Richmond

Program coordinators act as the core organizer of their local VMN program. They maintain contact with VMN participants and help organize volunteer projects.  They attend field trainings for free and also receive a stipend for the year.

Katharan Blofson is the program coordinator for Richmond. Kate grew up in New York and New Jersey with a father who loved raptors, hiking and the outdoors, and who cultivated a sense of wonder about nature.   After graduating from college with a degree in English, she went on to work as a community organizer for the Prometheus Radio Project, building and supporting low power radio stations around the country.  After ten years of grassroots organizing, her heart and body yearned for outdoor work, and she took a job for two seasons as First Mate on a small daysailing wooden schooner.

Life then brought her to the University of Vermont, where she obtained an MS in Natural Resources, taking classes primarily in UVM’s Field Naturalist program.  Her graduate thesis – a place-based oral history project focused on the lower Winooski intervale – linked two abiding interests, storytelling and ecology. During the summer, Kate worked catching queens at French Hill Apiaries in Franklin County.  She now works as a beekeeper for French Hill full-time during the season, and continues her storytelling and media work through oral history projects (including working as a field interviewer for the Vermont 70s Project) and volunteering on the Radio Advisory Council for WBTV-LP, Burlington’s newest low power radio station.  She also works as a guest teacher in the Winooski School District. Kate is delighted to be working with Vermont Master Naturalist to build capacity for local stewardship and conservation education in communities across the state.