(Host)
Lately, when educator, writer and commentator Mary McCallum drives
around Vermont she is taking notice of more than just the beautiful
scenery – and keeping count.
(McCallum) I am one of the eight
thousand. If we pass one another on the road and you glance at the front
of my little red car you will see the bright green license plate that
announces "I Am Vermont Strong." A friend gave it to me as a gift – I
had planned to do the same for her but she beat me to it. It was a
healthy sort of competition, and I paid it forward by giving one to
another friend for his birthday.
A week later, I walked out of a
local diner to my car and was greeted by the sight of two others parked
on either side of it, each with an "I Am Vermont Strong" plate – it
resembled a gathering of like minded friends. And I was proud to be part
of their unusual collective.
Like a purchaser of a of
newly-minted orange car who starts to notice all the other new orange
cars on the highway, my radar did a similar jump up when I got the
plate. I became a habitual counter of "I Am Vermont Strong" tags
whenever I was on the road. One day I counted six on a ten-mile drive
and felt a frisson of kinship with the drivers of those cars and trucks.
But alas, it was a mere half dozen.
To put it in perspective,
when Governor Shumlin went public with the "Vermont Strong" plate
project last January, the goal was to sell about 40,000 of them as a way
of generating $1 million dollars for the Vermont Long-Term Disaster
Relief Fund. Each $25 sale would add to the coffers of post-Irene relief
efforts while extending a feel-good to every buyer – they could support
those who lost homes, land and businesses in the floods and participate
in the powerful sense of community that Vermont is known for.
At
an April press conference it was announced that sales of the plates had
reached an impressive 25,000, and media outlets celebrated the news.
But in May it was determined that the figure made public by the Shumlin
administration was way off – the real number was closer to just 8,000,
with only $195,000 generated in revenue. The press and politicians were
quick to weigh in on the miscommunication, chastised the governor’s
office for the mistake and pointed to the unsold plates languishing in
storage.
What a disappointment. Like many Vermonters, I carry the gene of community
mindedness. Grassroots organizing for political and social change is
second nature to the way we do things here – from the ground up. The
license plate initiative is rooted in that same spirit. It says, If we
each do a little, we can make big things happen. I see it in both big
and small ways in my town, from volunteers who regularly step in to give
our town librarian a much needed day off, to the scores of
shovel-wielding neighbors who mucked out our local bakery cafe after
Tropical Storm Irene.
"I Am Vermont Strong" is more than a catchy license plate slogan – it’s the way we live here.