This blog site is the home of the Capital Campaign to rebuild the Montpelier Senior Activity Center (MSAC) on 58 Barre Street, Montpelier, VT. Check here for the latest news, updates, and photos about the progress of the campaign and the renovations.
DONATE TODAY by making your gift payable to Montpelier Senior Activity Center Capital Campaign, and mail it (or bring it) to the Center at the address shown on the right.
Here we are in the new elevator on the first floor of our almost-re-built Center … the door is opening … see! … only a step and we’re there! It’s not only elevator doors that are opening, you can feel the excitement picking up as we come closer and closer to moving back home. At last! 
Downstairs, the cardboard floor protectors are coming off the shiny new wood floors in the huge main room (see views above toward back and front) as the Center emerges like a butterfly from its chrysalis of construction clutter.
Engelberth, our general contractor, is currently running through the various “punch lists” of small tweeks to be ready for the upcoming Certificate of Occupancy inspections and walkthroughs. In the picture below, through the branches of one of our new honey locusts, newly leafing out, we can see a workman sealing the main door and window trim.
Out back this week, next to the 
playground, they were smoothing out the just-poured sidewalk.
This was preparatory to the big show this past Friday, when the hot asphalt guys arrived with their smokin’ paver to blitz the final (!) coat on the driveway and parking lot. Smell that asphalt! I hate it and I love it!
Yes, these final days of construction are Mighty Times, indeed! This, by no coincidence, is also the name of a film series, led by Liz Snell, on the history of the American Civil Rights Movement just shown this week in our temporary quarters next door to the Center. The picture here shows the audience intent on the screen in one of the converted classrooms. Why show it here, in this post, 
mixed with all the clamor of construction? Just to remind ourselves that this kind of activity is what all this rebuilding is all about — opening doors for the mind…
…and for the body and spirit: for example, our Kripalu Yoga class shown in the picture to the left in one of their initial postures. To me, it looks like they are staring out the window toward the new Center, longing for the promised land. (Interpretations may vary!)
“jai bhagwan!”
To see more pictures of the Center, the construction and the activities, your intrepid reporter invites you to pass by Capitol Copy at 32 Main Street sometime in the next two weeks from Monday May 21 and check out their window display.
Photo courtesy Capitol Copy.
Glenn Sturgis, the owner, has generously provided the space to the Capital Campaign. Look there to see the long! lists of individuals, businesses, and organizations who have so far donated. (Apologies if we have inadvertently missed your name, we’ll fix it.) And if you haven’t quite got your check in the mail, don’t worry, we’ll get you in the final list to be posted at the Center.
Oh, and by the way, the latest estimate for the end of construction is … the first or second week of June!
Maypole dancing on the State House Green
Old-time memories … dancing the maypole, welcoming Spring. May Daze!
Suddenly, this weekend, Spring was all about us: sun, and warmth, and friends strolling the streets in the balmy air, the bustle of the farmers’ market, green green Green-Up bags marking the spoor of industrious volunteers, fantastic animals parading for All-Species Day, new flowers blooming and new trees planted on the streets. May is our reward for lasting out another Vermont winter — even if this winter was hardly a winter at all compared to old-time winters!
In a very few short weeks the re-Builders of (58) Barre Street will pack up their tools and ride off into the sunset, their job done.
New front doors awaiting installation
Remember in a previous post we learned that replacing the front door would be one of the last steps in the rebuilding? Well, on Friday what did we see? Look on the right. Time is getting short.
And our job isn’t done. Rebuilding the Center cost about $1.8 million. No property taxes were used to pay for that; most of the expense was covered by fire insurance, grants, and the Center endowment, and a small fraction by donations. But those donations are important! Whatever we do not cover with donations will have to come out of the Center’s already severely depleted endowment fund.
If you read last week’s article in The Bridge or look at our site Thermometer you know that, after almost a year of fundraising, we still are short almost $30,000 on the construction costs — plus roughly $15,000 on campaign costs that had been planned to be covered by grants. Read The Bridge and click on Our Story and this early post for more details.
