Blue Hill Community Development

Counting down to the Maritime Heritage Festival!

July 26, 2021 scott

The Downeast Chapter of the Traditional Small Craft Association is proud to host and help sponsor this year’s Blue Hill Maritime Heritage Festival. We’re thinking positive that the CDC guidelines will allow the Festival to take place. The Festival is scheduled for Saturday, August 21, 2021. We will once again be partnering with Maine200.org to celebrate “207 turning 201” in 2021. We are planning a lot of maritime and historical related activities: boats, rides, demonstrations, arts and crafts in the park, sea shanties, seafood and more.

Warrant #4, the Festival exemption, passed by large margin at the Town Hall vote allowing exhibitors to fully participate at this year’s event. Planning is ongoing and if you’d like to be an exhibitor, volunteer or sponsor please visit the Festival website for more information.

We have an great line up of musicians scheduled. Returning from our first event in 2019 will be the Peter Leonard Group – Sea Shanties, Carl Karush and Bill Shubeck – Sea Songs and Fiddle Tunes. New this year we’re excited to announce that Castlebay (Julia Lane and Fred Gosbee) will be playing traditional seafaring songs from Maine.

Come join us for a fun summer day by the bay.

Steve

Threadbare Theatre Workshop’s 2021 Season Announced

April 26, 2021 scott

Threadbare Theatre Workshop’s outdoor summer season at Carding Brook Farm will take its audience back to the land and into the forest. Threadbare will open in August with Shakespeare’s magical haunt in the woods, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and will close the season just before Labor Day under Jon Ellsworth’s very own Mackerel Sky.

Pioneer Prize Holds Design-Thinking Workshops

March 1, 2021 scott

Over the past weekend, Pioneer Prize 2021, a Blue Hill Community Development-sponsored project, hosted two design-thinking sessions with student participants. These sessions premiered a new way to engage and connect with Pioneer Prize participants and to inspire and explore their ideas as they dig in to the 2021 coding competition.

2021 Maritime Heritage Festival

February 25, 2021 scott

The Blue Hill Maritime Heritage Festival has been scheduled for August 21, 2021 from 10am-4pm. The Festival will, once again, partner with Maine2000.org, celebrating “207 turning 201” this year.

The Festival will be centered around the Town Wharf and Horton Emerson Park.

Festival organizers are still putting together their agenda. They’re looking for artists, musicians, boat builders, boaters and organizations with an interest in, or connection to, the maritime history of Blue Hill and the ecology of Blue Hill Bay. Those interested in participating should contact Steve Brookman.

NGBH Spins Off!

February 18, 2021 scott

Native Gardens of Blue Hill (NGBH)—a BHCD project since 2018—took the next step in 2020 of incorporating as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and has expanded its programming to include development of a workforce training course in Sustainable Landscaping & Garden Management. The program is set to launch on February 23, 2021 with a full cohort of 15 trainees and a waitlist for the next session. Read more at www.nativemainegardens.org.

As NGBH continues to build its organizational capacity to accommodate its growing mission and programs, co-founders Cathy Rees and Avy Claire reflected on the value of BHCD’s past fiscal sponsorship:

“BHCD stepped in to provide fiscal sponsorship to NGBH when we were just starting out as a grassroots project without much experience or infrastructure. BHCD was instrumental in helping us secure grant funding, and the professionalism shown by BHCD in all aspects of operations was a model for our growing organization to aspire toward. Thank you, BHCD volunteers, for your commitment to our community!”