Registration for NEK Together 2024 is now open!
Join leaders and residents of the NEK as we come together to network, learn, and plan for the future of our region. This annual event gives us time and space to celebrate the Kingdom and work together to address its challenges.
NEK Together 2023 ended with A Call to Action, facilitated by Northeast Kingdom Organizing (NEKO), in which our participants identified the biggest challenges the NEK faces in the year ahead. Housing was top of the list by a wide margin, and that's what we have heard in all our events since then. We'll open this year's event with a roundtable addressing housing challenges and starting to work toward possible solutions with a cross-sector panel of experts from the NEK.
Our breakout sessions will be based around the three themes of the NEK Collaborative’s recently released 2024-2026 Strategic Development Plan, which we started creating with YOU at the 2023 event:
Economic Advancement
Community Development
Capacity Building
Registration for this great event is now open: don’t delay!
Event Highlights
Panel: Addressing the NEK Housing Crisis
The NEK faces a significant housing crisis. Decades-old decisions have left housing development a slow and difficult process, with housing affordability in The Kingdom at an all-time low. We need creative solutions, and we need to work together to find them.
For this reason, the NEK Collaborative is launching an NEK-wide Housing Convening, based in part on YOUR feedback at last year's event. This panel will help to get that ball rolling with expertise and perspectives on all sides of our housing challenges and a case to give your input and ideas. The goals of the NEK Housing Convening include working toward:
The goals of this process are:
Make safe, appropriate, and affordable housing available for all residents of the NEK
Find solutions to housing challenges in the NEK through a multisector approach in which all voices, including NEK residents, are heard
Empower municipalities to work together to address mutual housing and infrastructure challenges
Respect the natural environment and unique character of the NEK while making necessary changes and improvements to ensure that appropriate housing is available to all
Create an advocacy plan for local authorities, state agencies, and legislative bodies Incorporate elements of resilience and disaster preparedness into future housing planning We will not achieve these goals in the next few months, but we will generate data and proposals to take the next set of steps toward achieving them.
This panel is sponsored in part by Passumpsic Bank
Vermont Forest Future Strategic Roadmap
Presented by Abby Long, Executive Director, Kingdom Trails Association and NEK Collaborative Board Chair, and Christine McGowan, Forest Products Program Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund
As established in Act 183 of 2022, the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation (FPR) embarked on a 2 year, robust public engagement process to identify opportunities to help Vermont chart a path forward to protect the long-term viability of our forest industry – and the many benefits it provides to the state’s environment, economy, and quality of life. The outcome of this process is the Vermont Forest Future Strategic Roadmap which has identified actionable strategies to strengthen, modernize, promote, and protect Vermont’s forest products sector and the broader forest economy, including outdoor recreation.
A Call to Action- What Makes A Strong and Vibrant NEK?
We'll end the day with A Call to Action, as we did last year, and this year's topic will be to ask YOU what makes a strong and vibrant NEK? How can we collectively make our region the best that it can be?
Interested in having your business or organization featured at the event? Sponsorship opportunities→ are also now available.
