COLCHESTER – People with disabilities, their friends and families, and community members showed up in a meaningful way for the first annual Vermont Adaptive Driving Show.

Held this past Saturday at UVM Medical Center’s Fanny Allen Campus, the event strove to bring the disability driving community together to promote inclusion, UVM Driving Rehabilitation instructor Heather Zuk said.

“We dreamed up this event several years ago before COVID and we thought it would be a fun way to showcase how people with disabilities can be independent and get people with disabilities together to meet each other and network,” she said.

UVM’s Driver Rehabilitation program helps younger people with disabilities learn to drive and older people with cognitive or physical challenges find ways to keep driving, assuming it is safe to do so, program site supervisor Kristen Brewster said.

Sometimes, schools are able to pay for these lessons for high schoolers as a part of ensuring they access an equal education to their peers, she added. Those interested should talk to their school.

At Saturday’s event, about a dozen cars and trucks with modifications were on display and their owners showed off their vehicles and explained how they are able to drive effectively through mechanical alterations. 

Some of these modifications included ramps and lifts to get into the car or truck but also more discrete ones like a gas pedal on the left side instead of the right side so people with an amputated leg can drive more effectively.

Nathan Brewster is one driver who has benefited from modifications to his vehicles and UVM Medical Center’s Driver Rehabilitation Program. After becoming disabled at age 14, he found it difficult later in life to find reliable transportation.

“I ended up going to Albany to get my master’s degree, and I found it was difficult to get transportation, and I had to rely on other people to drive me places,” he said.

He worked with a UVM Driver Rehabilitation instructor, who determined he could drive, and developed a system that would enable him to operate his vehicle.

To drive, Nathan backs into his vehicle on a ramp and locks his power chair into the front of the vehicle. By using his head to hit a switch on the wall and the hooks on his prosthetic arms to operate a screen and lever system, he is able to control the van.

By helping people with disabilities learn to drive, UVM’s Driver Rehabilitation Program helps them remain more active in their communities, especially in rural areas.

“It’s so incredible about the independence it gives you; one of the biggest issues facing people with disabilities is transportation,” Nathan said. 

Chrissy Greenough, a vendor at NuMotion, was also at the event to promote the business’ adaptive equipment offerings.

“We work with your doctor and a physical therapist or occupational therapist and then we can provide certain types of equipment like powerchairs,” she said.

The company was at the event to promote their business, which has a branch in Williston but is also active throughout the country.

Zuk added that she hopes people who came to the event or heard about it who aren’t disabled are able to see the strengths of people with disabilities. 

“I want people to see that there shouldn’t be any barriers to independence and that you should see people as fellow human beings that can do the same things you can do, despite disabilities,” she said. 

StoryCorps brings loved ones together for meaningful conversations about the things that matter most. The StoryCorps mobile tour visited Brattleboro this summer, and recorded conversations with folks from across Vermont and beyond. Today, we hear from a mother and daughter — Janet Bailey and Erica Breen — about life growing up on the farm. Janet shares her memories about growing up in an intentional faith community in Paraguay, and then moving to the states, to a farm in Brattleboro.

Janet Bailey: It was a very different growing up, but my most favorite memories of growing up there was the natural world and growing up with so much agriculture. My dad was one of the main farmers there, and we learned with him all about growing things, harvesting things. My favorite thing to harvest was oranges from the wild orange trees. Wild orange trees in the jungles grow very, very tall, and they are always inhabited by monkeys who like to take bites out of oranges and throw them at people. And so my dad taught us how to climb a tree head up. You go up with your head first, but you don’t come down with your head first, you come down with your feet first.

Erica Breen: So, you’re up in a tree. Do you have a sack to fill, or are you throwing them down to someone?

Janet Bailey: Toss them down to Mom and Dad. Mom would catch them in her apron, and Dad would catch them in his hands. And then my dad was also the dairy farmer, and I remember he always used to milk on Sunday mornings, and I would go and watch him, and he’d be milking the native cows who tended to kick and thrash around a lot because they were used to running out in the prairies not being milked.

Erica Breen: So he was sitting on a stool milking by hand.

