July 10 , 2025
Another spicy, fun-filled Fourth celebration in Warren
“We the People” did not hold back this year when it came to using their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and expression. Revelers filled Warren Village, Brooks Field, and the parking lot at Lincoln Peak to celebrate the Fourth of July this year.
The parade got underway at 10 a.m. sharp-ish with the rifle blast and color guard, the Warren Fire Department and this year’s parade marshals, the Warren Public Library librarians, trustees, and Friends (celebrating 125 years).
The floats and their political messages were well received and any politician in America would pay to get the kind of reception that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders gets when he waves his way through Warren Village. It’s like watching a wave at a stadium, accompanied by loud chants of “Bernie, Bernie!” Sanders enjoyed some strategic placement behind the Mad River Glen float this year.
Following the parade, the annual street dance in front of The Warren Store attracted a huge crowd and the activities at Brooks Field were so popular that vendors ran out of beer, hard cider, water, hot dogs, and buns!
July 17 , 2025
MRV Health Center announces closure
After first announcing a May closure for the local health center, Central Vermont Medical Center reported in July that the clinic would close September 26.
Polly Bednash, vice-president of the Mad River Valley Health Center Board, the nonprofit that has run the health center facility, said the board sought a medical practice or provider to take over the space to no avail. In 2024 CVMC announced plans to close the local clinic as well as a nearby physical therapy practice as part of the network’s efforts to close a $16.2 million budget deficit
July 24, 2025
Wilson announces plans to open concierge medical practice at MRV Health Center
A week after CVMC announced the closure date for Mad River Family Practice the Mad River Health Center Board announced that Dr. John Wilson would open a concierge medical practice in the space. Wilson’s new practice opened in October for a limited number of subscribers.
Wilson worked closely with the board in its efforts to find a group to take over the local practice, taking the initiative to reach out to potential successors himself. He said he ran into dead end after dead end.
“The members of the board, as well as Dr. Wilson, are well aware that his new practice is not the ideal solution for all residents of The Valley and that not all residents may be able to afford this new practice. Having exhausted all other alternatives, this seems to be the only option of keeping at least some form of primary care practice here in The Valley,” Mad River Valley Health Center board president Don Murray said.
The local health center was built with a combination of grants, public and private donations, loans and sweat equity in the mid 2000s when Dr. Fran Cook’s practice was to be housed there along with other health care providers on the second floor. The practice was sold to CVMC in 2016 when Cook retired.
In a 2004 Q and A, printed in The Valley Reporter in February of that year, the health center board wrote:
"There has always been and will continue to be a sliding scale for private pay patients at the health center. It has been and will continue to be the policy of the health center to see and treat all patients, regardless of their financial status or insurance coverage."
It is not yet clear how a concierge medical practice meets those board dictates.
July 24 , 2025
Waitsfield family helps create intentional community
The Caffry family in Waitsfield recently moved their 25-year-old Duncan into an intentional living community for folks with developmental challenges, finding a safe haven for him with peers where he is safe, challenged, cared for and happy.
It was not a speedy process and it required all their collective skill sets to find an appropriate property, apply for and receive grants, create a nonprofit, attain state certification (so the residents can receive state/federal funds) and develop Riverflow, which opened in October 2024 in an eight-bedroom, eight-bathroom farmhouse on 30 acres. The Caffrys worked with three other like-minded families to create Riverflow.
There the four founding friends, their son Duncan and three others, work on the farm, gathering eggs, working in the gardens, and enjoying other activities. The founding families are not resting on their laurels. They’re working to develop a second home on the property, to be opened in 2027. Applications for admission to that second home are closed as they have exponentially more applicants than the four they can accommodate. A third home is planned and in 2027 they will reopen admissions for that house.
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