Vermont arts groups tell House Health Care committee creative-aging programs reduce isolation, link to health services

Troy Hickman, a Vermont Arts Council representative, and Main Street Arts leaders told the Vermont House Committee on Health Care on Feb. 12 about a statewide Creative Aging initiative that pairs arts programming with elder services to address social isolation and promote health and wellness.

The Vermont Arts Council has supported creative-aging grants and training for local organizations and teaching artists, Hickman said. Over about four years the council awarded roughly $200,000 in grants to about 20 community organizations and helped train about 40 teaching artists who can work with older adults, he said. The council’s work aligns with the state’s Age Strong plan, which highlights social connection as a core principle for older Vermonters.

Main Street Arts board chair Susan Still described activities at her Saxons River organization, where weekly free lunches average about 32 older participants and classes are scheduled around those meals so elders can attend both. Still said Main Street Arts runs multidisciplinary classes (drawing, choral singing, theater, printmaking and more), offers ADA-accessible facilities and partners with Senior Solutions, the Council on Aging for Southeastern Vermont, to subsidize food and classes so older adults can participate regardless of ability to pay.

Program director Ashley Starro outlined details of the Main Street Arts curriculum. The organization is running six multidisciplinary classes from February through July, taught by seven trained teaching artists; classes are free, registration‑based and six to eight weeks long. Starro said the program aims to teach skills that participants can continue independently while producing social and therapeutic benefits. She also described a Lifesongs program that paired five songwriters with five elders to produce songs about life stories; she recounted a songwriter playing a completed song at a hospice bedside, saying the process helped the participant find meaning.

Hickman and Still gave examples of local grant recipients and projects: Heritage Winooski Mill Museum programming at the Winooski Senior Center; Quahog Dance Theater work in St. Johnsbury; Vermont Arts Exchange offerings in Bennington; and a circus-arts program, Under the Big Top, run with the Northeast Kingdom Council on Aging at Sunrise Manor in Island Pond. Hickman said the Vermont Arts Council’s creative-aging work was seeded with national partnership grants, and cited support from the National Endowment for the Arts, state matching funds, private donations and a grant from the Mickelson Foundation and the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.

Both presenters emphasized that creative programs reduce barriers to participation — free lunches and classes remove means-based obstacles — and that arts programming fosters cross-generational connection, testing new activities and building confidence. Still said the work demonstrates rural communities can create meaningful social connection through the arts, citing Saxons River (a village of fewer than 500 people) as an example.

The presenters closed by inviting committee members and staff to visit Main Street Arts events earlier that day, including a circus performance scheduled for the Cedar Creek Room at 3:30 p.m. No formal committee action was taken during the presentation.

Ending

Committee members asked about funding sources and volunteer involvement; presenters reiterated that funding is a mix of federal (including NEA) and state dollars, private support, foundation grants and paid teaching-artist contracts, supplemented by volunteers. No legislative action or vote was recorded during this segment; presenters said they would continue training artists and expanding partnerships.