Each year Healthy Lamoille Valley honors individuals and groups that have made significant contributions in time and effort to supporting a healthy Lamoille Valley community and working towards the reduction of youth substance misuse. Honorees represent the full engagement of the Healthy Lamoille Valley coalition across individuals, businesses, organizations, and volunteer collaborations.
Congratulations to the amazing individuals who contributed greatly to Healthy Lamoille Valley’s prevention efforts in 2023 and who continue to be leaders in this important work!
2023 Prevention Honor Awardees
Sheriff Roger Marcoux
This year’s Michelle Salvador Prevention Award goes to Sheriff Roger Marcoux. Roger made a clear commitment to prevention through his time, his staff’s time, and all the resources that he has dedicated to addressing this issue in the Lamoille Valley. He knew that the issue of substance misuse could not be solved by enforcement alone and rather that it would take the combined partnership of enforcement, prevention, treatment, and recovery to impact this crisis. We honor Roger for his work in convening the Upstream Lamoille workgroup, leading six Opioid Forums, having the first Prescription Drug Take Back Box in our region, sharing resources with his team, partnering in recovery efforts and serving on the board of Jenna’s Promise.
Stowe Youth Lacrosse
Coalition member Katie Marvin sent in this nomination, writing: “I was impressed that Stowe Youth Lacrosse made a public change to make their end of the year event for players and families an alcohol-free event. These intentional changes send an important message to the community that we need to snap a line between events where alcohol should be enjoyed and those events where alcohol is not appropriate. Especially at a health and family focused event, I was grateful for this change, and feel that it deserves recognition.”
Heidi Richard
Heidi is a dedicated Allied Health instructor, always creating and finding amazing experiential opportunities for her students. Despite her busy schedule, she has prioritized substance prevention and connecting with HLV. Last school year, Heidi brought her class to our Tobacco Prevention Taskforce meeting, co-led a Getting to Y team with her class, and connected community members and students with HLV resources through tabling at events like their blood drive and health fair. This school year, she has already brought her students with our Strategic Planning series, and there are many other prevention-related initiatives in the works.
Wendy Hubbard
VT Dept of Health public health nurse, family child health coordinator and school liaison, Wendy is one of those people that goes beyond to help. She has elevated prevention with all of our school nurses, partnered to bring resources to the community, and make valuable connections. Wendy shows up consistently to table at events and will include HLV resources at her table. She has been a great collaborator and is always willing to help connect us with school partners. Wendy was part of our team when HLV attended CADCA’s Graduate Coalition Academy for prevention coalitions this year and helped contribute to our Blue Ribbon award.
Kai Winters
As one of our newest members Kai has jumped in and volunteered, taking on the huge and unprecedented task of analyzing three years worth of data from HLV’s biennial community survey, including conducting an in-depth examination of significant data trends from multiple angles, yielding valuable insights. She co-presented her findings at a coalition meeting this summer, incorporating recent strategic planning work by the coalition and identifying key trends to address. Kai has helped table at the Jenna’s Promise open house, sat in on numerous training to increase her prevention knowledge and skills, was involved in supporting our Blue Ribbon application, and helped with our strategic planning events!
Catherine Gallagher
From Lamoille North Supervisory Union: “Superintendent Catherine Gallagher’s dedication to promoting a healthier and safer environment for the youth in the Lamoille Valley is truly commendable. Her efforts in spearheading initiatives such as our community forums, the Lamoille Valley Vape Awareness Town Hall, and recent community advisory groups have been great opportunities to brainstorm more support systems and boost protective factors not only for their youth, but for their staff, and communities at large. The collaboration and deep connections she’s built with outside organizations such as Healthy Lamoille Valley, Vermont Department of Health, and others, help Lamoille North address youth substance misuse and continue to improve the health and well-being of their school community.”
Nate Bickford
Nate first began his work with Healthy Lamoille Valley as a 9 year old who wanted to get involved in helping others when he created a cartoon about two students making plans for afterschool and choosing a substance-free activity. Nate’s work has quietly evolved over the years – often behind the scenes items such as data research, data input, serving on hiring committees, and designing logos and other materials. In addition to that important work, Nate has consistently engaged in outreach-based activities as well, including: tabling at community events, co-facilitating Askable Adult trainings, helping with Sticker Shock campaigns, assisting with refusal skills workshops, and participating in forums and Prevention Day at the Capital. Most recently he participated in a panel of youth prevention leaders at the White House.
Roland Lajoie
Roland has served the community through his welcoming of community partners and sharing of information on 93.9FM WLVB, Morrisville’s country radio station. As WLVB’s program director for 20 years until his retirement this year, Roland worked tirelessly to build community through radio. He invited us on for interviews and discussions whenever we reached out for support and often shared prevention PSAs to help create a healthier community.
Brian Duda
Aaron French, coalition member and director of the Morrisville local health office, nominated Brian: “He demonstrates his dedication in prevention for the youth population. His ability to connect with students seems to come with ease for him, this ability is highly commendable given the challenges youth can have in connecting and trusting adults. Brian’s ability to communicate and articulate prevention strategies and frameworks to the general public is outstanding. The Morrisville District is very fortunate to have his skill set to serve youth, families and the community.”
First row, from left to right: Catherine Gallagher, Kai Winters, Nate Bickford
Second row, from left to right: Heidi Richards, Wendy Hubbard, Brian Duda
Top of page: Sheriff Roger Marcoux receives his award from Coalition Coordinator Jessica Bickford and Michelle Salvador from the Vermont Department of Health