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February 4, 2023

The Chestertown Spy

An Educational News Source for Chestertown Maryland

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Arts Arts Lead Arts Arts Portal Lead

The Importance of Access: The Academy Art Museum Eliminates Admissions Fee

February 2, 2023 by The Spy Leave a Comment

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It seems like a relatively minor policy decision for the Academy Art Museum to drop its three-dollar admissions charge, but it’s actually a big deal.

While the common-sense approach of asking a visitor’s fee to enjoy the Museum was reasonable, what needed to be calculated was the significant turn-off it turned out to be for first-time goers. While the revenue from this fee was modest, the asking for money to come into the Museum spoke volumes about the sometimes hidden barriers to building inclusion and diversity. With free admissions, the AAM could immediately reach an entirely new audience for the relatively small loss of revenue.

This change is yet another example of how the Academy was making good on its strategic goal to broaden its audience from all walks of life.

The Spy sat down with AAM Board Chair Nanny Trippe and Director Sarah Jesse to understand more clearly how meaningful this policy change has been for the Mid-Shore community.

This video is approximately two minutes in length. For more information about the Academy Art Museum please go here.

Filed Under: Arts Lead, Arts Portal Lead

Discovering Discover Easton’s Plans for 2023: A Chat with Director Holly DeKarske

February 1, 2023 by The Spy Leave a Comment

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As Easton slowly crawls its way back to the world of “normal”l after the Covid pandemic, the town is finally getting its mojo back after more than two years of hibernation. And one sign of this comeback is the robust agenda that Discover Easton (a.k.a. Easton Economic Development Corporation) has set out for 2023.

With the “Discover Easton” trademark now legally owned by the city, the EEDC is doubling down on several initiatives to bring tourists and residents back downtown. With a full year of special events (almost one every month), Discover Easton has embraced the successful use of weekend programming to bring families to eat, shop, and have some fun. But it doesn’t stop there.
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In the Spy’s first interview with EEDC’s executive director, Holly DeKarske, it turns out that there are several other priorities on this list, including the branding of the now booming new Hill community, with its growing list of restaurants and shops along Dover and Aurora Streets. Holly also describes some challenges of limited commercial property easily converted to restaurants and the importance of continuing beautification throughout town.

This video is approximately six minutes in length. For more information about Discover Easton please go here. For more information about Easton Economic Development Corporation please go here.

 

Filed Under: Commerce, Commerce Homepage

Talbot Arts Check in: A Chat with Director Joan Levy and Board President Amy Steward

January 28, 2023 by The Spy Leave a Comment

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Talbot Arts, aka the Talbot County Arts Council, has had some real challenges since it officially rebranded itself a few years ago. Shortly after the unveiling of “Talbot Arts”, the public arts agency was seriously disrupted, like its art grantees, with the arrival and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. For more that two years,  art, whether it be formed, created, or taught, took a back seat as a international health crisis forced the hibernation of artists, musicians, writers, dancers and art students.

Things have clearly improved since those dark days.  Those sleeping arts organizations did finally reawaken with full schedules of performances, classes, and commissions over the last year. And Talbot Arts has gone back to being a central funder and important resource for those initial programs, including its impactful scholarships for students.

A few weeks ago, the Spy asked Talbot Arts’s director Joan Levy, and newly-elected Board Chair and friend Amy Stewart to stop by the Spy studio to talk about their plans for 2023, including public art, the distribution of a one-time arts grant to Talbot County from the State of Maryland’s Arts Relief Fund, and  begins with scholarship funding, which Amy notes had a profound impact on her own children.

This video is approximately minutes in length. For more information about Talbot Arts please go here.

Update: The Maryland State Arts Council noted in the interview has extended the deadline for submitting grants to their public art planning and public art implementation grants to April 14.  For more information please go here.

