Reflections from Southern Vermont Emerging Leader Katie Allaway
As a high school student in Wyoming, I wanted to study linguistics at Middlebury College. I made a collage from their enrollment packet of the fall-colored trees, picturesque farms, and roads-less-taken and kept in on my senior binder. Though I decided to stay in Wyoming for college, that dream never left me.
In 2019, when I was ready for a new adventure, Vermont was the first and only state to come to mind, even though I’d never actually visited.
My neighbors showed up, eager to connect and welcome us
Within 6 months, I made the move to Brattleboro, bought a house, and experienced culture shock: there were so many people who were eager to connect and welcome us in. My neighbors showed up to teach me how to garden, play chess with my son, and wonder at the beauty of the world with my daughter.
Rural no longer meant isolation – but community. It meant being intentional about how to connect with one another.
I was surprised to rarely be asked about my work, but instead, about whether I went swimming, or had tried out the new creemee stand yet, or heard about the food truck round-up, or a new volunteer opportunity at the restorative justice center.
I am ever grateful for those who welcomed my family in, and called us home.
Finding our way back home, to the land we share together
My work now is in the movement to end domestic and sexual violence, and my volunteer work is with the Brattleboro Restorative Justice Center with folks who have completed acts of interpersonal gender-based violence.
I do everything I can to create space for us to acknowledge that at the core, we are human, and our dignity and worth is reflected in how we engage in our communities, in how we show up in our relationships and workplaces, and how we find our way back home, to the fields and the forests, and the land we share together.
Don’t give up; you’re “big enough”
I came into the movement to end domestic and sexual violence filled with romanticized ideals of what advocacy looked like and a determination to make change happen. I was welcomed in, with open arms, to try.
When I failed, over, and over again, my colleagues and mentors were there to support me, help me grow, and equip me with tools to better navigate and understand an incredibly complex dynamic, while holding onto the knowledge that change is possible.
When my current boss asked me to be the product owner of Vela, a software management tool for domestic and sexual violence prevention programs … I told him that I had been planning to quit and sell maple syrup.
I didn’t know if I was “big enough” to hold all that this role would require of me. He said, “You are. You can do this. I’ll help.”
True transformation requires radical connectedness
I found that the solution is so much bigger, and so much deeper, than myself, and required radical connectedness, partnership, and resilience, to co-create something new. It is through that connectedness – the willingness to continue showing up, and making space for others – that I have been able to be part of something truly transformational.
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About the Southern Vermont Emerging Leaders
Brattleboro resident Katie Allaway has been named a 2024 Southern Vermont Emerging Leader, along with 23 other young adults from across the Bennington and Windham regions. Katie works at Element74 as product owner of Vela, a software system for domestic and sexual violence programs, and is a volunteer at the Brattleboro Restorative Justice Center.
Awardees were nominated based on their work as community leaders and volunteers, and for their professional accomplishments and commitment to serving the region, and were presented with awards in May at the Southern Vermont Economy Summit in Dover.
Each year since 2018, the Southern Vermont Young Professionals (a program of Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation) and the Shires Young Professionals have sought to highlight and honor young adults in their roles as leaders and change-makers in the Southern Vermont economy and community through the Emerging Leaders awards. Over 100 local leaders have been given an Emerging Leaders award since the beginning of the program, and 35 of those have subsequently been recognized statewide through Vermont Business Magazine’s Rising Stars awards as well.
Read more about the other awardees at www.sovermontzone.com/emerging-leaders.