DRM Community Fund Grant to Benefit St Johnsbury Welcome Center

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July 08, 2008

Standing at the ticket agent's office in the newly renovated St. Johnsbury Welcome Center, John Marshall of Downs Rachlin Martin (left) hands a check for $1000 to Nat Tripp, who represents the St. Johnsbury Railroad Heritage Society and St. Johnsbury Works!

(St. Johnsbury, Vt.) Nat Tripp recently accepted a $1,000 check on behalf of the St Johnsbury Railroad Heritage Society from John H. Marshall, managing partner and CEO of Downs Rachlin Martin PLLC. The DRM Community Fund grant will sponsor three short railroad excursions during the St. Johnsbury Railroad Heritage Weekend to be held in August.

By helping to pay the railroad’s costs for the tour, the grant will increase the net proceeds from the excursion, which will help to offset the costs incurred to restore the Canadian Pacific railway station. The historic building will house St. Johnsbury’s welcome center beginning in August.

Through the DRM Community Fund, which was launched in 2000 to celebrate the firm's 50^th anniversary, DRM has awarded more than $150,000 in small grants for innovative, grass-roots initiatives in the arts, education, economic development and historic preservation. Grants have been made to 150 private non-profit organizations in Vermont and western New Hampshire for projects that strengthen community.

Since 2005, the Fund has supported organizations that DRM directors support and are directly and personally involved in to foster and support their volunteer efforts. The grant to the railroad historical society was sponsored by Marshall, who is a member of the organization’s board of directors. “The St. Johnsbury rail yard was once central, economically and geographically, to this community,” Marshall said. “We are pleased to help benefit the restoration of this beautiful and historically significant building and to play a part in the revitalization of the town we in the St. Johnsbury office of DRM are proud to call home.”

DRM, with more than 65 attorneys in seven offices in Vermont, New Hampshire and New York, provides legal services to local, national and international clients in practice areas that include litigation, business law, labor and employment, captive insurance, environmental law, trust and estates, family law, tax law, public utilities, real estate, health care, intellectual property, creditors rights, venture capital and insurance defense. The firm represents clients in legislative, regulatory and public affairs through the Government and Public Affairs group. DRM is the law firm member for Vermont of Lex Mundi, the world's leading association of independent law firms. DRM was established in 1950 in St. Johnsbury.