As the opioid epidemic sweeps the nation, New Hampshire has become a focal point in the national consciousness. Many regional organizations are working to identify new approaches that address not only substance misuse, but also health and wellness. While many of these organizations focus on treatment and recovery, some have focused more on prevention and addressing community and cultural needs. Lebanon Partners United for Safety and Health (PUSH) is one such initiative.

PUSH is a partnership of community members, students, parents, and stakeholders in Lebanon. The group focuses on education, communication, networking, leadership development, and providing practical resources to promote greater health and safety for youth and their families. PUSH is especially concerned with the areas of substance misuse, suicide prevention, and crisis intervention and response. Their current initiatives are focused on reducing the harms from youth and young adult marijuana use in the Lebanon School District. One of the ways PUSH aims to achieve this goal is through improving community attachment for youth and young adults, as well as increasing access to healthy activities.

At the most recent meeting of PUSH, members discussed the issue that 64 percent of Lebanon youth say they are not utilizing community programs and services. As part of that discussion, the group brainstormed activities for youth, young adults, and families in Lebanon. As part of their work, however, the group discovered that there are already many free or low-cost activities and events that attract a wide range of ages.

Lebanon Recreation and Parks offers teen programming after school and during the summer and school breaks. The Summer Outdoor Adventures program offered Lebanon teens opportunities to spend their vacations rock climbing, mountain biking, kayaking on the Connecticut River, stand up paddleboarding, and through-hiking the Appalachian Trail. In the winter, programming includes ski trips, ice fishing, and excursions to indoor adventures throughout the state. Meanwhile, the Lebanon Libraries offer teen book groups, hands-on computer building, free movies, and comic workshops. The library’s TechGirlz series was open to middle school girls this summer and offered workshops in podcasting, designing mobile apps, coding, and website design.

Given the teen programming already in place, PUSH’s next priority is finding ways to help youth overcome the barriers to accessing the plentiful programs throughout the city. Angie LeDuc, the Drug-Free Community Partnership Coordinator for Dartmouth-Hitchcock Community Health, says, “The goal of PUSH is to be a connector. We are looking to protect young people and help them feel understood and have a connection to their community.”

PUSH has meetings approximately every four weeks in locations throughout Lebanon and they are open to the public. The group welcomes new members. Members of PUSH have the chance to gain experience working on public health issues, network with other community members, and be a part of positive community change. For more information about joining the group or attending a meeting, visit uvalltogether.com or email Angie.M.Leduc@hitchcock.org

A coalition of Lebanon parents is working to make play space more accessible to young children, especially those under the age of five. The Lebanon Plays project has two primary objectives: create play spaces that are accessible to families on foot, bike, or public transit, and create play spaces that are safe and fun for the youngest Lebanon residents.

The initiative sprang out of the Safe Routes to Play initiative, a year-long study funded by the Healthy New Hampshire (HNH) Foundation and Dartmouth-Hitchcock. Safe Routes to Play seeks to improve the safety and ease of biking and walking to recreational areas for young children and their families. The Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission, in partnership with Upper Valley HEAL and the City of Lebanon, organized parents around this issue. The study revealed that Lebanon was in need of play spaces for young children that are accessible by foot or by bicycle without the need of a car.

After receiving the results of the Safe Routes to Play study, the next step was to form a volunteer group of Lebanon residents to use the information from the study and continue the work. Lebanon Plays recruited a coalition of interested parents to work on the design and implementation of the project. The group’s role is to gather parents, grandparents, and others interested in improving the City’s playgrounds. Ideally those involved would serve as advocates by helping spread the word and, perhaps, even doing some of the work on the ground. While the group only meets for a couple hours per month, they are quickly accomplishing their goals.

They selected Colburn Park as the location for the new playground because there is so much family-friendly activity there already: summer concerts, the farmers market, the library, and countless community events. The Park is also walkable from several Lebanon neighborhoods and accessible by bus. Colburn Park is accessible all year round and already has picnic tables, many trees to provide shade, and public bathrooms nearby, making the area a natural choice as a location to create additional play space.

While there are several playgrounds in the neighborhood, none are designed to be safe for this younger age range. Moreover, many are housed within a school or private organization and aren’t always accessible to the public. In addition, while Colburn Park does have a small play area already, it is not big enough for all of the children that are frequently in the park for community events, nor does it have equipment geared toward younger children. In order to reduce the risk of injury to children ages five and under, the new playground may include features like low crawling and climbing space, ramps, steps, riding toys, tunnels, and open space. These features reduce the falling risks posed to small children on playgrounds designed for older children.

Paul Coats, Director of Lebanon Recreation and Parks, has been involved with Safe Routes to Play and Lebanon Plays since their inception and is a strong advocate for the projects. Coats said of the Recreation Department’s involvement, “We as a community are listening, your voice matters, and community activism matters. We have lots of playgrounds around the community but we don’t have them for children ages one to five years old. Now we know what we need to do, and Lebanon Plays is helping us launch into that process.”

As of the time of this writing, the group is looking at proposals from several companies for different playground designs. After selecting a design, the group will begin fundraising and generating community excitement for the new playground, culminating in a volunteer event to actually build the playground.

