This story by Tom McKone was first published in The Bridge on June 17, 2026.
The artist behind the “Heart of Barre: Building Community After the Floods” and the founder and former owner of the Positive Pie restaurants will represent Vermont later this month at a two-day Washington, D.C., event honoring survivors of extreme weather events.
Extreme Weather Survivors, a California-based national organization supporting Americans impacted by increasingly severe and frequent extreme weather, invited the two central Vermonters to participate in Stolen Summers: The Next 250. The event, which will be on the Washington Mall and at the U.S. Capitol on June 23-24, is the first time the organization will have artists and weather survivors from all 50 states at a gathering…