VT Community Fellows Spotlight: Alexis Yamashita
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 each carried out a community action project based on what they 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.
Alexis Yamashita - Essex Junction, VT
What do seeds mean to you?
Briefly describe what your experience has been like in this program so far:
The Vermont Community Fellows Program has been amazing! I am very honored and grateful to be a part of the first program cohort. I have learned a lot about how ethnographic research methods can include community-based storytelling and other creative mediums. As a life-long gardener and herbalist, I fell in love with seeds eight years ago. Seeds have been the main focus of my community organizing work for many years now.
Alexis havesting seeds at the UVM Horticultural Farm
Last year, I started the Food Systems PhD program at UVM. My hope is to form connections in my own work between academic research and grassroots community work. Exploring social science research methods from a community perspective has been an important part of my journey. I really appreciate the interactive nature of the program where we have a lot of opportunity to learn from the fellows in the cohort. The diversity of projects is wonderful and inspiring!
The technical training I am receiving in the program has also been a significant lift to my work. I feel the creativity in my work has expanded with knowing how to use professional audio recording equipment and transcription software (and much more!).
(At this point) what is the overarching question about your community that’s guiding your research?
There are so many questions that come to mind and if I had to sum them up into one, broad question it would be: “What do seeds mean to you?”
Describe a few things you have learned through your fieldwork so far.
Being relatively new to Vermont, I have learned about the incredible local seed work that is happening in our communities. I have also seen deep connections to seeds (and their stories) and the desire to see more change in our local seed access by strengthening our community connections and repairing our relationships to seeds. I have also learned more about the challenges we are currently facing in our local communities that are connected to our current seed access.
Alexis
At this moment, what are your plans moving forward? Any ideas you can share about your community action project?
My plans moving forward are to have conversational interviews with community members about their personal relationships to seeds, how seeds pertain to their work, the challenges they see in our local food and farming systems (and how this relates to seeds), and what they envision for a stronger, local seed system. I want to interview people who have different connections to seeds such as community gardeners, farmers, college students, community organizers, professors, etc.
~ Alexis Yamashita