Erin and Tom Shea and Family

    
Chuck and Sherry Rhynard

    We met several years ago at the local food cooperative (in the produce section) and are coming up in our fourth wedding anniversary. Chuck grew up in a small farming town in Michigan and Sherry grew up as a city girl in Baltimore. Chuck has two grown daughters. We have grandchildren nearby with another on the way.

    Balance, mindfulness, local food consumption and community are a big deal to us. We want to have a small foot print on the earth and heal our culture so there is something for our grandchildren and great grandchildren, at least seven generations to come.

    We enjoy being in the woods, travel, cooking, music, dance and sharing our life together, along with cats Rusty and Ruby.   
 

 
Steve Hinds and Family

     We are four souls, my wife Roseanne Robins and I, and our two daughters ages nine and 14. From a previous incarnation as a parent, I also have a son who is 37. I grew up in Texas, Roseanne grew up in New Jersey and New York, and our daughters are both from China.

     Roseanne and I have been exploring cohousing in some form since the early 90s. At one point we actually gave strong consideration to moving South to join a cohousing group that is today a thriving community (Pathway's Cohousing in Northampton). We come to cohousing looking for a stronger connection to the people with whom we live. Maybe somewhere in our genes we remember the village and miss it. It's a bit of a mystery, but we keep coming back looking for it, so it must be important.
 

 
Anne Campbell

     Anne was born in Montpelier and is a seventh generation Vermonter. Five generations of her family are buried in the Cutler Cemetery just a mile from our proposed site. She left Montpelier to go away to college, but always wanted to return to Vermont. She has spent her professional life working and teaching to promote psychologically healthy environments for young children and families. She taught and directed a statewide program at the University of Maine for 25 years. She is currently a mental health consultant in private practice in Montpelier, and she is very active as the board chair of the Onion River Exchange, a local non-profit organization that facilitates the exchange of services and community connections. She enjoys all things outdoors including cross-country and downhill skiing, hiking, kayaking, camping and sailing. She also enjoys family activities, civic work in her community, group process and communication. She and her husband, Ken Matzner, have been living in Montpelier since May, 2001.
 

Ken Matzner

     Ken was born a on the South Dakota prairie in 1944. He spent most of his adult life on the prairie of central Illinois in the land of corn and soybeans, but he feels more at home in Vermont than anywhere else. His first professional jobs were in the public schools as a chemistry and physics teacher and later as a school social worker. Since then he spent most of his professional life in the field of mental health. He taught mental health counseling at Eastern Illinois University for 15 years. He is currently a mental health consultant in private practice working mainly for Head Start, and very much enjoys teaching a Rocket Science Club at the Montpelier Main Street School. He is also a board member of the Vermont Peace Academy. When he has the time he enjoys kayaking, sailing, cross-country skiing, hiking, birding, ham radio, sport rocketry, environmental volunteer work, and improving his skills in Nonviolent Communication. He and his wife, Anne Campbell, met in graduate school in 1975, lost track of each other for over 20 years, and were reunited in 1998 on the Vermont State Capitol steps.
 

 
Todd and Isaac Sternbach, Christie Sternbach-Feist, and Taz

     New Jersey born, Todd, 47, has lived in Montpelier for 20 years with wife, Christie, 50, and son, Isaac, 17. After obtaining a BS from Vassar College in Environmental Science, and a MS from Rutgers, Todd headed north to Easthampton, MA. After a brief year he was coaxed to the more beautiful environs of Montpelier where he has since made his home. While his initial work was with the State Agency of Natural Resources, Todd found he had an aptitude and interest for computer network administration. He currently works for Rhino Foods in S. Burlington, VT and does computer consults to small businesses and non-profit organizations. In his rare spare time, he enjoys running with our dog, Taz, playing disc golf, bike riding and x-country skiing. Todd’s experience with cohousing started at Vassar where he lived in a co-op. He then moved to another co-op at the Univ. of Michigan, and met Christie at another co-op he lived in during graduate school. He has always supported and lived as sustainably as he could. His interest in Montpelier cohousing is the collaboration of working on a common goal for the common good.

     Isaac was born and bred in Montpelier. At 17 he is all that a great teenager can be. Between working part-time jobs, volunteering at the Food Shelf, playing tennis and guitar, Isaac still finds time to study history, politics, music, and connect with his friends. At the tender age of 8, his parents dragged him to Australia for one year, where he was one of the few white, English-speaking students in his public school outside of Sydney. This was a far cry from the homogeneity of Vermont for which he had developed some life-long friends. He will be attending Simon’s Rock College in August. Isaac is not sure what his parents are all about in the cohousing movement, but understands the need to live sustainably and minimize our impact on the world.

     Christie, born in Buffalo to parents with tremendous dislike of the cold, started moving at an early age. Her early childhood was spent climbing trees, playing in the sand, and chasing geckos in the Caribbean. Her parents decided that perhaps the island education system was not appropriate for their 4 kids, so her father rejoined the Air Force and promptly moved the kids all over the southern US, Okinawa, and Europe. Art, architecture, crafts, psychology, medicine, skiing, and tennis were her main interests and finding a program that could incorporate all those interests was challenging. However, at the University of New Hampshire she found her niche in Occupational Therapy, and later obtained an advanced master’s degree in OT specializing in Developmental Disabilities. From diverse interests to specialization, Christie found that what she really enjoyed was the challenge of rehabilitating hand injuries associated with acute trauma. She is the only certified hand therapist at Central Vermont Medical Center where she has been employed for 21 years. Her interest in cohousing started when she lived in a co-op (with Todd) in NJ. Understanding the need for community building, supporting others and accessibility design for elders draws her to the Montpelier cohousing.

     Taz is a 4 ½ year old Australian shepherd who loves running with Todd, swimming or being in the kayak with Christie, and leaping for Frisbees. He loves all kids, and is working on his issues with men with silver hair.
 

Wally and Barbara Smith
     We met when Wally was in graduate school in philosophy at UMass Amherst and Barbara was at Smith College. We were married in 1967. For a few years, Wally bounced between doctoral studies and teaching, while Barbara patiently worked as a computer programmer and systems designer. In 1973 we moved to Prince Edward Island, Canada, and changed our lives. Wally became a journalist and then, starting in 1978, information director of the provincial Department of Agriculture. Barbara had a market garden and worked in a research greenhouse for New Alchemy Institute. We had three sons, Josh, Jeremy, and Patrick.

     In 1980 we traveled to Kenya and Tanzania on an agricultural exchange. We both became board members of Farmers Helping Farmers, a Canada-Africa aid program. In 1982 we packed up the boys and moved to Zimbabwe, where we both taught in African high schools for the World University Service..

     Returning to the States in 1985, we settled in Vermont and taught in public school. We also took up cycling. Wally became a tour leader for Bike Vermont, something he is still doing after more than 20 years. He stopped teaching in 1993 and began writing again, mostly about local education. Barbara retired early in 1999, when we traveled to Cuba and began work on a book, Bicycling Cuba, which was published in 2002. More recently we finished a cycling guide to the Maritime Provinces of Canada.

     Our three sons are grown now and we have three grandchildren. Besides cycling, we enjoy kayaking, sailing (when we have a boat), gardening, music, and traveling, most recently to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico, and New Zealand. We have long been interested in peace, social justice, and sustainable living (though we haven't always practiced it.) We are active in the UU Church. We first visited a cohousing community in Canada in 2007, and we were so favorably impressed that we began looking for one in Vermont. Montpelier Cohousing seems just right.