0.1 Knowing Your Community

Find your regional partners

Locate your Regional Planning Commission (RPC), Long Term Recovery Group (LTRG), and local supply hubs across Vermont.

Interactive asset map coming soon...

Organizing your community: who is here and what are they doing?

The first step of organizing your community is thinking about who is in your community and the place where you live. You can do this activity alone, but it's best to do it with a few other people. They could be your friends, colleagues, neighbors, or someone else you just met who's excited about organizing your community to be more resilient.

Who is in your community/place?

*Find your legislators at legislature.vermont.gov/people/

What other dynamics are present in your place?

Stuff and systems in your community

Knowing your ecosystem

Check out the ANR atlas: for information on the hydrogeology, flood risk, and more in your Vermont community. Click on 'Layers' on the bottom left of the window, and turn on these layers by checking the boxes next to them:

FEMA flood layers show where the edges of floods have gone
Soil hydrologic groups show soil types, and help you imagine which locations will remain wet after flooding, because different types of soil drain more quickly than others.
Wetland delineations show where the land is always also water

Pod mapping

This activity, developed by the , can help identify your "pod" - who you can count on for support and connection in the everyday and during disaster. Interpersonal relationships help us move through stress or adrenaline; loved ones help us make sure we are taking care of ourselves, even while showing up to help others.

To start, write your name in the middle grey circle. The surrounding bold-outlined circles are your pod. Write the names of the people who are in your pod. We encourage people to write the names of actual individuals, instead of things such as "my church group" or "my neighbors."

The dotted lines surrounding your pod are people who are "movable." They are people that could be moved into your pod, but need a little more work. For example, you might need to build stronger relationships or trust with them.

The largest circles are community resources. For example: a local food shelf or sexual violence prevention org or a park with your favorite tree that you like to go sit with to take some deep breaths. Or really anyone or anything else you think of as a resource.

Going deeper: finding the community work you want to do

There are so many ways to support community resilience, and each person has a unique set of skills and interests to contribute. It can feel and be isolating to find yourself in a moment of disaster, not knowing who to turn to or how to help. The activities below can guide some of your personal preparedness for difficult times. Respond to the reflection questions below to spur your thinking. Check out this zine for more ideas.

Look at this (incomplete!) list of roles to play in a community, and check out the corresponding toolkit sections to see if any of this work appeals to you. Check out this list for more ideas.

Roles in a community	Toolkit section
Working with children	1.8
Helping people with health and wellbeing	1.3, 1.7, 2.1
Maintaining infrastructure (roads, buildings, water systems)	1.4, 1.5, 1.9, 1.11, 2.2, 2.3
Managing finances and administration	1.10, 1.13, 2.3
Mediating conflict and facilitating decision-making; Connecting people with each other and information; managing people and projects	Knowing your community, 1.9, 1.10, 1.12, 2.3
Growing food/medicine, Preparing meals	1.2, 1.5, 1.8, 1.10, 1.12, 2.1, 2.3
Building culture through art, spirituality, group activities; creating plans and visions for your community	1.9, 1.12, 2.3
Specialized technical skills (construction, fixing machinery, plumbing, electrical work)	1.6, 1.9, 1.11, 2.2, 2.3
Providing individual help to people (picking up groceries, offering rides, 1:1 emotional support)	1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.12, 2.1
Stewarding ecosystems (river corridors, tree maintenance)	Knowing your community, 1.9, 2.1, 2.3
Teaching skills/leading workshops	Knowing your community, 1.10, 1.11, 2.2, 2.3
Organizing events	Knowing your community, 1.10, 2.1, 2.3

Bringing people together

You can spend any amount of time organizing your community and building resilience. It will probably take 5-10 hours of conversations to get a group of about 10 people ready to organize with you. Meeting once a week can help build momentum, but you can also meet every other week or once a month.

Here are some things to consider when starting to organize your community:

What work is already happening to build resilience?
Of the people you mapped, how many do you know? Where can you go to know them better or introduce yourself?
Why are you excited about building resilience? Can you get comfortable talking about why you care about this to people you don't know well (yet)?
What problems are most discussed, or most important, to people in the place where you live? How can building resilience help address some of these problems?
Where can you start talking about building community resilience, and meet people who are interested in working on this with you?

Once you have a few people - it can just be four or ten people! - you can get together and look at this toolkit. In order to have a meeting, you'll need

We started organizing. How do we know it's working?

It can be hard to tell if you're making progress. Here are some signs your work is effective:

More than four people attended your first meeting
Someone you haven't explicitly invited to participate heard about your work, and is excited to participate in the future
You received an email or a call from a town official asking what you're working on
You and one, two, or more people are energized and excited to keep working with this toolkit and talking to people in your community about it