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If you like your summer days sunny and your humidity low, soak up Monday while it lasts. Expect plenty of sunshine and a high right around 88, with a pleasant evening as temperatures slide back into the low 60s overnight. Tuesday starts bright too, but a warm front rolls in by late afternoon and brings the first round of pop-up thunderstorms, some carrying heavy downpours, along with a noticeable jump in humidity that plans to stick around. Wednesday turns hot and sticky with a high near 93 and more scattered storms in the mix. Thursday looks like the real scorcher of the stretch, hazy and humid with temperatures flirting with the mid 90s and another shot at an afternoon storm, so keep shade and water close if you are outside. The Fourth of July weekend backs off a touch, still warm and muggy with highs in the 80s and only a stray storm or two, which is about as friendly as early July tends to get.

Monday itself is already busy. Language lovers can jump into the new summer session of Alliance Française classes, starting today at 43 King Street or online, with everything from a beginners' French Club to an intermediate dive into Camus. At 5 PM, Old Spokes Home leads a relaxed, supportive group ride down to the Intervale Community Farm CSA pickup, a low-pressure way to learn how to haul groceries by bike. Runners can lace up at five thirty for a 5K and corn hole hang at Burly Axe Beach [MEETUP]. If your speed is quieter, the Silent Book Club at Four Quarters Brewing in Winooski runs from 6 to 8 PM, no assigned reading required, just bring whatever you are already into. And jazz fans should not sleep on Kamasi Washington at Higher Ground at 8 PM, the acclaimed Los Angeles composer behind The Epic.

Tuesday eases you in with Tech Tuesdays [MEETUP], a no-slides networking breakfast of coffee and waffles at Zero Gravity Brewery from 8 to 10 AM. Later, Common Roots throws its Summer BBQ Celebration at Wheeler House in South Burlington from 4 until 6:30, with live music from The RUSTICS, a cash bar, and an eighteen dollar buffet that supports their nonprofit food work. At 6 PM, Local Motion closes out its spring-into-summer EZ Breezy Bike Rides series with a casual loop around the Queen City and a hangout after at Zero Gravity Beer Hall. Both of those are outdoor affairs, so keep half an eye on the sky as the first storms creep in. Performers and night owls can land at the Foam Brewers and Dome City open mic at The Monkey House in Winooski, running 7 to 10 PM with ten minute sets and last sign-ups at 9.

Wednesday is the fullest day on the calendar even with the heat cranking up. Start with the free, family-friendly Among Dinosaurs live-animal show at the Colchester Meeting House from 11 to noon. Around the lunch hour, catch folk artist Anna May at City Hall Park from twelve thirty to one thirty, then wander to Muddy Waters for a community carving session with Burlington City Arts from 1 to 3, where you help cut a printmaking block for the Main Street Block Party. Peach people get two shots at fresh Georgia peaches from the Peach Truck, in Williston early afternoon and in Burlington at Gardener's Supply on Intervale Road from three thirty to 5. As the evening cools things a hair, Fellowship of the Wheel hosts an all-levels group mountain bike ride at Saxon Hill in Essex Junction, Sam Mazza's Farm Market brings four decades of rock and roll with the Quadra summer concert in Colchester from 6 to 8, and the Vermont Lake Monsters host Pickle Night with a pickle-themed menu and a paddle giveaway for the first 500 fans, first pitch at six thirty-five. Cap it with the Lily's Pad Ribbit Review open mic and potluck on North Avenue, or the influential experimental band Tortoise at Higher Ground at 8 PM.

