Now Serving the Next Customer at the Vermont Department of Creemee
The $10 Creemmee Passport is not purely transactional . For every passport sold, the program donates a creemee to a Vermont kid whose family may not be able to afford one.
Vermont has an Agency of Agriculture, an Agency of Natural Resources, an Agency of Transportation, a Department of Housing and Community Development, and a Joint Fiscal Office. Compass spends a fair amount of time picking apart what those departments do, or fail to do, with public money.
This is not about any of them.
About a month ago, a Vermonter named Adam Rice launched the Vermont Creemee Passport, a $10 booklet issued — formally, with a straight face — by the “Vermont Department of Creemee.” Holders are encouraged to travel the state, collect a custom stamp at each participating stand, and document their journeys for posterity. Out-of-state creemees, per the Department’s official posture, may be recorded “but marked as foreign travel.”
Each passport is personalized with the holder’s photo (a no-photo generic version is available for those who prefer institutional anonymity) and printed, the Department promises, on “thick, stamp-friendly pages.” Thirty-one stands are listed as official members. More than 150 appear in the broader Creemee Locator.
Rice told WCAX that roughly 40 businesses have signed on so far, with about 500 passports sold in the first month. Some stands are offering perks — a free upgrade day, a free creemee for passport holders — to nudge people across county lines. “Maybe go up north to April’s Maple and Canaan in the Northeast Kingdom,” Rice said, “where you know, if you’re in Chittenden County, you don’t go up there often and now you have a reason to go.”
The $10 is not purely transactional. For every passport sold, Rice said, the program donates a creemee to a Vermont kid whose family may not be able to afford one. Proceeds also benefit selected Vermont charities.
This is the rare Vermont department whose only stated objective is to put a swirl of soft-serve in your hand and a stamp in your book. No appropriation. No unfunded mandate. No 60-page rule open for public comment.
Just a creemee, and a small civic pretense that the creemee is a matter of state.
The window is open. The next customer is being served.
Happy Memorial Day.
Compass Vermont is an independent, reader-supported Vermont news outlet.