Filed Under: Spy Highlights

Ask Irma: A Personal Journey to Fitness

January 24, 2023 by The Spy Leave a Comment

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Most of the time, the Spy’s “Ask Irma” column seeks out the unique wisdom of Irma Toce about life after retirement but this time around, we turned the tables around and asked Irma to describe her recent personal journey for her own physical fitness. The CEO of Londonderry on the Tred Avon had typically counted on her lifetime walking habits to keep her body in shape, but having reached a certain age, Irma recently concluded that she had to do so much more to stay fit.

In our Spy chat this month, Irma talks about this lifestyle change and the remarkable benefits it brings with a little more effort and commitment.

This video is approximately three minutes in length. For more information about Londonderry on the Tred Avon please go here. 

Filed Under: Portal Lead, Senior Highlights

Celebrating Women & Girls Fund’s Two Decades of Action: Talbot Community Connections

January 18, 2023 by The Spy Leave a Comment

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For many private foundations, making grants to a conduit organization which then re-grants those funds to other organizations is not a popular option. Most of these institutions have dedicated staff or volunteer leaders to identify grantees. And so it was interesting to note when reviewing the current awards made by the Women & Girls Fund over the last year that the Talbot Community Connections (TCC) was on the list. By design, they were established to specifically support the Talbot County Children Advocacy Center to help victims of sexual abuse.

But it should be no surprise that the Women & Girls Fund, given their mission, would be one of the TCC’s earliest donors. By supporting this special division of the Talbot County Department of Social Services, the WGF knows that their grants go to critical therapeutic resources for these victims such as self-defense classes, equine therapy, music therapy, art therapy, and trauma-informed yoga that the County cannot fund itself.

In the Spy’s ongoing series celebrating 20 years of grantmaking by the Women & Girls Fund, we talked with Jennifer Wright , co-president of Talbot Community Connections and WGF president Karen Kaludis about this important partnership.

This video is approximately four minutes in length. This video is approximately 6 minutes in length. For information about Talbot Community Connections please go here.  For the Women & Girls Fund please go here.

Filed Under: Spy Highlights

Choptank Health Reinvents the School Nurse’s Office

January 13, 2023 by The Spy Leave a Comment

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For generations, going to the nurse’s office at the local elementary school was a simple concept. It was where children received their daily medications or complained of stomach aches. And if the child had severe conditions, their parents were asked to take them home or the family doctor.

But thanks to partnerships with Choptank Community Health System, those school health offices are increasingly becoming urgent care centers similar to those found in local shopping centers on the Mid-Shore. Staffed by licensed, advanced practice clinicians, these nurse’s offices have started to function like a typical doctor’s office, with medical providers assessing and diagnosing illness, writing prescriptions, performing lab tests—including strep and COVID—and performing physicals, including for school sports.

The Spy was so intrigued that we ventured out to White Marsh Elementary School in Trappe to learn more from Choptank’s CEO, Sara Rich, health provider Kim Fitzgerald NP, her assistant Jennifer Insley, and White Marsh’s principal, Kim Seidel, to learn more.

 

This video is approximately six minutes in length. For more information about Choptank’s school-based programs please go here.

Filed Under: Spy Highlights

A Profile in Patience: A Chat with Benedictine’s Shirley Blackston

December 19, 2022 by The Spy Leave a Comment

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Working at Benedictine in a rural part of Caroline County takes a remarkable amount of patience. With a mission to provide services for children and adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities as well as autism, the staff at the Ridgely need to find job satisfaction with the smallest, incremental steps their residents take in mastering simple life skills. That can include the everyday tasks of personal hygiene or going to a public restaurant with the capacity to enjoy meals in noisy, confusing environments with appropriate behavior.

But when those moments happen, Benedictine’s residential program manager Shirley Blackston is the first to admit that tears sometimes follow for her and her team. And that is one of the primary reasons Shirley, a pastor with her husband at a local church when not working at Benedictine, stays in one of the most demanding jobs on the Eastern Shore. There is little doubt that her gift of patience is God-given.