Those of you who sail a boat or are in emergency services — or who grew up devouring adventure comics like your intrepid reporter — already know the other meaning of “Mayday!”
M’aidez! — “Help me!” in French — is the universal distress call.
We’re so close … m’aidez!
!
Our reportorial staff was sitting around the press room at the MSAC Blog earlier this month, worrying how to finish off National Poetry Month with a bang, but without any hard work, which we just weren’t up to. Archy, our best writer, a published vers libre poet in fact, already had a sore head from banging out too much copy. Mehitabel, our gossip columnist, thinks she’s some kind of cleopatra, too busy dancing to be caged at a keyboard. Lately she had spent too many late nights under the blear eyed moon, caterwalling in unsavory corners of the Capital City, to worry about either the Capital Campaign or PoemCity. That left only the copy boy and he was desperate. Then the proverbial lightbulb! Let someone else do the job!
But who could we find to discover for the world the poetry of the Capital Campaign?
Sherry Olson, an award-wining poet in her own right, teaches a class in poetry writing at the Center. Maybe her class could be lured with siren calls of fame and fortune? The challenge was put at April’s Tuesday Lunch, where Sherry and members of the class recited several entertaining and moving examples of their writing. Aha! They fell for the appeal and wrote a group “Pantoum” (read about it here), a structured poem peculiarly suited to a group effort. As the copy boy was pasting up the copy for this issue, Archy nibbled the mucilage and said he couldn’t have written a tastier poem himself.
Montpelier Senior Activity Center
Is anyone else signing up for ukulele?
Here, we are explorers, free to dabble and play.
We learn for the fun of it
and get flu shots and help with our taxes too.We are explorers, free to dabble and play,
do yoga or Tai Chi, paint when we didn’t think we could,
and get flu shots and help with our taxes too.
It’s a second chance to be a pool shark.We do yoga or Tai Chi, paint when we didn’t think we could,
try out poetry, rug hooking, Italian conversation, and much more.
It’s a second chance to be a pool shark.
But we are rebuilding our center and need more funds.Try out poetry, rug hooking, Italian conversation, and much more.
Our goal is in sight with help from you.
We need funds to finish the work.
We thank you.Our goal is in sight with help from you.
Learning for the fun of it.
We thank you.
Is anyone else signing up for ukulele?
In accord with the promise of fame and fortune, here is a group photo of our group poet.
Our Group Poet, “Poetry Class” (missing two members). Sherry Olson third from left.
(That covers fame. Fortune? well, poets never really expect fortune anyway.)
* * * * * * *
Coming Next: If you are searching here for all the latest news and views on 58 Barre Street and the Capital Campaign — Don’t bother! Instead, see the new issue of the Montpelier Bridge on stands everywhere Thursday, May 3. It’s got it all!
The second-last day of National Poetry Month, and the second of our posts proving that the Montpelier Senior Activity Center is pure poetry, and that if you like poetry you just have to give it up ($applause$) for the Capital Campaign:
Some of Spanish Refresher class with poet Betsy Barstow (right)
The backstory: Spanish class at the Center covers a lot of ground. Some months ago the refresher class was talking about a really famous Nicaraguan poet, Rubén Darío; really famous in Spanish, that is, hardly heard of in English.
In 1908 he wrote a sweet poem for an 8-year old girl, Margarita, a story about an 8-year-old princess who was naughty and stole a star from the sky. The poem was immensely popular, and was memorized and recited by other 8-year-olds all around the Spanish-speaking world.
The Spanish class was to write a poem too, and teacher Betsy Barstow, as an example and in homage to Darío, wrote a sweet and funny poem for her own daughter. It’s about another young girl who arrives in a canoe at a gloomy island filled with gloomy people. They need a gift, she realizes, and hands out to this sad bunch – pineapples! which cheer them up so much that the world becomes a better place. A refrain is repeated several times (now we come to the point – but , oh oh!, it´s in Spanish! Remember your high school classes?)
