Rising junior Jenny Sogin grew up in Minnesota’s Twin Cities where common sidewalk encounters usually involve anonymous strangers rushing by on their way to home or work. After working all summer in the small Vermont town of Bristol, she’s getting used to being recognized on the street by local residents.

During her summer internship, funded by the UVM Office of Engagement, she has jumped into community life with both feet. Sogin works with local volunteers to maintain walking trails and leads workshops for children at Bristol’s Lawrence Memorial Library. Earlier this summer she created a pollinator garden in the town’s Sycamore Park.

So she’s gotten to know Bristol pretty well.

“It’s really my introduction to being part of a small Vermont community and it’s neat when people you meet on the sidewalk say ‘hi’ and wave. You get a sense of how close-knit everything is.”

Sogin is an environmental studies major in the Rubenstein School. The focus of her internship is maintaining the Bristol Trail Network, a complex of recreation paths that encircle the community.

The trail system formally began in 2017 with the mission of promoting recreation for local residents and visitors. Signage along the trails orient walkers to natural, historic and cultural resources in the community.

“One of the goals is to make outdoor walking trails accessible to everyone in the community,” Sogin says. “The trails are easy to get to with access point around the village. We’re working to get more accessibility points for wheelchairs.”

An experienced backpacker and trip leader, Sogin is now getting a real-life primer on trail maintenance. The heavy summer rains have been especially hard on a steep trail that runs along the New Haven River. She worked with an AmeriCorps crew earlier in the summer to perform benchwork—a technique using plywood and stakes to prevent erosion.

Sogin appreciates the local volunteer sprit, embodied by her supervisor Porter Knight. “She’s pretty amazing—she’s a local resident and business owner and runs the trail network as a volunteer.”

After orienting Sogin to the trail system, Knight introduced her to key players in town and then let her loose.

“I was given the opportunity to do my own projects like the pollinator garden. Through that project I’ve met a lot of like-minded volunteers who work for the town’s conservation committee."

The internship experience dovetailed nicely with her coursework at UVM where, in addition to her ES major, she’s studying sustainable landscape horticulture and ecological agriculture.

“This has given me an opportunity to incorporate aspects of my studies that focus on outdoor recreation, and then bringing in the whole community development aspect,” she says. “That’s something I want to do in my career—doing projects that build community.”