VT Community Fellows Spotlight: Jeanette Gyukeri
The Vermont Community Fellows Program provides funding, practical skills, and ongoing mentorship to Vermonters ages 16+ to address shared needs through collaborative field research projects with the places, people and groups that matter to them. A collaboration between Vermont Folklife and Conversations from the Open Road, this three-year initiative aims to build statewide capacity for community-based, action-oriented field research. The Program is made possible by Senator Bernie Sanders through support provided by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
For its pilot year, the program accepted 13 applicants into its first cohort in January, 2025. Between February-June Fellows received in-depth training to inform and guide their ongoing work within their communities. For the remainder of the year these 13 Vermonters will each carry out a community action project based on what they’ve learned through interviews and fieldwork.
The work of this first cohort will be featured in a traveling exhibit launching in the spring of 2026. Until then, we’ll be featuring short interviews with each Fellow sharing their experiences in the Program so far.
Jeanette Gyukeri - Middlebury, VT
Who does Middlebury Main Street exist for?
Briefly describe what your experience has been like in this program so far:
Map of Middlebury
The Community Fellows experience has been such a unique experience. It has been more than 30 years since I have attended college or done anything that might be described as academic, or had the opportunity to pursue something completely of my own design. The support provided, the feedback received, and the community created by all four mentors really is the heart of the program- I cannot imagine the experience existing without them.
(At this point) what is the overarching question about your community that’s guiding your research?
My overarching question at this point in time is: who does Middlebury Main Street exist for, and why is there not greater engagement from the local residents?
Historic image of Middlebury’s Main Street
Describe a few things you have learned through your fieldwork so far.
The thing I have learned so far that has resonated most for me is- while most everyone refers to Main St in Middlebury as going ‘downtown’, the actual downtown as defined by the town has a much larger footprint (including 3 outlying grocery stores). I have included the map from the Town Master Plan, as well as statistics from the town plan stating who shops there. The town cites that 50% of the people who shop downtown are local residents, while merchants anecdotally place this number closer to 25%.
I have also learned-through observing the Town Plan update-that while the volunteer citizen boards are very active-the plans are very much an edit without current surveys used to determine actionable next steps.
The other thing that has really stuck with me in conversations with Main St merchants is that the majority of them are not the main breadwinner in their households. Simply put- they could not survive financially if theirs was the only source of income in their household.
Jeanette
At this moment, what are your plans moving forward? Any ideas you can share about your community action project?
My hope is to have a community open house where local residents can meet the merchants and learn about their businesses and the work they do to keep Main St vital.
~ Jeanette Gyukeri