El hecho de dar,
De entregarle a una,
Calienta el corazón
En una manera profunda.
which means (finally)
The act of giving,
Of offering to another,
Warms the heart
To its deepest depths.
So, there you have it. Warm your heart. The world will become a better place.
* * * * * * *
Next: On the Main Stage: “The Phantom of the Center” — or was that Pantoum?
During April, National Poetry Month, Montpelier becomes PoemCity; to honor that event on our capital campaign blog, we started the month off with a poem. These last three days of the month your reportorial staff here at PoemCenter proposes to look at the poetic side of the Capital Campaign. First, admire the poetic subject below:
Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Next, note that a very popular activity of the Center is the physical, mental, and, for some, even spiritual discipline of Yoga.
Finally, be informed that the Gentle and Chair classes of Yoga at the Center have recently and collectively given a most happy donation to the Capital Campaign. In accord with the principle of karma yoga, it was given in the spirit of anonymity, of selfless service. Hence, the empty chair in our group photo.
And the connection of Yoga to poetry? Well, it is the poetry of motion, or of stillness. If the comparison seems strained to you, you are wrong! read this quote:
“Poetry and Yoga…as inseparable as ocean and sand. Together they create a mirror glass reflecting the enlightenment inside of us. Yoga turns us inward as we discover the graceful flow of our bodies interacting with breath and spirit; poetry channels expression outwards, pouring in the shape of words onto paper.¨
–Hawah, from the Prologue of The Poetry of Yoga
Namaste!
* * * * * * *
In the next post, ¿How do you say “give” in Spanish?
Strange title for our MSACblog? Well, it’s a small meditation on our donations — does that sound more likely? On what our donations mean and what they do.
Late last week the plaza / patio in front of 58 Barre Street was paved, one more very visible step in rebuilding the senior center. Mantone Stoneworks, the boss and his two workmen, appeared early in the morning, quickly and professionally placed the asphalt pavers, and departed for other jobs. A local company from Underhill, in business for 16 years, it is just one of more than 18 subcontractors, some small, some large, most very local, we have seen on site constructing our home. As you know, Engelberth Construction is the general contractor for the entire 5 million dollar project but they hardly do it all themselves!
It’s a classic benefit of renewing the “infrastructure:” we, by our donations, along with the grants and insurance, acquire a wonderful renewed space for public use, but the money we give doesn’t disappear: it goes back into the local economy and into the paychecks of our neighbors in return for their good work.
The work is nearly done, but there´s still some of the bill yet to be paid. Your turn!
While we were outside in the previous post, planting trees and enjoying the early Spring, inside the job has been rushing to completion. Out of camera range, new wood flooring suddenly spread across the large main room of the senior center last week and was instantly 
hidden under cardboard to protect it from hobnailed workboots. The newly plastered elevator lobby, seen to the left, has just been smoothed to a brilliant, pristine white.
As your intrepid reporter wandered about, admiring the fresh paint job, he bumped into a late hive of construction activity: the ramp between the multipurpose activity rooms on the mezzanine at the front of the 
building and the second-floor apartments to their rear (Click here to see the floor plan).
Those upstairs apartments are just about finished, so much so that rank upon rank of boxed refrigerators and ranges (below) are lined up on the first floor ready to be wheeled into place in the fourteen kitchens above.
And the Montpelier Housing Authority has just posted a notice of availability to apply for a rental unit — occupancy expected in July!
At 58 Barre Street now, everything is new or re-newed, with reminders of the time before the 
fire only ghostly shadows, fading, fading…such as the shadow (to the right) of the old stairway on the west side of the building. Do you remember it, walking up and down?
I’m not sure why it’s still there, maybe they’re waiting for your donation to pay for the work!
