MOVE PEOPLE AND MAKE CHANGE.”
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HUFFINGTON POST • FORBES • NEW YORK TIMES via AP
By JOHN CURRAN, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 26, 2011
RUTLAND, Vt. (AP) — When documentary filmmaker Art Jones and his five-man crew set out from New York to shoot footage of a blood drive in a small Vermont city, he did it to satisfy an old friend, one of the organizers. Jones figured it might make a nice four-minute film.
What he found in hardscrabble Rutland was something more: A hard-luck city whose annual Gift-of-Life Marathon was but one of the homegrown initiatives being spearheaded by energetic volunteers and creative community members determined to turn things around.
The 80-minute documentary he ended up making — "The Blood in This Town" — is now getting notice from community leaders and rural development groups who hope to replicate Rutland's self-reliance instead of waiting for Washington or corporate America to deliver them from hard times.
"The movie does a good job of exploring some themes that I think are very common in rural areas: How to deal with a changing economy, how to develop your own leadership, how to do something sustainable and truly based on the assets of the community, as opposed to trying to find your salvation in some outside company you're going to bring in," said Tim Marema, vice president of the Center for Rural Strategies, in Knoxville, Tenn. "It's about building from within."
Like many small American towns and cities, Rutland — a former quarry, manufacturing and railroad center now home to about 16,630 people — is way past its prime.
Long-dormant manufacturing facilities with broken windows, deteriorating old homes and empty storefronts have combined to create an urban landscape in sharp contrast to Vermont's picturesque village squares. It is, as a local hospital executive says in the movie, recalling a magazine article's description: "the only ugly town in Vermont."
On Dec. 22, 2009, Jones and his crew camped out at the Paramount Theatre, an 850-seat Victorian opera house whose stage, seats and lobbies swarm for one day a year with volunteers, nurses, American Red Cross phlebotomists and donors laid out on cots, with red tubes snaking out of their arms into plastic bags.
Organizers had set what some considered an unattainable goal — 1,000 pints of blood. A white eraser board kept a running tally as the hours ticked down. By the time the Paramount's doors shut, 1,024 pints had been collecting, breaking a New England record for a one-day drive that had been set by Boston, a city of 645,000.
The cameras caught it all — and more.
"Throughout that day, I heard more stories about other things going on in town," said Jones, whose stock-in-trade is normally corporate films. "The idea was if this town could do this in one day, come together that way and rediscover its ability to accomplish things, what else could it do in the other 364 days of the year?" he said.
He found out, taking cameras to Pine Hill Park, a former wino haven on the outskirts of town that was turned into a mountain biking haven; to the Rutland Farmers Market, which took up residence in an unheated building and became a roaring year-round success; to Friday Night Live, a volunteer-run celebration of downtown that blocks off Center Street five or six nights a year in summer; creation of the Rutland Area Farm and Food Link, which is helping connect farms with new markets, including individual customers who buy shares in farms and get weekly food deliveries.
"It really took Art Jones, an outsider, to come in and say to the community at large "You've got something special here" for a lot of people to understand that," said Randal Smathers, editor of the Rutland Herald newspaper. "It's made people proud to say "I'm from Rutland," when before it was like "Oh, I'm from Vermont."
Not that all is rosy now.
"Sure, we still have our problems," said blood drive organizer Steve Costello, who lured Jones to Rutland. "They're not being solved overnight. But the blood drive and a lot of these other things the film touches on are giving people here a self-esteem that wasn't here before, and a sense that they can solve these problems if they stick to it."
While the film hasn't had a theatrical release — Jones hopes it gets picked up by PBS, or some film festivals — its reputation has spread, partly with the help of an outreach program run by his production company, Great Jones Productions Inc.
It has played in more than a dozen Vermont screenings, usually accompanied by a panel discussion on community building. In September, it will be subject of a screening and forum at the Pratt Institute's sustainable planning department. Also in the works: A screening at the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center entitled "Rutland Revival & Grassroots Revitalization of Small Post-Industrial Cities."
"From a planning perspective, the issues that Rutland is dealing with are occurring all over the country," said William Calabrese, a planner and recent graduate of Pratt, who's organizing that event. "What the film gets at is showing the strong sense of community. Rutland's a unique case. But there are similar cases. There's a lot to be learned from Rutland."
And from "The Blood in This Town."
"The message is to come together around the good things and the assets that do exist in your community," Jones said. "It is so easy to criticize and sit back and say no to every new initiative. It's a much harder thing to get creative."
By Robin Caudell, Press Republican Staff Writer, Thursday June 16, 2011
LAKE PLACID — Rutland, Vt., like many post-industrial towns nationwide, teetered on its rusty rails a long spell before townspeople lifted their local economy themselves.
This down-and-out-and-upward tale is the subject of director Art Jones's documentary, "The Blood in This Town," which screens at noon Sunday at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts. It is the first offering Sunday, the closing day of Lake Placid Film Forum 2011.
