Open Vermont

A community-driven platform for Vermonters to surface local challenges, share resources, and build solutions together through open source technology.

Live site: verso-uvm.github.io/Open-Vermont

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What is Open Vermont?

Open Vermont helps communities identify problems worth solving and connects people with the existing resources — organizations, tools, funding, and skills — already available to address them. The platform is built around three activities:

• Opportunities — Community members submit challenges they want to see addressed. Others vote to signal priority. Voting uses GitHub reactions (👍) so everything stays transparent and tied to real accounts.
• Events — A calendar of maker meetups, open hours, hackathons, and skillshares happening across Vermont.
• Resources — A directory of local libraries, makerspaces, UVM Extension offices, and open source references organized by all 14 Vermont counties.

The site is a static HTML/CSS site deployed via GitHub Pages. No framework, no build step — just files.

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Project Structure

Open-Vermont/
├── index.html          # Homepage with mission statement and code of conduct
├── opportunities.html  # Community opportunity cards with live vote counts
├── events.html         # Upcoming events calendar
├── resources.html      # Resources by Vermont county + open source topics
├── contact.html        # Contact form (Formspree) and GitHub links
├── discussions.html    # Community discussion threads (currently unlinked)
├── styles.css          # Full design system — edit this for all visual changes
├── img/
│   └── hero.jpg        # Homepage hero image
└── .github/
    └── workflows/
        └── static.yml  # GitHub Pages deployment workflow

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Running Locally

No build tools required. Open any HTML file directly in a browser, or serve with any static file server:

# Python
python -m http.server 8000

# Node
npx serve .

Then visit http://localhost:8000.

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Adding a New Opportunity

Opportunities are tracked as GitHub Issues with the opportunity label.

1. Open a new issue using the opportunity template
2. Add the label opportunity
3. Note the issue number GitHub assigns (shown in the URL as /issues/N)
4. A maintainer reviews the submission (see criteria below) and, if approved, edits opportunities.html to add a new .problem card with data-issue="N"

The page JavaScript will automatically fetch the 👍 reaction count from GitHub and display it as the vote total. Cards are re-sorted by vote count on page load.

Voting: Any GitHub user can open the issue and click 👍 to vote. No extra infrastructure required.

Submission criteria

Good opportunities:

• Describe a real community challenge relevant to Vermonters
• Identify existing resources — organizations, tools, or funding — already available to help address it
• Are framed as challenges to solve collaboratively, not policy demands or partisan positions
• Follow the Code of Conduct

Maintainers aim to respond within 7 days. Submissions may be approved as-is, returned for edits, or declined with a brief explanation.

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Adding an Event

Events are static HTML in events.html. To add one:

1. Copy an existing .event block
2. Update the date badge, title, location, and description
3. Submit a pull request, or use the contact form to send the details and a maintainer will add it

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Adding a Resource

Resources are organized by Vermont county in resources.html. To add a library, makerspace, or organization:

1. Find the appropriate <div class="resource-section" id="[county]"> block
2. Add a .resource-item with the organization name, address, and website
3. Submit a pull request

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Contact Form Setup

The contact form in contact.html posts to Formspree. To activate it:

1. Create a free Formspree account
2. Create a new form and copy the form ID (looks like xabcdefg)
3. In contact.html, replace YOUR_FORM_ID in the form action attribute:

   <form action="https://formspree.io/f/YOUR_FORM_ID" method="POST">

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Deployment

The site deploys automatically to GitHub Pages on every push to main via the workflow in .github/workflows/static.yml. No manual steps needed.

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome — bug fixes, new resources, new opportunities, design improvements.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a branch: git checkout -b your-branch-name
3. Make your changes
4. Open a pull request with a clear description of what changed and why

Please review the Code of Conduct before contributing. Key points: be respectful, focus on community problem-solving (not partisan framing), and assume positive intent.

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Affiliation

Open Vermont is a project of VERSO at the University of Vermont. Views expressed by community contributors do not represent the University of Vermont.

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License

MIT License — Copyright (c) 2025 Kendall Fortney. See LICENSE for details.