Photo: Francesa Bourgault, lighting designer and producer at New England Youth Theatre in Brattleboro, is one of several 2025 Emerging Leaders whose work focuses on creating a regional culture of belonging.
In a rural region, belonging often comes down to whether there is a place for you, and whether you feel welcomed when you arrive. It is created through intentional spaces, practical services, and people willing to step forward when something essential is missing.
Francesca Bourgault, Gloria Cruzado, and Nathaniel Scull represent a cohort of young adults whose work is helping to build communities where people feel welcomed, supported, and able to participate fully.
Bourgault, Cruzado, and Scull are three of the 27 young adults honored as 2025 Southern Vermont Emerging Leaders by Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation’s Southern Vermont Young Professionals and the Southwestern Vermont Chamber of Commerce’s Shires Young Professionals. Nominations for 2026 open February 13th at sovermontzone.com/emerging-leaders.
Creating Spaces Where People Can Be Themselves
In Brattleboro, Francesca Bourgault works as a lighting designer and producer with New England Youth Theatre and as one of the driving forces behind the Brattleboro Queer Dance Party.
Her nominator emphasizes the importance of QDP, writing that it “offers a space for many different people from throughout the community to come together and celebrate during a time when there is so much difficulty, so much heartache, so many challenges.”
Bourgault describes what that safety makes possible in her work at NEYT as well: “Students share how they feel this is their home and how safe they feel to be vulnerable,” she says. “I see kids making bold choices, releasing inhibitions, having fun, and building community with one another and the adults in the room.”
Belonging That Starts with Care
For Gloria Cruzado, belonging begins with the body—with the everyday experience of being cared for in ways that feel familiar, respectful, and affirming. Based in Bennington, Cruzado is the founder and owner of Sheelah’s Mobile Braiding.
“Gloria realized the lack of hair care for the BIPOC community,” says her nominator, “and she built a mobile braiding business, making services more accessible.” The work fills a deeply personal gap—one that affects how people move through the world and how they feel in their own skin.
Cruzado cites lack of cultural representation as a big challenge in Southern Vermont, but her response is grounded in action. “Rather than moving or starting this business in a larger city where these services are readily available, I saw the opportunity and chose to establish a business that didn’t exist.”
Through her business, Cruzado has also organized free hair clinics, holiday giveaways, and community meals—extending care from individual appointments into shared community space. In doing so, she helps create a sense of belonging that begins with personal care and expands outward.
Belonging Through Essential Systems
At first glance, Nathaniel Scull’s work might look purely logistical. At the Food Connects Food Hub, he works as operations manager, overseeing the movement of food from more than 135 regional producers to hundreds of wholesale customers throughout Southern Vermont.
But Scull sees the work as deeply human. “Through my work I get to help local producers get their product to local schools and markets, and help them take pride in their hard work in doing so,” Scull reflects. “I repeatedly hear how people want to support their neighbors by choosing local over macro economy.”
One nominator notes that Scull’s enthusiasm for solving complex problems is contagious, while another emphasizes that his work “literally gets locally and regionally sourced food onto the plates of our community.”
“Food access and sovereignty are key components of the wellbeing of a community,” Scull says. “It’s challenging to navigate the operational hurdles to make local commerce compete against the global market. I apply my solutions-oriented approach alongside my sense of service to facilitate a humane vision of what commerce in Vermont can be.”
The Work of Making Room
Across Southern Vermont, these leaders demonstrate how belonging supports economic resilience. Welcoming spaces, culturally responsive services, and strong local systems all contribute to a region’s ability to attract and retain people, support small businesses, and sustain a diverse workforce.
By making room—on stage, in service, and throughout the regional food economy—Bourgault, Cruzado, and Scull are strengthening the social infrastructure that underpins long-term economic vitality. Their leadership reflects a practical understanding shared by economic development partners across the region: communities grow stronger when people feel they belong, and economies thrive when that belonging is built into everyday work.
About the Southern Vermont Emerging Leaders Awards
Each year since 2018, the Southern Vermont Young Professionals (a program of Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation) and the Shires Young Professionals have sought to highlight and honor young adults in their roles as leaders and change-makers in the Southern Vermont economy and community through the Emerging Leaders awards. Over 130 local leaders have been given an Emerging Leaders award since the beginning of the program, and 40 of those have subsequently been recognized statewide through Vermont Business Magazine’s Rising Stars awards as well.
Nominations for the 2026 cohort open February 13th. Read more about other awardees and submit your nomination at www.sovermontzone.com/emerging-leaders.
About Southern Vermont Young Professionals
The Southern Vermont Young Professionals is a workforce initiative of Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategies (SeVEDS) and the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC). Our mission is to attract, retain and support Young Professionals in Southern Vermont by providing engaging opportunities and networking through social and educational events, and volunteer opportunities. The YP initiative is increasingly important to Southern Vermont’s businesses and communities as a strategic approach to growing the size of the region’s workforce and increasing the number of younger households in the region. For more information please visit: https://brattleborodevelopment.com/sovtyps/
