Last updated on June 13th, 2013 at 09:40 am

Last year I started reading about Vermont’s Working Lands Enterprise Initiative.  Paul Costello, the Executive Director of Vermont’s Council on Rural Development had begun leading a movement to protect the Green Mountain State’s pastoral landscape from unplanned, unsightly, unsustainable development.  I don’t know Paul personally but I see him as a modern day Paul Revere who leveraged the power of the Internet to spread the word about how we can use sustainable agriculture and forestry to build a thriving rural economy in Vermont.

In a very short time frame, Paul and his band of “working lands” believers have achieved unbelievable success, including getting Vermont’s legislature to allocate $1 Million in grant money for green businesses willing to pitch in and help.  The idea was to provide incentives to “stimulate a concerted economic development effort on behalf of Vermont’s agriculture and forest product sectors by systematically advancing entrepreneurism, business development, and job creation.”

It was just one of those lucky moments in life when I read about the Working Lands Grant last year as we were in the middle of planning our new Vermont-made furniture gallery at Stonehurst.  We were a perfect match for the grant.  Our furniture is all made in Vermont. It’s sustainable, eco-friendly and made from Vermont grown wood when practicable.  We support all the links in the economic chain from the forest through the land-owner, forester, sawyer, lumber yard and craftsperson to the customer.  The whole Stonehurst concept of raising awareness about where your furniture comes from and how it’s made fit the grant criteria like a glove.

Fast forward a year.  The Working Lands Enterprise Boards have worked tirelessly all year, developing their concept, selling it to the public and the Legislature, securing funds, soliciting competitive proposals from businesses and evaluating those proposals.  Last week it was time for them to make a decision on which businesses would win the awards.

Drum roll please.  Ta Da!!  Vermont Woods Studios was selected for a $100,000 grant award to be used to complete the construction and landscaping of our Stonehurst Vermont Made Furniture Showroom.  This is a huge achievement for us and one that will allow much of the polishing of our venue to happen now, rather than over a period of years.  We are enormously grateful to Paul Costello and all of the good people who have worked so hard to make the initiative possible.  And of course to the taxpayers of Vermont who we feel a strong need to repay in terms of economic benefit and increased consumer demand in the furniture sector of our economy.

I’ll write more in the coming weeks about the Initiative and the other companies who also won awards.  We are honored to be in such good company.

Do you love Vermont’s rural landscape as much as we do?  Join the Working Lands Partnership, help keep Vermont green and be a part of it’s future!