BETHEL — Jeff Irish, 40, has been a toy collector since he was a kid. His favorites were He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and G.I. Joe.
Only recently did his hobby become a business. Through Christmas, Irish’s Wandering Irish Trading Post is open in downtown Bethel. There, through a pop-up storefront, Irish is selling items such as Star Wars figurines, Lego kits and Jurassic Park dinosaurs.
“It’s been pretty fun,” Irish said when members of the Vermont Downtown Development Board and state employees stopped by during a tour of the town on Monday.
Barnard resident Greg Boulbol, general counsel for the state’s Natural Resources Board who sits on the development board, examined Irish’s Star Wars-related offerings.
“It’s great to know you’re here,” he said.
Irish, a 1999 graduate of Whitcomb High School, is one of the entrepreneurs helping to fill some of the previously vacant storefronts in downtown. His pop-up store is at 257 Main St., which is owned by Barnard resident Kevin Barry, who also owns the adjacent building.
Though Barry, in his remarks to board members during the tour, said that Bethel was doing “fine without me” and “towns in Vermont are really resilient,” he said that giving old buildings a fresh coat of paint “makes life better for people.”
The aim of building a sense of community is at the heart of a series of projects by an informal grassroots group known as the Bethel Revitalization Initiative. The group came together in the aftermath of 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene, which caused major flooding in the town of about 2,000 people.
During a presentation to the board at the Town Hall, Bethel resident Rebecca Sanborn Stone said she was inspired to reach out to her fellow community members after Irene because it took her days to learn that a home near hers had been washed away in the storm.
The initiative’s projects have included the free annual Bethel University, a new mural, pop-up shops and other events.
The annual month-long Bethel University invites community members to teach classes on a wide range of subjects to their neighbors each March. Topics have included sushi making, Nerf gun fights, yoga, art classes, wine tasting, chainsaw safety and CPR, Stone said.
The group participated in the AARP-sponsored Better Block Project, which meant that for one weekend in 2016, community members created a bus stop for Stagecoach and a blue lane for bikes and other non-motorized vehicles on the town’s main street. They welcomed about a dozen pop-up shops to downtown, which collected a total of about $5,000 in revenue that weekend. In 2017, the community worked with Burlington artist Mary Lacy to install four colorful trout murals on what had been a bland concrete retaining wall.
Without a paid staff or much of a budget, members of the community have come together to improve the appearance of the downtown, boost property values and get to know each other, Stone said.
“People just go out and do stuff,” Stone said.
Since then, the town continues to host an annual pop-up holiday market and the town has welcomed some new permanent businesses.
For example, Owen Daniel-McCarter and his husband Jesse Plotsky opened Babes Bar in a former train depot on the town’s main street in June 2018. Though there had previously been a bar there, known as The Depot, Daniel-McCarter told board members on the tour that the couple, formerly Chicago residents, opened the business with the aim of making everyone feel welcome.
“We watched a lot of Cheers,” Daniel-McCarter said.
In addition to serving drinks — both alcoholic and non — the bar, which on Monday was decorated for Halloween with cobwebs, spiders and bats, also serves as a community meeting place. They host cribbage tournaments, dance parties, poetry readings, karaoke, trivia nights and a monthly hip-hop night.
“We did try to really listen to what people did and didn’t want,” Daniel-McCarter said.
Though the space is especially aimed at making women, people of color, people with disabilities and queer people comfortable — the upstairs library emphasizes works by queer authors and people of color — Daniel-McCarter said they also have worked to make the old bar’s regulars feel at home.
He keeps four cases of Bud Light cold at all times, he said.
The tour participants seemed impressed.
“It’s inspiring,” said Gary Holloway, downtown program manager for the Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development.
Stone said she and other members of Bethel Revitalization Initiative have shared their story with community leaders in surrounding towns. Now the question is: “What do we want to be as a region?”
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
Correction
Jeff Irish has set up a pop-up shop called Wandering Irish Trading Post in Bethel. An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect name for the shop.
