Alumni Spotlight: Matt Mulligan

Matt Mulligan has been a nanny, a professional fundraiser, a para educator in a public school and is now a master’s level mental health counselor. He has lived all over the country, traveled all over the world, and now resides in his hometown of Barre, Vermont. Growing up in Vermont, a relative local to Goddard’s Plainfield campus, Matt appreciated Vermont’s extreme beauty, the physiological effect of having his feet in grass and being able to spend so much time outdoors. While he has had challenges his whole life – from being born early and living with hydrocephalus, to figuring out in high school that he was gay, to learning at age 40 that he has a learning disability – Matt has a positive and giving attitude that he brings to his current work as a mental health counselor in his community. “I get to see people rise,” Matt says. He believes that when we’re struggling, we’re at our strongest.

Matt has written a children’s book called Tomatoes and Peppers, available for sale now. In Matt’s words, “Tomatoes and peppers grow side by side, but the tomato needs much more support because of the nature of the tomato and the plant. We don’t think things about the tomato, or make assumptions about the tomato because it needed support.” Matt wrote the book to get people to think differently, especially when working with children. “ I would like to see the question move from what’s wrong and how do we fix it, to what’s different and how do we help?”

To snag the book: https://store.bookbaby.com/book/tomatoes-and-peppers