2009 Quimby Family Foundation Grantees and funded projects...
Appalachian Trail Conservency
To support volunteer development which is the lifeblood of the Appalachian Trail. To protect the Trail and its signature landscapes, ATC is reaching out to neighboring communities, building awareness, developing stewardship skills, and cultivating a sense of ownership for the 2,200-mile-long icon in their backyards. This grant will help underwrite 2009 objectives, including recruitment and training of 500 new volunteers.
Camp Beech Cliff
To provide local children who attend the summer camp with a Visiting Guest Series that will combine nature and art exploration. Through this project, Camp Beech Cliff will seek to increase the access of local young people to art and the creative artist within them. They will be bringing artisans and naturalists in the community together with campers to explore working with various natural/nature inspired media. The intention is to give children the kind of encouragement and opportunity to explore the wonders and beauty of nature that has inspired generations to “take to the woods” in gentle ways, to love our wild lands, and ultimately to care about protecting them.
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| Center for Maine Craft |
Center For Maine Craft
To market the Center for Maine Craft, newly opened in November 2008 and supporting over 300 Maine artisans as well as educating the public on the quality work of Maine’s businesses. The funding will allow the MCA to develop a comprehensive marketing plan, create a brochure, add content to their website, and partner with the Maine Office of Tourism to create educational information displays that will teach the Center’s visitors about Maine craft.
Center Theatre For Performing Arts, Dover-Foxcroft
To support the improvements to the infrastructure of the Center Theatre’s future box office and business office.
Cobscook Community Learning Center
To support their extensive community arts programming. A portion of the grant funding will be used to support scholarships for people in the region to access CCLC programs, and the remainder will be used for general operations of the center. As part of the regular operations of the CCLC, they seek to increase publicity, outreach, and use of the varied arts programs and studio spaces. The CCLC is the sole provider of this level of arts programming in the region, and people are currently able to take classes, attend workshops, or otherwise participate in arts education programs regardless of their ability to pay.
College Of The Atlantic
To assist with scholarships, equipment, leadership training, and professional development and to support participation by COA students in the COA Outdoors Program. The goal of the COA Outdoor Program is to make it available to all interested and qualified COA students, regardless of financial status.
Cultivating Community
To support the food and farm based programs that build an ethic of stewardship and promote social justice through engagement in the food system.
Eastport Arts Center
To fund (in part) the salaries of the Executive Director and Facilities Manager. This grant will be matched by grants received from the C.F. Adams Charitable Trust. These staff positions are essential for the EAC to survive in these ever-changing economic times where there is a need for leaders who work solely for the purpose of community outreach, program survival, donor and volunteer relationships and grant writing.
Fiddlehead Center For The Arts
To cover its advertising and marketing expenses in order to disseminate information on all of the programs offered beyond its immediate location. Furthermore, the funds will be used to improve the quality of marketing materials and establish the Fiddlehead Center for the Arts ~ Scarborough’s own brand.
Frenchman Bay Conservancy
To help fund the purchase in Sullivan, Maine, of 300 acres of wild forested upland and wetland including the entirety of a small pond. This property abuts an existing conservation easement on Baker Hill as well as surrounding much of the buffer strip around Long Pond, a vital drinking water source for Sullivan and Sorrento.
Friends of Baxter State Park
To fund the second year of the Maine Youth Wilderness Leadership Program in Baxter State Park. This program is a one-week pilot project for ten high school sophomores and juniors to learn the meaning and value of wilderness through a backcountry camping experience at Baxter State Park. Facilitated by experienced trip leaders and resource specialists, students will deepen their understanding of and appreciation for wilderness preservation and make a lifelong connection to the natural world.
Friends of Cobbossee Watershed
To double the number of children currently attending the Nature Day Camps from 35-40 to 75-80 children. Held during February and April school vacation weeks, the Nature Day Camps get children outdoors and allow them to participate in activities that many children today no longer have the opportunity to experience. The grant will secure the necessary additional qualified staff and subject-matter experts in areas including tracking & primitive skills, and purchase a base amount of equipment including snowshoes, GPS units and fishing gear to support the increased number of participants.
Friends School of Portland
To expand on the garden project that was created last year with a grant from Greenworks. The funding will be used for fencing, seeds, and soil for “cultivating friends” the community garden which the Friends School and Gov. Baxter School for the Deaf participated in planting, tending, and harvesting.