"It's a great film festival," said Jones, a New York City-based filmmaker and president of Great Jones Productions. "I've always known it as a place where a film can start a discussion and get people to take some action. It's a great place to screen our film."
Model for towns
Two years ago, Great Jones Productions was looking for an economic-crisis story of substance. Rutland's record-breaking Gift-of-Life Marathon blood drive is the axis of the film, which explores the town's resurrection.
"Millions of people were hungering for something real and positive," Jones said. "It was a pretty dark landscape. Rutland is a gritty, post-industrial town. It's in a rural area. It's somewhat city-like. It's like thousands of towns and cities across America. Not only hit hard by the deep recession in good times, it has been passed by globalization."
The town lost its manufacturing jobs and its young people.
"Rutland is an example of a town coming together to revitalize themselves. They are not waiting for the government to give them a bailout or some big plant or factory or to open up to give them thousands of jobs. They have to create a future different from their industrial past or railroad past."
The same could hold true for Plattsburgh, Troy, Saranac Lake or Erie and Scranton, Pa.
"There are so many places that outsiders say are dead. In these cities, there is life there. We have to put some focus on them. 'Blood' takes a look at this. Our hope is some of these models are new initiatives you see alive at the grass roots in Rutland. They can be shared and transferred to other communities that need some inspiration and know-how. Our basic hope with the film is to not only create a documentary but create an outreach to open the community and share some of the inspiration."
Encourages dialogue
Sunday's screening will be followed by a special Community Building Forum featuring Rutland grassroots leaders Paul Gallo of the Rutland Creative Economy, Michael Smith of Pine Hill Park, Steve Costello of Central Vermont Public Service & Coach for the Gift-of-Life Marathon and Jones. They will be joined by local advocates Kate Fish of Lake Placid Green Team and executive director of the Adirondack North Country Association and Gail Brill of the Saranac Lake Community Store.
"Instead of a filmmaker talking about his film, it's the real activists and real community leaders talking about new ideas," Jones said. "You get a real dialogue going and spark discussion and action in the local area where you're screening. We're trying to get down on creating a revitalizing-jam session on Sunday. We would love many local community people to come in and watch the film."
The panelists will offer attendees ideas to effect change in their own communities.
"It has to happen this way," Jones said. "It has to happen in small screenings, in small communities. It's about a dialogue between the writers and journalists and people trying to do something different. For small towns, Rutland, and what they're doing in Saranac Lake, is inspirational and may help save hundreds or thousands of small towns around the country. I like to dream, but I think this one is in reach."
Rutland Herald Editorial, Published: May 16, 2011
The state’s progressive business leaders held their annual meeting in Burlington last week, and Rutland was one of the stars.
Vermont Business for Social Responsibility is a growing force in the state’s business community, building our “green” credentials while at the same time profiting off that image to market their ideas and products.
One of their morning sessions was hosted by Vermont Rural Development’s Paul Costello and featured Rutland’s Creative Economy leaders along with snippets of Art Jones’ documentary, “The Blood in This Town,” as a how-to model of getting things done with a grass-roots effort. The presentation was warmly received by a standing-room-only audience of about 75 people: Entrepreneurs and others looking to build the state’s economy alongside the strength of its communities.
We cannot expect major manufacturers to reverse decades-long trends and suddenly decide to go on a factory-building spree in Rutland, in Vermont or indeed the Northeast. Global macroeconomic forces favoring overseas sweatshops are too strong.
Growth in this region comes from clusters of opportunity or specialized niches. Bennington, for instance, is working hard to develop a composites industry based on a couple of relatively small manufacturers. They in turn attract and train a workforce knowledgeable about the industry and there is opportunity for more and perhaps larger investment in the future.
But even that success is built on a chain of coincidences, beginning with the war in Iraq showing a need for better-armored Humvees, thus creating demand for some of the products coming out of Bennington. You can’t build regional development plans on the basis that you might get that lucky because while you’re waiting for lightning to strike, whole communities can fail.
There are no easy solutions, but the state several years ago began a process of encouraging communities to build their own futures instead of waiting for outside help, through the Council on Rural Development’s Creative Economy program. Of the many places Costello has taken that message, it has been most successful in Rutland.
Thursday’s program was a reminder of that success. It has also become part of the message going forward, as more and more often Rutland’s work is being held up statewide as an example of how to get things done.
When, toward the end of the presentation, Costello pointed at the Creative Economy volunteers in attendance and said “These are Rutland’s heroes,” the audience nodded along in agreement. They are regular people making an enormous impact for the better.
It’s also making a difference right here at home, in a way that might not be as visible as Friday Night Live or even the makeover of Pine Hill from scrubland into a city park. Steve Costello of CVPS — coincidentally, Paul’s brother — reports that on Friday they screened “The Blood in This Town” to the junior class at Rutland High School to an equally positive reaction. If we can get the youth of the city excited and involved in our community, proud to be from Rutland, so that they want to stay here and build something, we have a bright future.