Meet Ariel

Hi, I’m Ariel (pronounced R - E - L) Bolles. You can also call me Ari. I live in Ferrisburgh with my husband Spencer, our two kids, and one cat. I currently serve on the Ferrisburgh Town Center Committee, and previously volunteered on the ANWSD Comprehensive Equity Assessment Committee.

My day job is doing Design Strategy and Service Design for government products and websites. I love working in civic tech and my experience navigating public sector challenges has taught me a lot about empathy and ensuring decisions are made in partnership with the people affected by them. I’ve also learned a lot about navigating complex systems and influencing and managing change. My digital design career has spanned the last fourteen or so years of my life, and prior to that I was a floral designer and delivery driver, rotisserie chicken restaurant server, cocktail waitress, Ben & Jerry’s scooper and cake decorator, and I proudly helped organize City Market/Onion River Co-op’s employee union and served as a steward while working there as a cashier many years ago (go UE Local 203!).

My family moved to Vermont from Maine when I was five. I grew up in Charlotte, a town we never could have afforded to live in if it weren’t for the fact that my dad was the minister at the Congregational church, which meant that we got to live in the parsonage for free. My dad was also a school bus driver, newspaper deliveryman and columnist, and my mom taught piano lessons and early childhood music. I later moved away to Chicago to attend college and play music. There I established my career and started a little family, and then we decided to come back and put down roots in Ferrisburgh to be closer to my brothers and their families in 2021.

In my free time I’m with my family, organizing in my community, knitting, gardening, and I enjoy seeing and playing music any chance I can get.

Explore my priorities for Addison-3.