[HubbardBrook] our role in the communities around Hubbard Brook

[Sarah Garlick]

Dear colleagues,
I posted this letter over on Slack <http://hubbardbrook.slack.com> but
wanted to share it here as well since Slack is new for us. Thank you in
advance for reading.

The COVID-19 crisis continues to challenge us all. Like many, I’ve been
obsessed with how to be most useful during this time. Across the science
communication and science education fields, this has meant a nationwide
push to collect and share science learning resources to support this new
world of online schooling. Staff from the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation
and the US Forest Service continue to work in this arena and we invite any
of you who would like to get more involved to join us (we meet weekly on
Mondays at 1:00 pm — stay tuned for more info).

We’ve also ramped up our efforts to support the Hubbard Brook community,
sharing personal stories to keep connected and trying out new ways to work
together online. Our leadership has been working tirelessly to develop new
protocols for the experimental forest and housing facilities to maintain
essential research and keep us all safe.

But I can’t help but feel like we can do more. Many of you know that the
towns surrounding Hubbard Brook survive on tourism and the service
industry. As one of my co-workers at HBRF put it during our last staff
meeting, “Our whole town just lost its job.” I live on the other side of
the White Mountains from Hubbard Brook, in North Conway, where the story is
the same.

Perhaps you read this headline in the New York Times this morning, with a
feature article about Bristol, New Hampshire, 30 miles south of Hubbard
Brook:
“This is Going to Kill Small-Town America
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/business/coronavirus-small-towns.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage>
.”

I’m writing this letter to implore all of us to consider how our research
efforts at Hubbard Brook might support the community members in the
hard-hit small towns of the White Mountains, both now and in the future. Do
you have jobs that need to be done in Bartlett or Hubbard Brook? Do you
have funds to support an education and outreach activity that a local
teacher or student could work on from home? Could we cobble together enough
funds and tasks to support even a few community members from the White
Mountains over the summer rather than deferring all funds to next year?

If you have ideas, please email me or post below my comment on Slack
<https://hubbardbrook.slack.com/archives/CKANKTCA3/p1586892086001400> so
others can see. Thank you for considering it.

Sending good wishes out to you all,
Sarah

-- 
Sarah Garlick
Director of Science Policy and Outreach
Hubbard Brook Research Foundation
https://hubbardbrook.org/hubbard-brook-research-foundation

603-986-0686 office/cell
sgarlick at hubbardbrookfoundation.org
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