Photo: Maureen Velsor, director of the Neighborhood Schoolhouse in Brattleboro, is one of several 2025 Emerging Leaders whose work focuses on nurturing the next generation of Southern Vermonters.

On a weekday afternoon in Bellows Falls, teenagers cluster around an art table; in another room, someone heats leftovers in a small kitchen. The building hums with the energy that comes from stability—young people with a place to go, adults who show up consistently, and routines that make room for growth. For Hailee Galandak-Cochran, creating spaces like this is not an add-on to youth services; it is foundational to how communities function.

Education Beyond the Classroom

Alongside fellow awardees Julie Koehler of Wilmington, Ashley Eaton of Manchester Center, and Maureen Velsor of Brattleboro, Galandak-Cochran represents a cohort of educators and community leaders whose work strengthens the early and youth-serving systems that allow families to live, work, and stay in Southern Vermont. Through childcare, youth programming, and education, their leadership supports families today while also shaping the region’s tomorrow.

Taken together, this group’s work reflects a shared belief: that education is relational, patient, and deeply human. These four leaders meet the challenges of a rural region not with abstract solutions, but with presence. Their work focuses on stability, belonging, and consistent support for our youngest community members, for whom the stakes are both subtle and enormous.

These four leaders are just a handful of 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 are now being accepted at sovermontzone.com/emerging-leaders.

Making Room for Youth Voices

After the Bellows Falls Boys & Girls Club closed in 2016, Galandak-Cochran stepped into the gap, co-founding what would become Friends for Change, now part of Interaction: Youth Services and Restorative Justice. The youth center serves dozens of middle and high school students each year, many navigating significant personal and family challenges.

“Hailee’s leadership is rooted in kindness,” writes her nominator. “Her approach fosters collaboration, intentionality, and thoughtfulness, which is why Friends for Change is successful as a youth center in an area with few resources.”

Galandak-Cochran describes her role less as directing than listening. “The most important teachers in my journey as a leader have been the youth and young adults we partner with,” she says. “Time and time again, what I’ve learned is that the best leaders are humble, model vulnerability, and above all else invite collaboration.”

Meeting Community Needs

In Wilmington, Julie Koehler turned an abandoned high school science lab into something the town hadn’t had in years: a functioning childcare center. She opened Beaver Brook Children’s School in 2021, in the thick of pandemic-era challenges, and has continued to fill gaps in care through summer camps and, most recently, a nature-based kindergarten.

“Julie is a perfect example of a community leader who has a vision and starts a program that is much needed but considered by others as too difficult to achieve,” her nominator notes. Today, Beaver Brook supports working families across the Wilmington area, offering early education, parent nights, seminars, and community gatherings that have helped re-anchor village life.

For Koehler, relationships are the foundation. “As a preschool teacher and director, I’ve found that relationships create sustainability,” she says. “They’re what hold families and staff together through challenges.”

The Power of Patience and Play

At Northshire Day School in Manchester Center, Ashley Eaton has spent nearly two decades working with young children—celebrating small victories that can feel monumental. One example: teaching a child, step by step, how to scoot their chair to the table independently.

When the child excitedly puts all those little steps together, “we clap and cheer and laugh together,” Eaton says. “Every child develops differently, and my job is to make sure they have what they need to be successful.”

Her nominator describes Eaton as “as an amazing support for her colleagues and the type of educator others want to work with even on their worst day,” noting her mentorship of other teachers and signature kindness.

Outside of work, Eaton is committed to creating spaces where people feel welcomed, supported, and able to participate fully through her work in community theater. “It is so important to be able to be true to yourself and have the feeling of being accepted,” she says.

Holding It All Together

At Neighborhood Schoolhouse in Brattleboro, Maureen Velsor has guided a small nature-based early education program from financial precarity (nearly closing during the pandemic) to a stable, growing program. Starting as a teacher and now serving as director, she balances administration with hands-on care.

“When a family living in a local shelter was unable to bring their child to the school, she went above and beyond to coordinate transportation, including taking it on herself,” writes her nominator. “In a field that we don’t always recognize, her role is critical.”

Velsor is proud of the role her team plays in the community. “By investing in quality early education and supporting families, we are shaping the next generation of leaders who will continue to contribute to the success and sustainability of Southern Vermont.”

“By creating an environment where everyone feels valued,” Velsor says, “teachers, children, and families can grow together.”

Growing Futures, Together

Across Southern Vermont, these leaders demonstrate how investments in youth, childcare, and education directly support economic resilience. Reliable early education allows parents to work. Youth programs provide stability during critical years. Strong relationships between families, educators, and communities create the conditions for long-term retention and growth.

What unites these four leaders is a shared belief that strong communities are built early, through care that is patient, relational, and rooted in trust.

Whether through a youth center, a childcare classroom, or a quiet act of advocacy, these educators are strengthening systems to expand on what Southern Vermonters already do well as individuals: showing up for one another, supporting families through change, and preparing the next generation to thrive here. In doing so, they are helping ensure that young people here don’t just grow up—they grow connected, confident, and at home.

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 are now open. 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/