Common Sense Radio: NEK Together and Northeast Kingdom Priorities with Abby Long
Tuesday, October 27, 2026, on Common Sense Radio, with Bill Sayre, weekdays, 11 o’clock till Noon.
Abby Long, Executive Director of the Northeast Kingdom Collaborative, joins Bill to discuss the upcoming event, NEK Together, at which Northeast Kingdom community leaders will meet on November 4, in Island Pond to define priorities — economic, social, and environment — and to recommend policies and actions to achieve those priorities.
Potential Questions and Issues
Remind us about what the Northeast Kingdom Collaborative is, its mission, and how you accomplish it? Who are members of the Collaborative.
Is NEK Together an example of the kind of project the Collaborative organizes to achieve its mission.
Let’s learn more more about NEK Together. Who will be attending?
How is NEK Together structured?
Morning Breakout sessions, Priorities in Practice — Reimagining Rural Healthcare; Support Working Lands and Conservation; Land and Homes for Community Care; Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in the NEK; Transforming Vermont Education through Community Schools and Community Partners;
What should we know about Regional Priorities — In 2025, they were housing, health care access, and climate resilience. Do you think NEK priorities have changed?
How can NEK organizations and individuals work together to advance these priorities?
Afternoon Breakout Sessions. Priorities in Practice — Online Access to Health Care in the NEK, and Delivering Care and to Vulnerable Populations; Housing Hubbub Roundtable; Resilience on Main Street: preparing for D isruption; NEK’s Outdoor Recreation Economy, learning from the past to prepare for the future; Workforce — supply and demand, challenges and opportunities.
Who can benefit from attending this event? How can people register to come to this event, and how much does it cost to attend?
What do you foresee as the role that the NEK Collaborative will play in bringing the work of the NEK Together Event, into reality?
In particular, are there opportunities to show the compatibility of rural recreation with forests, especially working forests? For example biking trails.lis
What is the role of improving public awareness and understanding of our rural working lands, the people who earn their living from those lands, and the communities that depend upon them, important if we are to sustain Vermont’s economy, environment, and culture.
What should we know about the effect of high prices for diesel and home heating oil on the Northeast Kingdom. Machinery and equipment for farming, timber harvesting, construction. And for transporting to market milk and forest products, and transporting to customer markets — dairy products, wood products. Also, the cost of driving to and from school event, urban or village jobs, and shopping. And of course home heating.
What role do Vermont’s demographic challenges affect all the above breakout sessions, and the challenges to a flourishing Northeast Kingdom — lowest birthrate since the 1850s, lowest fertility rate of any State in the nation, second oldest population, declining working age population, and the associated decline in young families, and in school age population, and supporting population for rural hospitals.
On The Notch Radio, WMTK, 106.3 FM, and on affiliated radio stations of Green Mountain Broadcastrers, in Orleans County, Wike 1490AM or 103.1FM, in Caledonia County, WSTJ 1340AM or 104.1FM, or directly on your phone or computer anywhere in Vermont, or anywhere in the world, with internet access, via live streaming from the Notch web site.
