Youth Radio Vermont is a program of the Vermont Folklife Center that trains kids in the art of radio documentary production. The program gives kids the skills to develop, produce, and edit stories about themselves and the communities where they live.

Youth Radio Vermont got its start in 2006. In its first year, the program ‘touched down’ in Middlebury, Rutland, Tinmouth, and Montpelier, Vermont. In the fall of 2007, Youth Radio Vermont started up at Winooski High School. Kids were offered credit for their work, and the course was taught in conjunction with Kate Toland’s World History class.

Finished stories air on WGDR Radio in Plainfield. They are also posted to the Youth Radio Vermont blog, and posted to PRX.org where they can be heard by thousands of other youth radio producers around the world. Through PRX.org, these stories will be available to public radio stations nationwide for air.

Youth Radio Vermont is funded in part by the A. D. Henderson Foundation and the Alma Gibbs Donchian Foundation.

Erica Heilman is a private investigator and documentary radio producer. Her most recent documentary is calledAfter the Forgetting. It aired on NPR’s Day to Day, Hearing Voices, and Soundprint. The program was also featured on Transom.

Together, Erica Heilman and Greg Sharrow have produced two documentaries,
a one-hour program about prisoners of war from World War II, Prisoners of
War: A Story of Four American Soldiers, and a twelve-part series about the
culture of deer hunting in Vermont called Deer Stories. Erica is the
project director of the Vermont Folklife Center’s audio documentary
program for young people, Youth Radio Vermont.

Gregory L. Sharrow is Project Director of Youth Radio Vermont. He is Director of Education and a staff Folklorist of the Vermont Folklife Center.

Andy Kolovos is the technical adviser for Youth Radio Vermont. He spends the majority of his working hours as the archivist and a staff folklorist at the Vermont Folklife Center in Middlebury, Vermont.