Charged with the supervision of the residents from when they are dismissed from school at 3:30 pm to when they go back at 8:30 am the next day, Shirley coordinates the student recreational activities, their sleeping accommodations, and field trips into town for shopping excursions and a break from campus dining. But she also is a 24/7 advocate for her wards, finding any opportunity to explain to friends and strangers alike how special her students are and how they interact with them.

Last month, the Spy asked Shirley to stop by the Spy studio to tell us more about her work.

This video is approximately six minutes in length. For more information about Benedictine and their programs please go here.

Filed Under: Spy Highlights, Spy Top Story

Mid-Shore Food: A Willy Wonka Dining Experience Will Pop Up in December

November 30, 2022 by The Spy Leave a Comment

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The Avalon Foundation is still in the process of serious due diligence before it makes any permanent decision on what it will do with the recently acquired Banning’s Tavern at Dover and Harrison. Countless proposals for the use of this premium space in downtown Easton have been submitted, and the foundation’s board and staff are committed to careful analysis before it commits resources to a long-standing use.

But that hasn’t stopped the Avalon from using the space (and its professional kitchen) to experiment with pop-up uses as they work through their final plans. And the first fun project is called the Golden Ticket Dining Experience.

Working with guest chef Jordan Lloyd, Avalon COO Jess Bellis and her team will be opening the old Bannings doors for a fixed-price menu dinner to complement their December performance of Roald Dahl’s stage production of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

The Spy sat down with Jordan and Jess this week to learn more.

This video is approximately 3 minutes in length.  To reserve tickets for dinner please go here and for the Avalon production of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory please go here.

 

Filed Under: Spy Highlights

Celebrating Women & Girls Fund’s Two Decades of Action: Horizons of Kent and Queen Anne’s

November 23, 2022 by The Spy Leave a Comment

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It seems so fitting that one of the Women & Girls Fund’s first funding partners is the highly-praised Horizons of Kent and Queen Anne’s. Twenty years ago, the WGF board saw something exceptional with Horizons and their unique approach of using the summer months to provide children from under-resourced communities the chance to use that time to catch up in developing essential skills.

More commonly known these days as the “summer slide,” June, July, and August mark a time when many children stop learning. While their wealthier peers continue their education during those months, many in our local school system miss out on those opportunities. The results of this create a learning gap that can last a lifetime. Both nationally and locally, Horizons has been a leader (and her0) in reversing these trends.

The local Kent and Queen Anne’s chapter has served area students since 1995. And with the support of the Women & Girls Fund, they are having a significant impact on the Mid-Shore with their camps at the Gunston School in Centreville and the Kent School in Chestertown, which served over one hundred young people.

The Spy sat down with outgoing executive director Amy S. Crowding and WGF Board member Casey Roche about this special relationship.

This video is approximately four minutes in length. For more information about  please go here. For information on Horizons of Kent and Queen Anne’s  please go here. For more information about the about the Women & Girls Fund please go here.

Filed Under: Spy Highlights, Spy Top Story

YMCA Family Easton’s Wendy Palmer on Boxing for Parkinson’s, Pickleball and New Wellness Center

November 21, 2022 by The Spy Leave a Comment

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The last time the Spy interviewed Wendy Palmer was documenting the bittersweet moment when she and her partner, Gretchen Gordon, stepped down as the owners of the very popular Oxford restaurant Latitude 38 in May of this year. 

What we didn’t realize at the time was how far back Wendy’s relationship goes with the Easton Family YMCA. It turns out it went back decades, but in the last five years, as both director of operations and promoted to associate director of the two-campus Y program in Easton. And that relationship changed once again when it was announced in October that she would be the new executive director of one of the YMCA of the Chesapeake’s flagship programs. 

In her first interview with the Spy in her new position, she documents how well the Easton programs have come back from the challenging days of COVID, the major expansion to accommodate the growing popularity of Pickleball, the YMCA’s highly successful fitness programs for those suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, and a renovated wellness center at the Peachblossom campus. 

This video is approximately minutes in length. For more information about the Easton Family YMCA please go here.

Filed Under: Spy Chats, Spy Top Story

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