Amanda Johnson reported this story on assignment from the Rutland Herald. The Community News Service is a program in which students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost. This is the latest installment in an ongoing series of articles that introduce readers to local Rutland individuals who are making a difference in their community.
William Fourney-Mills is one of the founding members and executive director of Rutland County Pride, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing a safe place for the LGBTQIA+ community and a better environment for everyone in the city of Rutland. It’s been less than a year since RCP opened their center located on West Street in Rutland, and according to Fourney-Mills, they’re “still ramping up” and adding new programs and activities every month.
Q: Can you tell me a bit about what goes on at the organization and what types of events and services you host?
Fourney-Mills: We currently have a weekly recovery group that meets, and that’s for AA, NA and Al-Anon. … Our approach is a non-secular approach to recovery, so it’s open to everyone. It doesn’t necessarily have that religious component that AA and NA does.
We have book clubs for [ages] 18-plus. We call it our “adult book club,” and we meet every other month for those. … We generally do more of a “spicy” novel, adult-content type stuff, and we meet. … We also have a youth book club, and that meets on the alternate months from the adult book club.
Every other week we have a Pride Festival Committee meeting where people from the community come in, and we’re planning the 2024 Pride Festival. And that’s open to everyone to come in and take part. … At the end of each month, we’re going to be closing out the month with a potluck open to the community. And that way everybody can come together socially.
We also have our weekly working hours which are every Friday from 8 a.m. to noon. And that’s just open workspace, where folks who — especially during the pandemic, we have a lot of people that work remotely now, — that they can come in and be in an atmosphere where there are some people around. I can’t say it’s always the most productive time, but everybody has a good time.
How has the experience been for you in Rutland, and even Vermont as a whole, as far as the community?
It’s a mixed atmosphere, truthfully. We definitely know that there’s people out there that oppose what we’re doing. However, we have not had, as a center, anything directly targeted to us. It’s more of (what) we hear through the networks, the chatter. So, the community, by and large, has been overwhelmingly supportive, which is awesome. And the structure, the way that we work, would not be successful if it weren’t for all the community partners and the people that we work with.
Even though I’m the executive director, I’m only on salary for 10 hours a week … 99.99% of everything that we do is volunteer-based. That’s what’s made us a very, very strong organization, because we’ve had to rely on everybody taking part.
What are some of the main goals of your organization? Are you currently reaching those goals?
We are exceeding all goals at this point, which is just mind-boggling to even say. We never anticipated we’d grow as vastly as we have, and to become as popular as we have. It’s very heart-warming to see that people know that we’re here and people are comfortable that we’re here. … I’ve heard stories, recently, that the reason people are moving to the area is because of our presence. … We have a board right now of 16 folks, plus myself, and every one of them is committed to the organization, and they’re truly working for it.
As far as growth, right now, we are definitely ramping up our challenges because we are 100% volunteer-based, and it’s sometimes hard to get the staffing to do everything that we want. Or qualified individuals to, say, lead support groups or something like that, because what I don’t want to do is endanger the people that we’ve been entrusted to help.
We are hoping, by 2025, to be able to have some full-time employees, that we will be able to do more programming and sustainable stuff than just what we’re doing currently. And then, also, we are broadening our net with the youth track that we are on. We have a youth committee, and we’re working very closely with the GSUs, the gay student unions, associations in multiple schools, and getting the word out, trying to be there to support the younger generation that’s coming up through life.
There’s so many kids that are in need and don’t have resources. … We’re working on transgender support, both for gender-affirming care, hormone replacement therapy and trying to get support groups in place, because the transgender community is one community that is often left out — like a second thought — in a lot of programming. But we want to bring it to the forefront, especially down here in this area. Gender-affirming care and stuff like that is very, very challenging for our transgender folks, and so we’re trying to figure out how we can assist them and get them the care that everyone deserves.
Where can people go to find more information about what’s going on? How can they get involved?
We have a website [RCPride.org], and that’s really where we house all of our information. … There are all of the events, and that’s the first thing we update when we start offering new events. You can see our whole calendar from there, and it changes weekly.
Also, we have a Facebook presence, and Instagram and social media, but everything will link back to our website, so that’s a storehouse for everything.
Is there anything you would like to add about the organization?
I’m just so proud of everyone that’s involved in all this. … It just makes my heart explode, just to see people thriving and making a difference in the community, because that’s always one of the benchmarks that I’ve set for myself in life. … It’s not always where you are, but the difference that you make. And my goal is to always make life a little better for the people around me than, possibly, what I had. And so, by having the center here, I think we are making that positive difference, and it just makes my heart so warm.