Jo Comerford, Executive Director of the 
All about the 2009 HOPE Festival April 25th
You are invited to participate in the 15th Annual HOPE Festival to be held Saturday, April 25th from 11-4 at the Orono Campus of the University of Maine.
We are excited to be in a New Venue this year. The light and airy University of Maine Student Recreation and Fitness Center is an award winning Green Building with lots of windows. Highlights of this year’s festival will be a keynote talk by Eliot Coleman of Four Season Farm, a performance by renowned folk singer David Mallett, the amazing juggling of Zachary Field, a show by Peregrine Puppets, songs from the Voices of HOPE Community Choir, and other lively entertainment, as well as fun and educational children’s activities, a 5 K fun run, and delicious food for sale from local producers.
Each spring the HOPE Festival (Help Organize Peace Earthwide) renews the hope we all have for a peaceful and sustainable future. Helen Nearing was the featured speaker at the first HOPE Festival fourteen years ago. While Earth Day was organized to raise awareness about the need to take care of the earth and practice conservation, the HOPE Festival has expanded to raise awareness around Earth Day about the many organizations working to take care of the earth and each other in our communities. This year more than 70 organizations, working in their own ways for a better world, will share information, provide demonstrations, sell buttons, t-shirts, and other products, and encourage participant involvement.
Last year we strengthened the “Green Expo” component of the festival to highlight organizations working on environmental sustainability. This year we plan to have lots of interactive ways for participants to learn how they can be active participants in saving the planet. We encourage groups working on issues of sustainability to bring information and plan demonstrations and activities to engage participants. Let us know if you have special projects we can promote ahead of time. There will also be “talking circles” for adults and children to share ideas about sustaining hope for the future.
The great team of volunteers who are planning this year’s festival are working as well on ways to strengthen outreach to schools and churches. You can read about these exciting new initiatives in the Center’s newsletter, and we will send along information about special projects and workshops to involve children and members of the religious community leading up to the HOPE Festival.
Rob Shetterly has designed a new poster for us this year, which you may color and post in your community. Let us know if you can help promote HOPE in your neighborhood, and we will send you as many posters as you can use.
The festival is free because many volunteers, including the performers, donate their time, energy and talent to make this special day possible. Volunteers are needed, especially to set up on Saturday, April 25th from 7:00 – 10:00 a.m., throughout the day on Saturday, and to clean up. Email or call the Center if you can help before the Festival, or on the day itself.
To reserve a table for your nonprofit organization, download a table application here.
To purchase ad space in the HOPE Festival Program Guide, download the form here.
For more information about becoming a food vendor at the festival, download the application here.
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Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 12:38 am under
