Brattleboro. The Vermont Community Foundation has awarded Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity an $11,000 Innovations and Collaborations grant. The grant will support Vermont Partnership’s development of the nearly three-year old Vermont African American Heritage Trail to be more accessible to Vermont school children and families.
The Vermont African-American Heritage Trail includes nineteen sites of importance to black history in the state and brings visitors to Vermont museums and cultural sites where exhibits, tours, and personal explorations illuminate the lives of African Americans for whom the Green Mountain State was part of their identity.
Curtiss Reed Jr., the executive director of the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity, notes, “The trail is intended to boost cultural tourism to the Green Mountain State and increase awareness of its record on racial justice. This phase however is to boost cultural tourism from within the state by Vermonters themselves.” One such example is the Vermont African American Heritage GeoTour, which set to launch in September 2015.
The Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing, in association with the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity has published a full-color brochure of nineteen significant locations on the Vermont African American Heritage Trail, available on the Partnership’s website, www.vermontpartnership.org.
The Vermont Community Foundation is committed to building philanthropic resources that will sustain healthy and vital Vermont communities now and into the future.
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The Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity envisions a Vermont recognized as the epicenter of diversity, inclusion, and equity thought and practice. Our vision resonates with the collective aspirations of the scores of our partners and the state’s long history fighting for social justice. For the people of Vermont, we work to strengthen inclusive and equitable practices as a means to eliminate prejudice and discrimination of all kinds.
The Vermont Community Foundation is a family of hundreds of funds and foundations established by Vermonters to serve their charitable goals. It provides the advice, investment vehicles, and back-office expertise to make giving easy and effective. The Foundation also provides leadership in giving by responding to community needs, mobilizing and connecting philanthropists to multiply their impact, and by keeping Vermont’s nonprofit sector vital with grants and other investments in the community. Visit www.vermontcf.org or call 802-388-3355 for more information.
