Marro and Beverley Petrelis will discuss the making of their documentaries and describe the Historical Society’s plans to expand the program. “We’d like to turn this into a real community effort,” Marro said. “We are looking for ideas from everyone. There is much interesting history that we hope to record and preserve before it becomes lost.” Planned projects include documentaries about Prospect Mountain Ski Resort, the fires that destroyed much of downtown Bennington, origins of Bennington street names, the YMCA, and the history of the West End dairy farms.

For the past two years, Jackie Marro has been filming the monthly programs of the Historical Society and supplementing them with additional photographs, maps and commentary. Discussion topics have included the Battle Monument, the history of the Mattison Family, 19th century iron foundries, New England churches, and the summer colonies of Old Bennington. All of these are now on DVD and will be available through the Vermont History Room at the Bennington Free Library.