Brother’s Brother Foundation is working with Capstone Community Action, a non-profit organization headquartered in Barre, VT, to provide support following historic flooding in Vermont. Capstone Community Action supports people in crises by providing access to food, housing and job training. Three days after the storm began, BBF provided a grant to Capstone and has also sent a shipment of hygiene kits and tarps.  

All four Capstone facilities–located in Orange, Washington, and Lamoille counties—have ongoing responses to help flood victims recover. The organization partnered with local catering companies and World Central Kitchen to distribute free meals in the storm’s immediate aftermath and continues to do so through the Salvation Army. Capstone is also distributing canned and bottled water, frozen meals, infant formula, hygiene kits and tarps to those in need.

The recent flood exacerbated a food and housing crisis that Capstone Executive Director Sue Minter says was already prevalent in Vermont. In an interview with Vermont Public Radio, she said the amount of people coming into the food shelf had already doubled since April when federal pandemic support ended.

Capstone runs the largest food shelf in the area. Before the recent flooding, it supported up to 80 people a day.

“Right now we are going to see another a major increase in people who don’t have a place to stay, not necessarily those who have low income but people who have been flooded out of their homes,” said Minter