Gould Academy
To provide a trimester long Artist-in-Residency for the fall '09. Siri Beckmann, a printmaker from Stonington, Maine will live in Bethel during this time, Gould will provide all meals, and she will work with one class of students. She will be encouraged to create her own work during this residency, and to work with her students and others. At the close of the trimester, she will have an exhibition of work she has done during the residency, as well as the work of her students.
Great Auk Land Trust
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| Great Auk Land Trust |
To assist in purchasing two parcels of land to achieve the vision for the Pigeon Hill Vista and Recreational Preserve. This parcel encompasses the traditional trail leading from Pigeon Hill Road and the 15-acre summit parcel that includes a portion of the scenic Pigeon Hill summit. The properties will be added to Great Auk’s existing 117-acre core preserve for a total of 166 acres.
Greater Portland Landmarks
For the new book called Deering, which focuses on the architectural and social history of Portland’s off-peninsula area, including Deering and Stroudwater, from the 17th through the mid 20th centuries. A companion to GPL’s Portland, this book will tell the rest of the story about how the City developed and evolved.
Haystack Mountain School Of Crafts
For Haystack’s Maine Programs, which include: Student Craft Institute, Studio Based Learning, Student Mentor Program, Community-Based-Artist Residencies, Island Workshop, and Open Door.
International Appalachian Trail
To assist in the travel expenses of the Maine Chapter of the IAT/SIA members to Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. The members will meet with representatives of hiking groups and government that have expressed an interest in adding their trails to the IAT/SIA. The goal is to get people in countries on both sides of the Atlantic that contain remnants of the original Appalachian Mountains, to work together on a common project that will provide inspiration, enjoyment, and knowledge for present and future generations.
Island Astronomy Institute
To Measure, Promote, and Protect Maine’s pristine night sky as a valuable natural resource by acquiring a one-of-a-kind light pollution measurement technology developed by the National Park Service. To promote community stewardship of the night sky through the Acadia Night Sky Festival. To continue measurement research work in Acadia National Park on the SERC campus and to establish night sky quality as an indicator of Maine’s unique quality of place.
Johnson Hall Performing Arts Center
To support Teen-Elementary School Shows. TESS is a unique after-school program/collaboration with local schools that provides an unusual mix of fun and performance with literature and art education. Under the supervision of professional theater and art directors, high-school students write plays based on children’s literature, and direct elementary student actors in the plays, while teen art directors help art kids prepare sets, backdrops and props. They then present two shows, one for the entire school and one for the parents and community. The program is free to students, and is often their first experience of live theater.
Kitchen Garden International
To hire its first full-time employee. Having this staff capacity will allow KGI to make the next steps in organizations development and expand the number of people and groups it is helping through its network and activities, in Maine and around the world.
Maine Audubon
To support Audubon’s hands-on environmental education programs that serve children of all ages. Maine Audubon is part of a statewide effort to get more kids outside and Maine Audubon is focused on teaching local children about the natural world around them.
Maine College of Art
To support the final restoration and completion of the Porteous Building as Maine College of Art’s primary academic and administrative center. This will significantly raise the quality of the Porteous facility to more efficiently and effectively meet the College’s value of nourishing and sustaining the creative evolution of our communities through educational programs, outreach and public access.
Maine Island Trail Association
To build on last year’s Trail and Stewardship expansion efforts east of Rockland, MITA seeks to address the primary concerns voiced by local community members at their Cobscook Forum about coastal recreation downeast. Specifically, they will take steps to bolster citizen stewardship, ensure natural resource protection and enhance public safety education from Mount Desert Island to the Canadian border.
Maine Media Workshops
To support the New Vision Campaign – Focusing on the Future, a campaign to secure the future of Maine Media Workshops.
Maine Rivers
To create a program to educate Maine citizens and policymakers about the role of native sea-run fish in our river ecosystems and other Gulf of Maine habitats, and to present information on local opportunities for barrier removal and restoration through dam removal.
Matagamon Lakes Association
To assist in the replacement of the Matagamon Lake Dam gate hoist system and install additional equipment to ensure the continued effective and safe operation of the water control structures.
Maine Orgainc Farmers And Gardeners Association
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| Maine Orgainc Farmers And Gardeners Association |
To support, Getting the Word Out. The Maine Organic Farmer and Gardener has been published since the early 1970’s. MOFGA will take the most useful articles from their 35 years of archives and turn them into fact sheets, on-line bulletins, and articles for reprinting in other periodicals. This involves identifying the articles, securing legal rights for publication, and preparation for posting and distribution.
Momentum Skate Park
For the construction of a dynamic new skate park in Portland, Maine. This facility will give young people across southern Maine a sanctioned site for a healthy activity that appears to correlate to other non-motorized forms of outdoor recreation.