Coats is excited about the parent and community participation in the Lebanon Plays project, and about the opportunities it creates for the children of Lebanon to play safely and enjoy an active childhood close to home. “We’re creating an atmosphere where they get to go to a place that’s near their neighborhood to go out and play. And they reap all the benefits of going outside and exercising, but they get to call it play.”

For more information or to volunteer, email lebanonplays@gmail.com or contact Paul Coats at Lebanon Recreation and Parks.

Lebanon’s AVA Gallery has undergone many transitions and changes this winter, saying goodbye to Bente Torjusen following her 30-year tenure as Executive Director, welcoming incoming Executive Director Trip Anderson, and completing the construction of an innovative and energy-efficient new sculpture studio.

New AVA Gallery Executive Director Trip Anderson outside the new sculpture studio

In January, AVA Gallery completed three major capital projects: the new 4,000-square-foot Bente Torjusen West Sculptural Studies Building, and two separate solar arrays—one on the sculptural studies building and one on the existing Carter-Kelsey building. The solar arrays are part of a plan to for the buildings to be net-zero energy. In the summer months, the large array on the “Bente building” may provide enough energy, not just to power the new building and the heavy machinery in the sculpture studios, but also to supplement the array on the Carter-Kelsey building making both buildings energy neutral.

In addition to the solar array, the Bente building boasts many sustainability features. A rooftop garden of native, indigenous, low-maintenance plants provides insulation for the building as well as contemplative space to enjoy a break for lunch. Locally sourced and recycled materials are used extensively throughout the interior of the building, and the foundation stones from the previous building are used to create a retaining wall along the edge of the new building.

The purpose-built sculptural studies building features metal, glass, stone, wood, and clay studios. Moveable walls separate three connected spaces for the core studio, the machinery area, and the forge, kilns, and welding area. Eighteen-inch-thick walls reduce noise to the exterior neighbors and also provide insulation for energy efficiency. In the stone carving studio, snorkel hoses extend down from the ceiling to collect dust. “The whole building is designed to be extremely energy efficient while also being safe and comfortable,” Anderson said.

Anderson expects that the building will receive at least LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification, the second highest rating awarded by the US Green Building Council. This same honor was bestowed on the Carter-Kelsey building in fall of 2008. The LEED Green Building Rating System places emphasis on quantifiable, measurable, and documented environmental benefits.

While the construction was complete in January, the staff at AVA gallery still have work ahead of them before the building opens to the public. The staff will spend February and March setting up the space and installing the equipment and tools. Master artist workshops will take place in April and May to help the staff and artists learn the best ways to utilize the space. Anderson explains, “We want to make sure everything we do here is up to the AVA standard, so the master artist workshops will provide us with that foundation.”

A New Leader for AVA

Bente Torjusen began serving as the Executive Director of the AVA Gallery in 1986. Torjusen, a native of Oslo, is known in the Upper Valley for her vivacious personality and for shepherding AVA through its early years, when it was located in Hanover on the second floor over the Dartmouth Bookstore, into the prominent New Hampshire art institution that it is today. In 1990, Torjusen oversaw AVA’s move to Lebanon into the 140-year-old factory building, now the Carter-Kelsey building that houses the AVA offices, studios, classrooms, and exhibition halls. When plans were drawn up for the newest addition to the gallery, Torjusen ensured that the building would be LEED-certified and on track to become a net-zero-energy building.

Trip Anderson officially started as the Executive Director at the AVA Gallery in December, after a month-long transition period with Torjusen. Anderson comes to AVA Gallery from the Worcester Art Museum, where he commuted from Grantham, N.H. He served as a Grants Officer at the museum, as well as the museum’s leader in the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s UP initiative, advocating for inclusive accessibility.

His background is in preservation architecture and art history, having studied fine arts at Harvard University and serving as an instructor and guest lecturer in visual arts and design communications at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Rhode Island School of Design, the Boston Architectural Center, Bemidji State University in Minnesota, and Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay. “I’ve always had friends in the Upper Valley, and I’ve always loved this part of the world,” Anderson said. “This is my first opportunity to work in the Upper Valley, and it seemed like a natural fit.”

Events at AVA

In February, AVA Gallery hosted  the 9th Annual Best of the Upper Valley High School Exhibition. AVA contacted a number of regional Vermont and New Hampshire public, private, and vocational high schools, encouraging the art faculty to nominate works by students who show exceptional promise in creative disciplines, including: Ceramics, Drawing, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Digital Art, Sculpture and Wearable Art. About 100 students were represented in the show. Artist Carrie Fradkin says, “The work in the high school exhibition gets progressively better each year.”

In late May, AVA Gallery will host a grand opening celebration in for the Bente Building, and public classes in the space will begin over the summer. Both the staff and board anticipate innovative programming and opportunities in the new space under Anderson’s leadership. “Anderson will provide a key role in developing programming and fulfilling the promise of these new studios for sculptural studies,” stated Sloane Mayor, AVA’s Board Chair.

AVA offers dozens of exhibitions each year, more than 150 art classes, school vacation camps, after-school programs, and a large variety of outreach programming.

Located at 11 Bank Street right off Colburn Park in Lebanon, AVA Gallery and Art Center is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (7 p.m. on Thursdays). Admission is free, and the gallery is handicapped-accessible. For more information, visit avagallery.org.