WATERFORD, Vt. (WCAX) – Vermont’s Open Farm Week is celebrating its 10th year, but after severe flooding in the Northeast Kindgom over the past month, some farmers are not able to take part.

“If every other storm, or every storm we get is three, four inches at a time, then I’m not sure what we are going to do,” said Shawn Gingue with the Gingue Family Farm in Waterford.

He says they are still picking up the pieces following last month’s flooding. The farm lost some of its sweet corn, 25 chickens, their soybean crop, among other damage. “The biggest thing we found — underneath Interstate 93 was a complete river. The culvert was plugged at the top and then all that water came rushing down from underneath the underpass. Our whole day was just assessing damage and kind of scratching our heads,” Gingue said.

Open Farm Week comes as farmers are looking for community support after losing an estimated $4 from the flooding, according to Vermont Agriculture Secretary Anson Tebbetts. “We are looking at long-term strategies. We do have some of our farmers thinking about — can I plant there again? Because they have been flooded out twice, three times. One particular farmer told me it’s been five events he has… as far as dealing with the floods,” he said.

Paul Gingue, who has been working the Waterford farm since he was a child, says he hasn’t seen storms like this since the ‘70s.

“You can tell that there’s gotta be something to do with climate change. That I did not believe in at all when they first started talking about it. I worry about what kind of effect it’s going to have on my son and daughter-in-law that are planning on taking it over,” he said.

The family says the best thing for them to do to recover is to salvage what they have and start planting again next spring. They do say their farm stand is open for Open Farm Week.

Copyright 2024 WCAX. All rights reserved.

Matt Damon is hoping Robin Williams may one day be immortalized in Boston.

While Damon, 53, and his costar Casey Affleck, 48, spoke with journalist Jake Hamilton in footage shared on YouTube recently about their new movie The Instigators, the actor noted that he recently learned of an artist’s pitch to place a bronze statue of the late Williams, who died at 63 in August 2014, in Boston’s Public Garden.

“I don’t know if it will happen, but I really hope it does. Someone proposed to us an artist to do a bronze statue of Robin and permanently put it there, and the idea being that if you feel alone you can go sit next to him, which I think is the coolest idea,” Damon said.

The proposed statue would stand next to a bench in the city’s park where Damon and Williams filmed one of the most poignant scenes in 1997’s Good Will Hunting, which earned Williams an Academy Award for his performance as psychologist Sean Maguire. The movie also helped launch Damon and Ben Affleck’s careers and resulted in the duo winning an Oscar for writing the movie’s screenplay.

“It would be the most beautiful installation and such a tribute to that guy, who I think would have loved that,” Damon said of the proposed plans. “Anyway, I just heard about this like a month ago. I really hope it comes to pass, I hope they let this artist do it because it would be pretty cool.”

As Boston.com reported at the time of Williams’ death in 2014, fans of the film and the late actor turned the unmarked bench from that Good Will Hunting scene into a makeshift memorial after he died. A petition to create a bronze statue of Williams at that site was made in 2014 and remains active today, though it is unclear whether it is the same pitch Damon referred to in his interview.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

More than 26 years after that movie was released, Damon still remembers working with Williams fondly, as he told Hamilton in that interview.

“Robin was off-book in pre-production, which was nuts, because that monologue was like two pages long, and I don’t say anything in that scene — just at the very top — and then he goes into that thing,” he recalled of filming the moment. “I remember rehearsing it with him and I was off book because we wrote it, but he just put his script down. . . and Ben and I kind of looked at each other like, ‘This is going to be amazing.’ “

Damon and Affleck’s new movie The Instigators releases on Apple TV+ on Friday, Aug. 9.

PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Pirates and Pittsburgh Steelers both play on the North Shore in the City of Pittsburgh, but chose to recently meet up in a different location.

Pirates general manager Ben Cherington and manager Derek Shelton met with Steelers owner Art Rooney II, special teams coach Danny Smith and former general manager Kevin Colbert at Steelers training camp at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa.

The Pirates play home this upcoming series against the San Diego Padres, Tuesday-Thursday, allowing Shelton and Cherington to enjoy a Steelers training camp practice. First pitch Tuesday night is at 6:40 p.m.

Cherington and Shelton started working for the Pirates prior to the 2020 season. Cherington has worked on a number of trades and MLB Drafts to build the franchise and Shelton is 274-383 (.417) in his fifth season at the helm.

The Steelers have spent almost the past two weeks at training camp in Latrobe and will play their first preseason game against the Houston Texas Friday night at 7:00 p.m. at Acrisure Stadium.

Rooney has worked in the Steelers front office for more than two decades, working as vice president and general counsel. He has served on the board of directors since 1989 and has been the president of the Steelers since 2003. He also became the majority team owner in 2017 following the death of his father, Dan Rooney.

Colbert worked for the Steelers for 23 years from 2000-22. He spent 2000-2010 with the franchise as director of football operations was general manager from 2010-16 and both vice president and general manager from 2016-22, stepping down after the 2022 NFL Draft. Tony Khan now serves as the Steelers general manager, dealing with contract negotiations, trades, and drafts.

Smith is heading into his 12th season as special teams coordinator for the Steelers. He had previous stints as a special teams coordinator with the Washington Redskins from 2004-12, the Buffalo Bills from 2001-03 and the Philadelphia Eagles from 1995-98.

Make sure to visit Pirates OnSI for the latest news, updates, interviews and insight on the Pittsburgh Pirates