Thursday brings the heat and a slate to match. Early birds and entrepreneurs can trade business cards over coffee at Brewing Better Business, hosted by the BBB at Great Harvest on Pine Street at 8 AM. The evening then fills up quickly. Out in the 802 runs a happy hour [MEETUP] at Lincoln, Burlington's tucked-away speakeasy down the alley by Red Square, from 5 to 7. South Burlington Recreation puts on the patriotic Stars and Strides 5K, kicking off at Wheeler Gardens at five thirty and finishing with a community BBQ at Veterans Memorial Park, while Colchester's Adventure Dinner pours fancy hot dogs, tinis, and tarot readings from 5 to 9. On the music front, the Old Lantern in Charlotte presents Sonic Steve's Orchestra with dinner from 5 and music at 6, the Vermont Symphony opens its summer tour up in Burke with Copland, Sousa, and fireworks for the country's 250th, Nick Cassarino celebrates his 40th birthday alongside local legend Dave Grippo at Foam Brewers, and Honeycomb goes back to back with DMC champion Chris Karns for a bass music showcase at Higher Ground. The holiday weekend gets a running start!

The Btown Brief IRL - We’re now seeing 20–30 people at our weekly events! Here is what we have coming up:

This Coming Week:

Other Upcoming Events:

If any of those sound fun, be sure to RSVP on Meetup.com. So, be sure to stop by, everyone is welcome! Especially coffee, since it’s a great place to talk about weekend events too, along with news and life updates. So come find things to do this weekend together:

There are 3,130 of you reading this every week, and 70% of you actually open it, which kind of floors me and isn't something I take for granted. Right now 29 readers chip in to keep this going, which works out to a little under 1%, and I'd love to get that closer to 3% so the Btown Brief feels like it can stick around for the long haul. We just hit one year and I'm hoping for many more.

Here's what goes into it. Every week, I sort through TONS of local sources: Seven Days events, Front Porch Forum calendar, Facebook events, Hello Burlington, Love Burlington, Meetup.com, Eventbrite, Church St Marketplace calendar, Flynn, Higher Ground, Vermont Comedy Club, and then news stations like VTDigger, Seven Days, WCAX, WPTZ, Vermont Public, Community News Service, VT Cynic, The Other Paper, Vermont Business Magazine, Williston Observer, MyChamplainValley, The Charlotte News, to keep you connected. I do all of it around a night-shift job, so your support honestly makes a real difference. It takes a long time to curate and write about all this local content, so if this lengthy newsletter saves you time, or has introduced you to new experiences in Burlington, then definitely consider chipping in!

2026 goal: 5,000 subscribers. We're at 3,130 right now. If you know someone who'd get something out of this, send them to BtownBrief.com.

About Me

Seven Days Spent 24 Hours on Church Street. Here's What They Saw.

Seven Days parked a team of reporters on the marketplace for a full day ahead of its 45th birthday, and the result is a portrait of a place holding a lot of contradictions on the same block. Tourists, buskers, dispensary regulars, panhandlers, World Cup fans, and last-call partiers all share the bricks, sometimes uneasily. Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak's recent declaration that the city is back sits right alongside scenes of overdoses and homelessness the piece refuses to look past. Worth the time if you want the texture behind the endless headlines about downtown. A whole team of reporters on this is awesome!

Vermont home-sharing program sees increase following pandemic

Demand at Burlington-based HomeShare Vermont has roughly doubled since 2020, climbing from 170 cases to 320, as the housing crunch pushes people toward creative living arrangements. The nonprofit pairs folks who have a spare room with those who need affordable housing, sometimes in exchange for light help around the house like shoveling or meals. With six background checks per participant, it works better as a stabilizing tool than an emergency one, but executive director Connor Timmons says it can keep people from slipping into homelessness.

Queen City Volunteers Pitch In to Clean Up Trouble Spots

With the city short on both money and staff, residents are quietly taking over upkeep that the parks department can't fully cover. The DIY Park Clean-Up crew works the Urban Reserve near the waterfront while the Peace & Justice Center's BTV Clean Up Crew handles trash and needles around Church Street, and both organizers point back at housing costs as the underlying driver. Councilors Evan Litwin and Melo Grant have leaned into the effort, with Litwin pushing a graffiti-abatement committee, so this volunteer model is becoming a real part of how Burlington maintains itself.

