goal, state officials plan to continue to push to vaccinate as many people as possible. In our weekly health update, we talk to Vermont health officials about their efforts, as well as the outlook for the COVID-19 virus in the late summer and fall.