{"id":1255,"date":"2016-06-14T16:39:06","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T16:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/?p=1255"},"modified":"2016-06-14T17:06:05","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T17:06:05","slug":"stan-holt-beloved-decade-long-board-member-is-remembered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/stan-holt-beloved-decade-long-board-member-is-remembered\/","title":{"rendered":"Stan Holt, beloved decade-long board member is remembered"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"S-Stan<\/a><\/p>\n

Youth Services lost one of its vigorous advocates for young people this spring with the passing of Stan Holt, a Youth Services\u00a0board member from 1998 to 2011 and active long after he officially stepped down.<\/p>\n

Below is a reprint of an article in Youth Services’ 2011 Annual Report which described in detail how Stan and his wife Marge\u00a0came to be involved in youth issues throughout their\u00a0careers and move to Windham County, VT.<\/p>\n

Like the growth of the spruce and fir on his Christmas tree farm in Townshend, Stan Holt\u2019s commitment to the development of youth leaders has increased during his lifetime.\u00a0 Depending on how and when you\u2019ve met him, you might know Stan better as a Protestant minister, a community organizer, a family man, the organizer of the annual Grace Cottage Hospital Fair, or as the sole director for thirteen years from the West River Valley on the Youth Services Board.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

In all these roles, Stan\u2019s interest in youth has grown and evolved leading him to his present connection to Youth Services.\u00a0\u00a0 The seed was planted in Stan\u2019s job as an associate at the First Presbyterian Church in Potsdam, New York and later in Cincinnati, Ohio. There he served as a campus minister, doing outreach with students that, given the political environment and student movement of the early 60\u2019s, evolved into civil rights work for three denominations under the aegis of the Westminster Foundation.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened during those years influenced the rest of his life,\u201d explained Marge, his wife of 58 years.\u00a0 \u201cWe always had young people in the house.\u00a0 Stan would often bring someone home who needed a roof over their head and while initially a kind of shock, it enriched our lives,\u201d she recalled with a smile.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cCivil rights work was unavoidable in the 60\u2019s,\u201d Stan explained.\u00a0 \u201cThe House Committee on Un-American Activities got after us and we exposed their hypocrisy and fought to highlight the damage they were doing to our democratic principles,\u201d he explained.\u00a0 Learning more about the overlap between local and national politics led to community organizing in Chicago in 1968 and then on to Providence, Rhode Island where he worked with the Catholic Church.\u00a0 There he started an organization called PACE (People Acting Through Community Effort) in the poorer communities to \u201cget things accomplished\u201d on the neighborhood, city, and state levels.\u00a0 Stan worked on issues such as reducing crime, improving the quality of schools, expanding employment opportunities, and installing needed stop lights on dangerous corners.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAt that time, most of the city services went to the better neighborhoods,\u201d Holt explained.\u00a0 Stan\u2019s organization worked with parishioners, labor unions, and anti-poverty groups to find and train leaders, a role which he says he enjoyed the most. \u201cHaving people realize their leadership potential was the best,\u201d he recalled.\u00a0 Stan and his staff would train community leaders to build a following so they could turn out 400-600 people when they needed to pressure the mayor or city council to redirect needed resources.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then the family moved on to Baltimore for about 4 years before heading to Boston in the late 70\u2019s to join Massachusetts Fair Share, a statewide progressive organization which worked on a plethora of issues.<\/em><\/p>\n

Marge took care of the four kids and the many moves.\u00a0 \u201cI got very good at packing up the house in less than a week and hitting the road,\u201d she recalls grimly. Moving was often a difficult adjustment for the four children who ranged at the time from elementary school students to teenagers. Wherever they landed, Marge would seek out a teaching job, something she continued in Vermont after they moved in 1981 to the family homestead in Townshend, which Stan\u2019s father had bought in 1955 and is now under the stewardship of his siblings and their descendants.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"S-Stan<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Stan and Marge started planting Christmas trees on the family property, which had been a potato farm in the 1930\u2019s and later a dairy farm. Meanwhile, Stan was good enough at organizing that people would call him to consult on issues ranging from the toxic waste of chemical factories in Louisiana to work on public health issues in Massachusetts. Their crop of Christmas trees peaked about 15 years later, and they would cut close to 1000 a year for markets in Boston and Albany while also selling them locally and as the \u201cCut Your Own\u201d variety.<\/em><\/p>\n

Marge\u2019s years teaching at Wardsboro and Windham Elementary Schools opened her eyes to the challenges facing youth in rural areas, many of which Youth Services tries to mitigate through its 8 different programs ranging from Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring to parenting skills for families in danger of losing their children to the state. \u201cProblems can go undetected for so long before they come to the surface, in the classroom,\u201d she recalled.\u00a0 \u201cIt is critical that children have some way out of situations they can\u2019t deal with, before they reach a crisis point.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Growing up in a suburb and always working in cities, Stan was somewhat taken aback at how isolated many youth were in the West River Valley.\u00a0 \u201cIt was an eye-opener,\u201d Stan said, who always hires local youth to help him with his tree operation.\u00a0 \u201cI was surprised how difficult even getting from one place to another was if you didn\u2019t yet have a driving license,\u201d he said.\u00a0 During his time on the board, Youth Services put fresh energy into looking at the underlying conditions, such as transportation, that affect the rural youth they serve.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI think I had sensitivity to youth problems,\u201d Stan said, explaining what motivated him to join the Youth Services board.\u00a0 \u201cI had seen in the city neighborhoods how \u2018at loose ends\u2019 kids could be which sometimes led into substance abuse and other problems.\u00a0 I thought, \u2018This is something I can get behind.\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Youth Services chairman of the board, Steven Sayer, describe Stan as a guiding force for the organization, and a solid citizen.\u00a0 With his natural reserve and his dry wit, Stan weighed in on countless initiatives related to legislation and tirelessly worked on fundraisers like the agency\u2019s Jazz Jubilee. \u201cStan seldom said no to any task if he saw value within it,\u201d stated Sayer.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHe can always be relied on,\u201d explained Sayer, who worked several years with Stan on Youth Services\u2019 Legislative Committee which ensures that Vermont legislators and in recent years, Vermont state senators and congressmen, are aware of issues affecting youth in Windham County.<\/em><\/p>\n

According to David Brown, a fellow board member who now acts as interim director of Youth Services, Stan was always respectful of the role legislators\u2019 play.\u00a0 \u201cThere was never a pounding fist with Stan.\u00a0 He was direct about the needs of youth in Windham County but addressed the issues and asked for their support without being pushy or threatening,\u201d Brown recalled.<\/em><\/p>\n

Though he\u2019s slowing down \u2018just a tad\u2019 with his consulting and staying closer to home as a result of the loss of some of his eyesight in recent years, Stan\u2019s roots in service toward his adopted community of Townshend, Vermont and the youth of the area remain strong.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Youth Services lost one of its vigorous advocates for young people this spring with the passing of Stan Holt, a Youth Services\u00a0board member from 1998 to 2011 and active long after he officially stepped down. Below is a reprint of an article in Youth Services’ 2011 Annual Report which described in detail how Stan and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1257,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Stan-and-Marge-Holt-sliderpsd..jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"NanciL","author_link":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/author\/nancil\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1256,"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions\/1256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youthservicesinc.org\/website_b0b5e883\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}