WWHT: A Comprehensive Approach to Transforming a Rural Community
Photo by Liz Lavorgna, for Windham & Windsor Housing Trust
Neighborworks is a nationwide supporting organization for over 250 netowrks that create opportunities for people to live in affordable homes, improve their lives and strengthen their communities. Our local Windham & Windsor Housing Trust (WWHT) is one such member, and Neighborworks just shared an overview of the “Bellows Falls Garage” project that they recently completed just upstream along Kwenitekw (Connecticut River) near Kchi Pôntegok (Great Falls, at today’s Bellows Falls, Vermont). Atowi, and the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association, have been in dialogue with WHHT to help tell the ongoing stories of Place there. The full article can be found here; below is an excerpt.
A lasting story
While the history of The Garage dates back well over a hundred years, the stories of the land date back much farther. As Windham & Windsor looked at that history, Bridgewater says, they realized that they needed to connect with the Elnu Abenaki tribe, which included descendents who still populate the area. "We had been talking about the history of the town," Bridgewater says. "But the history goes back thousands of years."
"We knew that this area was important," adds Windham and Windsor's Marion Major. "The town was developed at a confluence of rivers with petroglyphs not far from where the village center is today. Although the land has been industrialized and redeveloped time and time again, erasing artifacts over the past centuries, this didn't diminish the fact that this land remains and this water remains and the Abenaki culture, too, remains."
They connected with Rich Holschuh, director of the Atowi Project, a nonprofit that provides cultural education to both mainstream and Native American communities. Holschuh is also chairman of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs and a spokesperson for the Elnu Abenaki tribe.
The connection, he says, was made not just to better understand the history and relationship with the land but to look for ways to work together to elevate the present-day Elnu Abenaki in this time, in this newly redeveloped space.
"Most folks don't know what has been here for thousands of years – and what continues," says Holschuh. "It's not in the past. Our goal is to help people understand. It's all about our shared relationship with the land."
It's important for people – including people in community development – to think about the land and their relationship with it, he says. "You can't do it without the land. It's all about place. Everything happens somewhere."
The Garage sits on a significant place for the Abenaki. It overlooks the river, which the Abenaki call Kchi Pôntekw – "The Great Falls." "It was the most powerful falls on the upper river," Holschuh says. "Because of that power and energy, it was a significant place and it still is, even though it was modified by today's society. The Garage has a front-row seat."
As Windham & Windsor worked to incorporate the region's histories into The Garage, they consulted with Holschuh. He developed a land acknowledgment to be used at the groundbreaking, "so people can understand what history means in the deepest sense." In the front lobby, Windham & Windsor plans to install Indigenous-made art objects that will be available for residents to enjoy and will be visible from the street, through the front windows. Holschuh is helping the nonprofit figure out "who, where, when and what."
Their relationship led Holschuh consulting on another project in Windsor. "I'm helping them identify plants that belong here, in relationship with people, plants that are important to the Abenaki and not just a standard ornamental out of a nursery."
He speaks often of relationships. "It is the relationality that is important with the land and everyone here, whether plant, animal, human or more than human."