New Englanders - Local Good News & Community Wins

Any New Englanders here? I want your good news!! HELLO GOOD NEWS FANATICS Longtime lurker here but this is my first post on this subreddit. A lot of the posts / discourse here focuses on good news with a global perspective, but I'd like this thread to be about things more LOCAL!! I've been really into this world for a while (I am a fanatic subscriber of all the outlets-- Our World in Data, Fix the News, The Progress Network, Human Progress, Good Good Good, etc), and wanted to start contributing to the good news movement, but in a way that was unique. So I began a locally-focused project, where I curate / share good news stories from my region of the world-- New England (northeast United States). My project is called Granite Goodness! It's been really fun because I've gotten to show people that plenty of perfectly impressive good news happens all the time, and it hides in plain sight. We just tend to not see it curated together. Here are some local stories that have brought me some optimism lately. Connecticut farmers are organizing to solve shared problems. The state's 120 farmers markets long operated in relative isolation, each one troubleshooting vendor rules, permits, and slow days on its own. A new statewide coalition is now two years into connecting organizers to share resources and knowledge. (Yonkers Times) Rhode Island is protecting 174 acres of open space. Using $1.23 million in voter-approved Green Bond grants, four projects are being funded from forestland in Glocester to a shoreline property overlooking Mount Hope Bay in Tiverton. The same program has protected more than 13,000 acres since 1985. (RI Dept. of Environmental Management) Vermont just became the 23rd state to pass a consumer privacy law. Governor Phil Scott signed the Vermont Data Privacy Act in June, giving residents new rights over how their personal data is collected, used, and sold. The law includes added protections for health and genetic data and takes effect January 1, 2028. (IAPP) In 2025, Maine exceeded forecasts for ADU construction. ADUs made up roughly 9% of residential building permits across Maine's 183 largest municipalities last year, surprising even housing researchers as small towns exceeded expectations. Windham led with 16 permits, and New Gloucester, a town of under 6,000, matched Portland with 14. (Portland Press Herald) The University of New Hampshire just launched a new Center for Neurodiversity. The center supports all students, staff, and faculty, with resources ranging from internship support to faculty training on neuroinclusive syllabi. UNH's long-term vision is to expand services beyond campus to communities across New Hampshire. (University of New Hampshire) Massachusetts just reduced opioid deaths by 27%. 978 deaths were recorded in 2025, the first year since 2013 when the figure was below 1,000. The drop is credited to expanded treatment, harm reduction, and recovery support. (WBUR) Traditional news matters, but it often highlights a disproportionate share of the worst events, which can leave people feeling burnt out, anxious, or cynical. Note that these summaries are my own words on what I find optimistic from the original stories, not direct quotes from the sources. If you want more detail, I link and credit the original sources on our site. Reddit discourages too many hyperlinks, so I don’t include them here. Please use this thread to share some good news LOCAL to YOU!! especially if you're from or around the northeast USA! If anyone is working on a similar project, I'd love to hear from you too. -Andy