Performance captures the art of risk in Shelburne

Jasper Oliver, the adult programs librarian at Shelburne's Pierson Library, staged a spoken-word and slide-driven performance at the Charlotte Grange that wove poetry, dancing, and political satire into one delightfully absurd hour. His pitch is that surrealism gives heavy subjects like politics and AI a release valve, letting people express something serious while still having fun.

Norman Rockwell people-watched in the West Wing lobby. Now those sketches are on public display

The four 1940s sketches, "So You Want to See the President!", hung in the West Wing for more than four decades before a family ownership dispute sent them to auction. The White House Historical Association paid over $7 million to keep them out of a private collection, its priciest art purchase ever. The Vermont thread runs through Rockwell himself, whose Arlington studio fire once destroyed earlier material and sent him back to the White House to gather more. The piece holds strong Vermont ties, as it features local U.S. VT Senator Warren Austin, and a fire at Rockwell’s Arlington studio actually destroyed his original drafts, forcing him to return to the White House to recreate the entire suite. They go on public display near the White House through June 2027.

Man documents all 100 of Vermont's covered bridges on YouTube series

Brattleboro's Phill Gatenby, originally from Manchester, England, spent two years crossing the state to film every one of Vermont's 100 historic covered bridges. Somewhere along the way the project widened from the bridges themselves to the mills, rivers, and towns around them, and to the people he met through the Vermont Covered Bridge Society. The final episode airs in November, and he's leaving with a community rather than just a finished playlist.

Vermont CARES Will Take Over Needle-Exchange Program in Burlington

The Howard Center's Safe Recovery program is shutting down after years of neighbor complaints near its Clarke Street office, and Vermont CARES is picking up the work a few blocks away at 139 Bank Street starting July 1. The handoff comes with $512,500 in state Health Department funding and a stated focus on safe syringe disposal. That disposal piece is the part to watch, since needle litter has been central to the broader argument over conditions downtown, and the new site sits in a corner being reshaped by hotel and housing construction.

Mad Ice Cream Makes Scoops From Scratch in St. Albans

St. Albans picked up a new ice cream shop on Lake Street, where Karen and Madison Barchowski churn small batches and fold their own waffle cones. The mother and daughter ran an oceanside shop in Florida for a decade and briefly owned Burlington's Revolution Kitchen before deciding scoops were the dream. There's always a dairy-free option in the lineup and gluten-free cones on hand, which is a nice touch heading into the hot stretch.

South Hero sees new growth alongside longtime island favorites

South Hero is layering new businesses on top of its island staples, including a cannabis market selling products direct from Vermont farmers in a building that sat empty for years, plus a fresh crop of restaurants and breweries. Local leaders credit a tourism spike, more housing, and spillover traffic from Chittenden County for the momentum. A restoration of the 1816 Old White Meeting House, recently moved back about 100 feet onto a new foundation, will eventually reopen as a community center.

Committee moves to bring $500M in parish assets into Burlington Diocese bankruptcy case

The committee representing abuse claimants wants Vermont parishes, Rice Memorial and Mount St. Joseph high schools, and roughly $500 million in parish assets pulled into the Diocese's bankruptcy mediation. The heart of the fight is whether trusts the Diocese set up in 2006 improperly shielded property from survivors seeking compensation. The Diocese filed for bankruptcy in 2024 and has acknowledged credible abuse allegations against 40 priests, and it had not responded to the filing as of last Thursday. Whether those assets are reachable could ultimately decide the size of any settlement.

A New Pilot Program Aims to Boost Vermont's Film Industry

A new pilot from Film in Vermont and the Vermont Production Collective will hand out $50,000 total in $5,000 and $10,000 packages to local productions, with applications open through July 21. Founder Brian Carroll wants hard data showing that filmmaking pumps real money into small towns, the way Beetlejuice Beetlejuice did for East Corinth's general store during its shoot. Vermont remains one of only four states without a government film office, a gap this program is trying to chip away at from the grassroots up.

