This column is sponsored by the Service Cluster Board (SCB), a group of student leaders involved in volunteer service, activism, and advocacy work on and off campus. In close collaboration with the SGA Finance Committee, the SCB provides a flexible and responsive administrative structure to support and promote student service organizations and projects at Middlebury, including Charter House. Please contact scb@middlebury.edu for more information!
“There is nothing better for any of us than to give,” said Dottie Neuberger as she looked around at the checkered tablecloths and smiling people on a Friday evening at Community Supper in the First Congregational Church in Middlebury. As Neuberger, the coordinator of Community Supper, said, this is a place “to give and get love.” With her characteristic sincerity, she added, “It is a place to touch souls.”
It all began with a Christmas dinner. Starting in 2000, two Middlebury families, one of which was Neuberger’s, spent Christmas night at The Commons, a restricted-income housing development in Middlebury. Here, they shared a hot meal with any and all residents who wanted to join. In Neuberger’s mind, those Christmas meals were evidence of food’s power to bring people together. At the same time, they revealed that food insecurity, poverty and homelessness are prevalent issues in Addison County.
In response to these issues, the Community Supper program and its parent organization, the Charter House Coalition, were born in March 2005. The Coalition is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing basic food and housing to people in-need in and around Middlebury. Doug Sinclair, one of the Coalition’s founding members in 2005 and its current volunteer president, articulated the mission of the Coalition: “We are an organization committed to making life better for those who are food insecure or precariously housed – and doing it in a community-minded way.”
To this end, the Coalition operates five distinct programs that house 45 individuals a year, serve 21,000 meals and draw on a network of over 750 volunteers. With this manpower, the Coalition performs over 23,500 hours of service every year.
In its eight years of operation, the Coalition has grown and expanded greatly. In terms of the meals programs, on March 1, 2005, 22 people gathered at the Congregational Church in Middlebury for the first Community Supper. Eight years and over 100,000 meals later, Community Supper has grown into a weekly event on Friday evenings that provides hot, wholesome food to some 200 diners each week. In the past year, 37 different organizations volunteered their time, food and manpower. These organizations include Addison County Teens, the Weybridge and Cornwall Congregational Churches, the Swift House Inn, Havurah, the Middlebury College alpine ski team, Connor Homes and many more.
Likewise, the Coalition’s housing programs have grown in scope and impact in eight years. In response to housing insecurity, the Coalition runs an emergency winter housing facility at the Charter House on Pleasant Street in Middlebury. From November through April, the Charter House provides a home for up to five families or individuals at a time. In a note addressed to the members of the Coalition, one former resident conveyed the impact of the Charter House, “My family would like to extend our warmest and strongest thank you for providing us with a place to establish stability during a very stressful, difficult and overwhelming time of transition.”
The Charter House staff works closely with other service organizations in the county to connect with families and individuals who would be a good fit for Charter House residency. After an application process, the individuals and families move into the house. Sinclair Housing Programs Coordinator Samantha Kachmar and other Charter House volunteers seek to connect residents with caseworkers from organizations such as HOPE to assist these individuals and families move forward. Furthermore, volunteers staff the Charter House 24-hours a day. The volunteers range from retirees such as 82-year-old Paul Viko to Middlebury College students like James McMillan ’14, with a wide range of individuals in between.
With a host of different programs and a broad network of volunteers, the Charter House Coalition has identified needs in the Middlebury area and works every day to alleviate them. The sheer number of meals served and demand for space in both the Charter House and the transitional housing apartments attest to the fact that housing and food insecurity are significant issues in Addison County. But the Coalition’s programs fulfill other needs as well — needs that are perhaps less concrete and statistical, but are equally important. They are the need for connection and laughter and not feeling alone and feeling part of something bigger. A woman’s words over lunch one day say a lot: “I have never experienced such incredible love … as I have here.”
If you’re interested in learning more about the Charter House Coalition, or would like to volunteer, please e-mail James McMillan ’14 (jmcmillan@middlebury.edu).
CATE COSTLEY '15 is from Williamstown, Mass.