New Surry Theatre
To replace aging theater lighting equipment and to build portable “risers” for the audience in their theater space.
Pollinator Project
To increase the public’s awareness of the importance of pollinators and to significantly support their ability to create habitat in Maine and to help print and distribute three Ecoregional Planting Guides that cover the state of Maine.
Portland Trails
To assist in developing and building the section of trail from Westbrook into Portland and Falmouth, and out to the “Sea” at Brickyard Point. This is a part of the “Sebago to the Sea” Coalition which is a partnership of more than 15 municipalities, land trusts, health organizations, and other non profits working together to create a trail along the length of the Presumpscot River, 25 miles from Sebago Lake to Casco Bay. The grant will support the section of the trail west of route 302, connecting Portland with Westbrook.
Salt Institute For Documentary Studies
For General Operating Support to help with arts and education sustainability and enhancement. More specifically, Salt hopes to keep the curriculum current and competitive, they hope to create new programming opportunities, and to successfully complete the remaining phases of the website/database rollout. Lastly, Salt will continue to create a welcoming and accessible space for our community while fostering relationships and partnerships locally and nationally.
Schoodic Arts For All
For programs, workshops and performances in order to keep fees affordable. Schoodic Arts for All is dedicated to bringing the arts and culture to all of the members of their community, regardless of their economic condition. Schoodic Arts for All relies on outside funding sources for two thirds of the cost of programs.
Space Gallery
To help with general operating costs, with particular attention to strengthening their development program with salary support and new donor management software. The general operating support will also assist with increased use of volunteers, increased youth participation, and support for program costs.
St. Lawrence Arts Center
To transition an intern position into a permanent, full time administrative staff position. The grant funding will allow the executive director to spend more time on higher level functions such as outreach, development and fundraising which will enable the St. Lawrence to obtain permanent funding for the administrative position. With the help of the grant, the organization will rise to the next level in the fulfillment of its mission in the center's constant growth and development as a professionally run accessible arts organization.
Student Conservation Association
To field a crew of high school girls at Camp Chewonki for Girls on Fourth Debsconeag Lake, ME. Students will participate in important conservation service projects by maintaining trails and campsites in and around the Camp. Crewmembers, Camp participants and staff, and visitors will benefit from safer and easier access to Maine’s wilderness areas and natural spaces.
Susan L. Curtis
To help integrate the Arts, Adventure, Environmental and Leadership training into a more comprehensive and sustainable curriculum for their Leadership Education Program
Teens To Trails
To assist Teens To Trails in the work that fulfills their belief that taking steps to develop a network of high school Outing Club programs across Maine is the single most effective way to BOTH engage teens in their natural world AND improve their health. Teens To Trails has already set plans in motion to support Maine Outing Club programs in three important ways during the 2009-2010 school year, generating new Outing Clubs for teens & new partnerships for Teens To Trails. Only by connecting young people with the out-of-doors can we ensure that Maine’s precious natural areas continue to be valued and cared for in perpetuity.
The Bay School
For a farmer teaching position to deepen their gardening, plant propagation, silviculture and animal husbandry programs. The Bay Schools objectives are to create practical and economic interdependence between the different areas of their agricultural arts program, ensuring a healthy ecology and increasing students’ responsibility for shared land.
Trails End Festival
To partially fund the second annual Trails End Festival, Sept.12 & 13, 2009, for assistance with payment of musical acts, children’s activities, trail projects, special activities and general expenses.
University of Maine-Farmington
To support UMF students researching small mountain ponds in western Maine. The students will collect water temperature data to better understand the overall health of these small ponds and the potential changes to these ponds associated with regional climate change. The grant will provide salary for the students and will cover travel and equipment costs.
University of Maine-Orono
To fund the Wabanaki Writers Project workshops during the 2009-2010 school year (SY) and for its one week culturally based writing camp in the summer of 2010. These events are critical to sustain their effort to improve the writing proficiency of Wabanaki middle and high school students.
Wayside Theatre
To make building upgrades. These include connecting plumbing to septic system, materials to insulate and repair the second floor of the original building, replace broken windows and repair flooring, and install the toilet/sink to convert the space to an administrative meeting room, records office, and script library.
Wolfe’s Neck Farm
Wolfe’s Neck Farm Foundation (WNFF) and Youth Building Alternatives (YBA) are collaborating to design a four season, fossil-fuel free greenhouse. YBA students are responsible for the design and construction of the greenhouse. This work is partnered with environmental education lessons facilitated by WNF staff for the YBA students.