Worsening tick activity may be new normal, state officials say

State officials say this is shaping up to be the worst tick season in nearly a decade, with Vermont ER and urgent care visits running above the 2017 to 2025 average almost every week so far. Warmer winters and more time outdoors are pushing blacklegged ticks, the Lyme carriers, into towns where they hadn't been recorded before. A new Lyme vaccine has finished its final phase of human trials with the University of Vermont among the test sites, though prompt tick checks and long socks remain the best defense in the meantime.

Catch Carl D'Alvia's Fun Sculptures at Shelburne Museum

Proof that minimalism need not be stern, Carl D'Alvia's "(mono)LITHS" series scatters brightly colored aluminum sculptures across the Shelburne Museum grounds. The pieces lean, flop, and slump with real personality, like the exhausted green "Sap" doing its best tired-Gumby impression and the barn-leaning "Loaf." A breezy reason to wander the gardens this summer.

City of Burlington forms hiring committee to help choose next police chief

Burlington's search for a new police chief is advancing, with Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak aiming to name a pick by September from a pool of 12 applicants. A hiring committee of community members and city leaders will vet candidates first, with Homeport co-owner and Marketplace commissioner Mark Bouchette among the early appointments. The rest of the committee should be announced this week, and any final hire still needs City Council confirmation.

How good of a reader are you? Think you’re keeping up with Burlington news? It's time to prove it. Every Monday and Friday, we're dropping a quick 5-question quiz covering the local news you just finished reading. You've got just 60 seconds to answer them all. No looking back allowed. Use the same unique name each time you play so everyone can track your stats in our Hall of Fame, where you'll compete for titles like Sharpshooter (highest accuracy), Speed Demon (fastest average time), and Streak Leader (most consistent player). Make your name (or cool nickname) known to Btown!

And yes, there are PRIZES. Each month, we'll reward the top performers based on the best combination of Total Score and Average Score. That means playing consistently AND playing well will pay off. The more quizzes you complete with high scores, the better your chances of winning. I mean, who doesn’t want cool Btown Merch gear sent to them?

Ready to play? Click the link below, enter your name, and show us what you've got. Btown Brief Quiz

View the potential prizes on the Btown Brief Merch Store

The Vermont Green FC women’s team completed an undefeated inaugural regular season, officially claiming the 2026 USLW Northeast Division title with a commanding 3-0 victory over the New England Mutiny. Playing at Lusitano Stadium on Saturday night, the squad locked up the top spot with goals from Georgina Clarke, Emily Mara, and Lauren DeGroot, capping off a 6-4-0 regular season record. With the division title secured, the USLW Eastern Conference Playoffs are heading to Burlington. The Women in Green will return to Virtue Field to host the Long Island Rough Riders in the Eastern Conference Semifinals this Friday, July 3 at 6 p.m.

On the men's side, Vermont Green FC earned a crucial three points in a 3-1 home victory against Black Rock FC on Friday night. Playing in front of a sold-out Virtue Field crowd, Ryan Zellefrow opened the scoring for the home side in the seventh minute. After Black Rock equalized in the first half, Jeremy Francou found the back of the net in the 58th minute for his team-leading eighth goal of the season, followed by a stoppage-time insurance goal from Gabriel Fernandez. The win extends the Boys in Green's impressive unbeaten streak to 34 matches as they prepare for a decisive road matchup against second-place NEFC on Wednesday.

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Full list of 202+ activities to do at anytime is always waiting here when you need a plan: 202+ Things to Do

Full list of restaurant reviews here.

View the full list of food & drink deals here.

That is a generous slate for a short week, so pace yourself, drink water, and chase the shade once the heat settles in midweek. Reading by the lake, riding out to the farm, or tracking peaches across two counties, there is plenty out there to pull you into the neighborhood. Click any of the links above for the full details, and we will see you back here later in the week!

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