…But two trees now grow in front of 58 Barre Street. Two fifteen-foot tall honey locusts, to be exact. Below you see arborist Dave Wright (blue hardhat) and his crew from Anything Grows in Richmond carefully positioning the rootball of our Gleditsia triacanthos in a bed of the best Intervale topsoil. Tree Day was sunny but cool, the very beginning of April, perfect planting weather.
Dave was very careful not to plant the trees too deep – a common failing of amateur gardeners, he complained, who also pile a volcano of mulch next to the trunk. The secret to a happy tree, as your intrepid reporter understands it, is to leave the root “flare” partly visible, with bare ground next to the trunk.
A passer-by commented how good it had felt some months ago to see the Center’s windows back in their places; similarly, the two trees, standing there, provide a “welcoming presence,” their bare branches framing the Center.
Since this month Montpelier is PoemCity, and because it is apropos, and because I just really like it, let’s hear a poem from the latest book, Happy Life, of our poet from Judevine Mountain, David Budbill.
“I Hate to See the Trees Leaf Out”
I like spring warmth, the birds’ return,
All that sensuous summer heat,
but I also hate to see the trees leaf out,
the world fill up, this summer glut of green.All that lovely, empty barrenness
of late winter, early spring,gone.
(c 2011 by David Budbill, printed with permission. Buy the book!)
The honey locusts will leaf out, though, to spite the poet, and when they do they’ll look like this one pictured below, in some Fall some years hence.
Wikimedia Commons Photo by Kermin
Dave Wright and crew will return soon, once the patio pavers are in place, to finish the planting. When you see the daisies and black-eyed susans flowering, and the sedums and the decorative grasses in their planters, look around – we’ll be cutting the ribbon for the gala reopening! As a donor to the Capital Campaign you are certainly invited. You are a donor, aren’t you?
Our banner picture this time around is of something you may never clamber up to the roof to see. But the sight up there on deck is impressive: banks of solar panels baking under our intense March summer sunlight. The panels were actually installed some time ago and are fully functional, even if the building isn’t, quite yet. The taller black rectangles you see in the picture are the solar hot water heaters that are connected to a set of large hot water tanks in the “machine room” off the first floor. The lower panels are the photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight directly to electricity. When the electricity isn’t being used in the building, it is being fed back onto the grid, and the electric company pays us! Can’t beat that!
Below deck, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen more workers on the job site. They’re all steadily wittling down the “punch list” of small items to finish before the job can be declared done – as it seems it will be in a very few weeks at the rate things are progressing. On the left, for instance, the workmen are installing window hardware on the newly stained and sealed windows.
“…And access panels, you’ve never seen a building with so many access panels to install!” complains Jacques LeBlanc, the site supervisor, only half in jest.
By the time you read this, the elevator will be all installed (yea!). In the picture you see the contractors making final adjustments their last day on site; note the bumpers at the bottom of the shaft, nice to know they’re there!
On the third floor most of the flooring in the apartments is sanded and some is “varnished.” On the second, some apartment flooring was still being installed this week, while the first floor, like the hallways upstairs, is still a work area; finish flooring there comes later.
But the first floor is definitely coming along: although most of the walls in the building are a calm white, you can now see startling areas of accent colors that really liven things up! In these shots to the right you see the three main accents: on the exposed ductwork from the machine room (the snazzy metalic green color making a virtue out of necessity), on the lemon-colored walls by the game room, and on the salmon-colored arts & crafts area.
For an overall view, take a look at the main room through the kitchen 
pass-through pictured below, ignoring the ductwork, tool crib, tarps, and you-name-it in the way!
On our way out after this building tour, take a final look behind at the newly-unveiled lobby, almost finished. Soon you’ll be stepping inside that entrance yourself for your favorite exercise class, craft 
workshop, or the best Spanish class in town!
And I would be remiss, since this is after all the Capital Campaign blog, not to remind you that to pay for all this, the Campaign needs no one else but You!