Janet Bailey: A three-legged stool. Milking by hand. And they were probably 25 to 30 cows. He was going down the row.

It was in my fingers, it was in myself to grow things. We had been looking for a farm in northern Vermont, thinking that we really wanted to be further away from population, and this farm was on the edge of Brattleboro and in the very southern part of Vermont. The issue for us was that we didn’t have any money. We had $1,000 to our name, and we were looking at farms. It was ridiculous, but we were young and enthusiastic and a little naive, but very full of energy and really passionate about wanting to farm.

And we heard of this opportunity that there was a farmer who wanted to donate his farm and house to the Earth Bridge Community Land Trust, with the stipulation that he be able to stay there and be cared for until he died.

Erica Breen: And he wanted the land to stay in farming.

Janet Bailey: And he wanted the land to stay in farming. And so we were asked if we would like to go visit him and see what that opportunity was like. So we went. It was the fall, and you could hardly see the house, but we found our way up the driveway and through this back door that we had to duck to get under and into a very dark house, old house, and there was Claude, who was in his mid 80s, I believe. Wonderful, wonderful smile, and somebody with a very, very sweet bit and just an old Vermonter, very caring.

The farm was very well cared for. The fields had been very carefully mowed every year. There was no overgrowth pasture taking over the land, and there were flat areas that were good for gardening. And so, of course, we were just really blown away by it. A few days later, we got a call from David and Crystal, who ran the Earth Bridge, and they said, “Claude wants you! Claude wants you to come and be here!” So that was amazing, because he’d interviewed other people, and he had turned them down.

What are your memories of the farmhouse?

Erica Breen: The screen door. The banging screen door. I can picture it, I can hear it, and I can picture it — thick, green with that square screen. And it was pretty saggy. And then that stone doorstep. And then the inside — that was the vertical green boards of that thin door that we would only close when it was really windy in the winter. And then inside that was the regular, thick exterior door with the knob that was falling out of it. And I remember the soapstone sink vaguely.

Janet Bailey: Do you remember the cold, how cold it was at night?

Erica Breen: I know it was cold, but I don’t have a real memory.

Janet Bailey: Dad and I used to have glasses of water that would freeze on the nightstand.

And what are thy memories of growing up on the farm? How did it affect your life?

Erica Breen: It made me.

Janet Bailey: You know that know, but as a child how did you feel?

Erica Breen: I felt lucky. I felt secure. I felt grounded. As I matured, I could see that many of the kids I was in school with did not feel that way, because I knew how to be healthy and how to be involved with the earth, and it was so obvious to me how important that was. So I felt lucky and strong.

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The U.S. Department of Labor has approved federal disaster unemployment assistance for Vermonters who lost work because of the flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Beryl on July 9 and 10, the state Labor Department said Monday.

Last week, President Joe Biden approved a major disaster declaration for parts of the state that were hit by the flooding, including individual assistance disaster, which covers unemployment assistance, for residents in Addison, Caledonia, Chittenden, Essex, Lamoille, Orleans and Washington counties, the state said. People living in those areas may be eligible for the unemployment assistance if they were injured during the disaster and are unable to work; if their workplace was damaged or destroyed; if their transportation to work is not available or if they cannot get to their job because they must travel through a damaged area, the department said.

Gov. Phil Scott has made a separate disaster declaration request for flood damage caused by storms on July 30.

Heavy rains washed out roads in Vermont in the latest round of flooding to hit the state.

Beryl’s remnants dumped more than 6 inches of rain in just a few hours on parts of Vermont, destroying and damaging homes, knocking out bridges, cutting off towns and retraumatizing a state where some people are still awaiting assistance after catastrophic floods that hit exactly a year earlier. Two people were killed by the floodwaters in early July.

“Vermonters across the State have found their lives, homes, and businesses impacted again by this recent disaster,” Labor Commissioner Michael Harrington said in a statement. “Our immediate priority is to ensure that individuals whose employment was impacted by the flooding can receive the benefits they desperately need.” 

Individuals must first file for regular unemployment benefits and indicate if they lost work due to the flooding, the state said. The Labor Department will determine if the individual is eligible for regular unemployment or should apply for the federal benefit.