Hilltown Vision is a local organization that helps bring ideas to life. The nonprofit started as a grassroots community response and has budded into a proactive community resource.
Living in the rural hills of Western MA is undeniably beautiful, and even with the seasonal challenges of winter snows, many wouldn’t trade the area’s regional character for simple convenience. The challenges that folks face out here rarely surface from a lack of gumption. People out here take pride in their work, and aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. Keeping an eye on the future is how Hilltown Vision got its start, and the horizon looks bright from their perspective. When a group of local folks want to build a heritage orchard, organize an art festival, or support their food co-op then the Hilltown Vision can help see that project realized.
Small towns are full of folks who want to impact their community and the world around them positively. Unfortunately, the clearest need to a community most often shows up in the form of a crisis that needs immediate community action to avoid. But navigating the legal waters of non-profit incorporation can feel prohibitive, potentially grinding initial movement to a halt.
It’s even harder for folks who don’t know the legal and financial avenues for their ideas to become reality. Definitive benefit to the community rarely shows up with a definitive path to profitability, which is our unfortunate standard for success. At best, it shows up in the form of an excited and motivated individual who can see a need and could just use a little support to get it started.
Hilltown Vision formed as a community response to external threats in 2019, but its organizers got their start back in mid 2010’s when towns across Western Mass faced the Kinder Morgan Tennessee Gas Pipeline. Spurred to action, locals Katy Eiseman and Rosemary Wessel started building some momentum, they pulled in others from the community and beyond as the project progressed. Katy has an environmental science degree and a background in law, and certainly enjoyed helping with the art and design, but this project turned out to be an organizational crash course.
(Pictured Right: Katy Eisman, Hilltown Vision Founder)
From public speaking in radio interviews with Bill Newman, to networking between towns, it was a hands-on experience building a grassroots campaign and bringing it through to success.
A few years later in 2019, that same grassroots network found itself called back into action when a corporate Dollar General proposed opening close to Cummington’s cultural center. Neighbors gathered to voice real concerns about preserving the area’s historic character, shielding our smaller local retailers, and preserving the river. Once again, community organizing shaped the course of action, and the community chose how they wanted to see their town grow.
Around that moment in 2019, the Old Creamery Co-op was struggling. The threat of Dollar General brought into focus how losing the Creamery would have been a blow to food access and the loss of a social space in the Hilltowns. The Hilltown Vision charitable support was able to financially facilitate crucial consultants and business restructuring that shifted viability of the Creamery as a local business.
They went on to administrate and throw The Old Creamery’s 10th Anniversary party, pulling in local food and vendors like Sena Farm Brewery. Similarly they were able to offer the Cummington Cultural District administrative services, like organizing the first RiverFest, between being certified and establishing their own internal structures.
Cummington Tree Alliance works on public forestry, grant management, and municipal landscaping. Similarly both of those organizations work with the Cross Pollination Initiative which focuses on native plant biodiversity, and activly creating pollinator gardens in the Hilltowns. Another perfect example of Hilltown Vision’s success was their foundational support of Momentum AG. Started by Lincoln Fishman, Momentum AG is an initiative focused on testing agricultural soil health and sustainable farming techniques across regional farms. Recently Hilltown Theatre Anonymous partnered with Hilltown Vision to address ticketing and fiscal support. Hilltown Vision has found that solutions for one project such as fee-free transactions through Zeffy for ticketing can benefit others projects with similar needs for donations.
Hilltown Vision offers a practical model for rural community resilience. By combining fiscal sponsorship, administrative support, and grassroots organizing, it empowers residents to transform local ideas into lasting community programs. Moving from crucial defense responses against fracking pipelines and aggressive corporate expansion towards positive investments in co-ops, culture, and environmental health, Hilltown Vision ensures that our little slice of rural Western Mass remains a vibrant, self-supportive home for generations to come
Hilltown Vision
509 Stage Road, Cummington, MA 01026
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Below find our 2026 promo for RiverFest as it was in the newsletter, but be aware it is promoting a past event:
Now in their second annual year of celebration,
Hilltown Vision co-hosts
RiverFest
in partnership with the
Cummington Cultural District.
Saturday,
September 19th
10am – 6pm
Along Main Street, Cummington
Set in our picturesque Hilltown of Cummington, the event flows through the center of town along the Westfield River.
RiverFest brings together folks from all walks of life, from across Cummington, and the Hilltowns.
Find out your friends and neighbors are all insanely talented local artists at the Local Artisan & Artist Fair on the Cummington Community House lawn – 12 pm.
Chat with folks, enjoy music and art. Find out that the executive director of the HCDC doesn’t have time to chat about any new plans for the old school because he’s been scheduled to play music at 5 pm.
You’ll want to show up early though!!!
10 am to catch all the Announcements.
And certainly before 10:30 am if you wanna go for a ecology walk with Bernsie.
It’s a whole day, whole town, whole kinda thing.
There
will be:
Arts & Crafts
Henna Tattoos
9/19/2026
Tomorrow!!!
