Window Weatherization - looking for help

[Jacob Flanigan]

Hi all, this is Jacob, I've been working on a few projects and I'm so excited to connect with community. It can be hard to stay motivated sometimes and work with other folks who are also energized about addressing the climate crisis is super important.

One project I wanted to share is about window weatherization, namely window inserts, namely community builds supported by Windowdressers.

For 5years now a team of volunteers, including myself, have been organizing a community build each fall to build window inserts that folks use to insulate their windows. We get support to do this work from a non-profit called windowdressers. People who sign up to get inserts come to the build and together as a community we build all the inserts. Because we the community build them the cost is super low, and because we get donations, we are able to provide them for free for LMI homes. Super cool and a lot of fun. To get a better picture of what the heck this is, here is a presentation I just made for the BED commission that gives brief overview of the what/why/how of window inserts. There is also a lot of great information on the windowdresser website.

Obviously there is quite a bit that goes into organizing these events. Right now is the promotion phase of the year when we spread the word and get people to sign up to get inserts. In the spring and summer we go into high gear going to everyone's homes to measure the windows. Then it all comes together in the fall when we building all the inserts together.

Right now the Burlington build is serving Burlington, Winooski, South Burlington, Williston, Essex, Colchester, and sometimes Jericho. Our first few years this was just way too much to take on. Fortunately we've started to develop satellite teams. so far we've got a few folks in Essex and Williston who spearhead the promotion and window measuring in those towns. The goal is to have teams in the other towns and then also have teams for the different sections of Burlington so that no one person has too much to do. So:

• If you are interested in helping to organize the 2026 year please reach out to me (we don't do meetings, we do tea and cookie parties. aka lots of fun).
• If you are interested in getting inserts yourself, sign up here https://windowdressers.org/ 
• If you are willing to ping your networks (FPF, facebook, etc) to tell them about this and where folks can signup for 2026, that would be awesome.
• If you are not in the towns I rattled off above still sign up. I know Shelburne has their own build. And if you are in a town that isn't doing a build and you are interested you should totally start one in your town.

Stay warm and enjoy the snow.

Jacob