Click here for the March Arts Marathon 2023!

Welcoming and giving support to refugees, asylum seekers, and migrant workers living and working in Vermont.

Established in 2015, the Central Vermont Refugee Action Network (CVRAN) is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in Montpelier and dedicated to making our communities welcoming, safe places for refugees, asylum seekers, and migrant workers. Our mission is to help these new Vermonters to settle, work, and thrive in Central Vermont. In welcoming them, we see how they greatly enrich our own cultural and economic lives.

CVRAN volunteers pitch in in many ways to help these people get established in our communities. CVRAN supports our guests until they are able to support themselves. with the goals of self-sufficiency and inclusion.

We need your help!

Volunteer! Donate! Membership

CVRAN March Arts Marathon 2023

Following the great success of the 2022 Marathon, we are pleased to announce that the second March Arts Marathon is now open for registration. We couldn’t have done it without the talented, dedicated writers and artists who, with their sponsors, raised more than $60,000 and in the process created a unique and vital creative community.

We hope that those of you who participated in the 2022 Marathon will return in 2023 with new work. And that writers and artists new to the Marathon will join in. We’re looking for creative artists at every level – first-time, long-established, and everything in between – to help CVRAN raise funds for the asylum seekers and Afghan refugees we are supporting in Central Vermont.

Writers and artists who wish to participate will commit to a daily creative practice. Poems, essays, non-fiction, stories, sketches, paintings, photographs, fabric art, multimedia, and multi-genre pieces – anything is possible. In turn the artists’ sponsors will commit to supporting the artists in their daily practice and will receive copies of the artists’ work each day over email, Instagram, or in a blog.

All money raised will go toward housing, living expenses, and legal fees for the asylum seekers whom CVRAN supports in Central Vermont. We also provide furniture, home goods, transportation, English language instruction, and friendship to Afghan refugee families who are being resettled in Central Vermont.

Click Here to View Our Participants and Donate! Click Here for Instructions and to Register as a Participant

A BIG thank you to our Founding Donors who have made the March Arts Marathon possible:

Arne and Deborah Abramowitz
Sam and Michele Clark
Darryl Bloom
Anonymous
Anonymous

News

Letter From the President: Reflecting on 2022
December 18, 2022
CVRAN: Getting Involved
November 30, 2022
Ugandan Asylum Seeker’s Deportation Delayed
November 16, 2022

From Facebook

Central Vermont Refugee Action Network

2 days ago

Art Every Day Keeps the March Blues Away! Artists, writers, musicians, and crafts people commit to a daily creative endeavor for the month of March. They send copies of their creations to their sponsors, who pledge to support them in their work. All funds raised support Central Vermont Refugee Action Network, which helps local asylum seekers and refugees. To sign up or learn more, go to cvran.org Meanwhile, enjoy one of the watercolors that Pamela Walker sent out to her sponsors for the 2022 Marathon. ... See MoreSee Less

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Central Vermont Refugee Action Network

3 days ago

This would definitely be worth the drive.Mark your calendars! CASAN is co-sponsoring an educational presentation by the League of Women Voters: What is Non-citizen Voting? at the Fletcher Free Library, Saturday, February 18 from 2:00 to 3:30. The event will be livestreamed as well. Come learn about the issue before it appears on Burlington’s ballot this Town Meeting Day. We hope to see you there! ... See MoreSee Less

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Central Vermont Refugee Action Network

7 days ago

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Central Vermont Refugee Action Network

1 week ago

he Vermont Supreme Court issued a decision Friday in favor of Montpelier allowing noncitizens to vote in its local elections.The court ruled that the 2018 city charter change does not violate the Vermont Constitution, which does restrict voting in statewide contests to citizens.Montpelier City Council President Jack McCullough told VTDigger that the initiative began when town residents noticed that it was “not fair” that some noncitizen residents who paid taxes and participated in the community “were not allowed to vote on on the local elections and the local issues that affected their lives.” About 11,000 Vermonters are not United States citizens, according to the Census. The charter change required noncitizens to be legal residents of the U.S. in order to be eligible to vote.Montpelier voters supported the change by an almost two-to-one margin in 2018, but the measure has since had a long journey toward implementation.The state Legislature approved the change in 2021, only for Gov. Phil Scott to veto the measure. The Legislature then overturned Scott’s veto that same year.Last year was the first time that noncitizens turned out to vote in Montpelier elections, according to Seven Days. John Odum said that nine noncitizens voters are currently registered with the city, and five noncitizen voters participated in last year’s Town Meeting Day votes.McCullough said the process was “complicated” because the city clerk must maintain a separate list of who can vote in local elections.As the change wound through the Legislature, multiple plaintiffs — including the Republican National Committee, two Montpelier residents who are citizens and eight citizens who live elsewhere in the state — challenged the law. In April 2022, a Washington County Superior Court judge rejected the plaintiff's arguments that noncitizen voting was a violation of the Vermont Constitution. Friday’s Supreme Court decision upholds that ruling.The Supreme Court ruled that the parties had standing to challenge the charter change because eligible voters had an “interest” in ensuring the voter pool was constitutional to “preserve the effectiveness of their vote.”But when it comes to the legality of the charter change itself, the court’s decision said that legal precedent and a close reading of Chapter II, Section 42 of the Vermont Constitution proved that local election qualifications can be different from statewide election qualifications.In 2021, the Republican National Committee filed a similar challenge against Winooski’s noncitizen voting, which was dismissed by the Chittenden County Superior Court in 2022. When the RNC originally filed its complaints against Winooski and Montpelier, it issued a statement calling the charter change a “scheme” by Democrats to “allow foreign citizens to decide American elections.”McCullough countered, “I don't know how the Republican National Committee knows better what's good for Vermont than the voters in Vermont, in Montpelier.”“I don't really don't understand the impulse of preventing people from voting,” he added. “It's not the American way.”REPORT AN ERROR UPLOAD A DOCUMENTTIP DROP ... See MoreSee Less

Vermont Supreme Court rules Montpelier can allow noncitizen voting in local elections - VTDigger

vtdigger.org

The court ruled in favor of a 2018 city charter change that allows noncitizens to vote in local, but not statewide, elections.

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Central Vermont Refugee Action Network

3 weeks ago

GOOD NEWS! CVRAN's 2023 March Arts Marathon is open for artists and writers to sign up at cvran.org to commit to a daily creative endeavor for the month of March. Every day the artists send copies of their art work/writing to their sponsors. All funds raised support Central Vermont Refugee Action Network, which helps asylum seekers and refugees in Central Vermont. To sign up or learn more, go to cvran.org. Many thanks to Caroline Tavelli-Abar, who gave us permission to use one of the digital images she created for last year's Marathon. ... See MoreSee Less

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CVRAN March Arts Marathon 2023

News

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CVRAN Board meeting

CVRAN General Meeting