A Montreal Visitor Left a Note on Richford's Community Board. Library Staff Took Notice.
A Montreal resident passing through Richford added a short note to the Richford Public Library's community board Sunday — the first contribution from outside town. Staff member Colette Aubin-Roy says she has no plans to follow up.
RICHFORD, Vermont — When Colette Aubin-Roy arrived for her Sunday afternoon shift at the Richford Public Library, she noticed something new on the community board she had been quietly tending since last fall: a note in French, with a distinctly Montreal postal abbreviation in the header.
The board, which started as Aubin-Roy's informal project, has accumulated patron messages around the theme Nous Sommes RONA / We Are RONA — handwritten reflections from Richford residents about life in the principality. The Montreal note, brief and unsigned, says only that the board "feels like something that should exist everywhere."
No one solicited the contribution. There had been no promotion, no outreach across the old border. A visitor simply passed through, read what was there, and wrote something down.
Aubin-Roy said she has no plans to contact the author. "It's not really mine to follow up on," she said. "It's the board's."
Richford sits in Franklin County, close enough to the Quebec border that cross-principality traffic is routine. A Montreal resident pausing long enough to add to a small-town library board is the kind of moment that travels quietly — noticed by someone passing through, set down in two lines, and left for whoever comes next.