Medomak River Festival Helps Support Conservation, Community

Locals and visitors from afar gave of both their wallets and their gardens to help support the Medomak Valley Land Trust’s conservation efforts and the Waldoboro Food Pantry at the seventh annual Medomak River Festival, according to MVLT Executive Director Liz Petruska.

Kids were able to assembly and decorate rubber band-powered paddle boats and give them a test run in the kiddie pool at the Medomak River Festival. Pictured from left are Daniel Whitman, 9, and Colleen Whitman, 6, both of Newington, Conn., and David Johnson, 6, with his father Eric Johnson, both of Waldoboro. (D. Lobkowicz photo)

“It was a great day for us, definitely a success,” Petruska said in an interview on Sept. 3.

Though all the monetary donations have not yet been tallied, over $1500 was raised for conservation in the first auction held at the festival, Petruska said.

Members of Rockland-based steel drum band Steelin’ Thunder serenade festival goers with their music. (D. Lobkowicz photo)

“It was really a unique sort of packages of the land, sea, and sky,” Petruska said of the six auctioned items, which included a four-night overnight kayak or canoe trip to Friendship Long Island, a night of stargazing with a Harvard professor, a workshop in reading the forested landscape, among others.

Additionally, donations of food were collected to benefit the Waldoboro Food Pantry.

“We collected a lot of vegetable donations from people’s gardens and we’ll be giving those to the food pantry on Thursday,” Petruska said.

The sun shined bright and hot on the festival, held at Cider Hill Farm, and folks young and old turned out to peruse the booths and demonstrations, eat wood-fired pizza made on-site by Harvest Moon Pizza, and listen to the tunes of steel drum band Steelin’ Thunder.

Twin brothers Nathaniel (left) and Matthew Batty, age 9, of South Thomaston, peer at a model of DNA produced by Waldoboro manufacturer The Science Source held up by David Sturm, an instructional specialist from the University of Maine Physics and Astronomy department. (D. Lobkowicz photo)

One of the event sponsors, The Science Source, of Waldoboro, had a booth displaying some of their educational products as well as some other apparatus from the University of Maine.

David Sturm, an instructional specialist from the University of Maine Physics and Astronomy department, manned the booth for the The Science Source, according to the company’s Director of Business Development Kate Taylor.

Sturm was invited to present at the festival because he is very interested in The Science Source and “he’s almost obsessed in the most positive way to teach science to anyone around him,” Taylor said.

Asked why The Science Source chose to support the work of Medomak Valley Land Trust, Taylor said, “We’re very naturally interested in the health and welfare in the region,” and because of the land trust’s ties to the science of the natural environment.

Conservation also helps provide a location for budding scientists to study, Taylor said.

Demonstrations at the festival included dove-tailing by Deneb Puchalski, of Lie-Nielsen Toolworks in Warren, painting with pastels en plein air by Waldoboro artist Anne Heywood, and a miniature barn-raising by Jim Derby, of Derby Housewrights in Waldoboro.

Petruska said she is thankful for Cider Hill Farm for hosting the event, the sponsors and demonstrators for their support, and for the volunteers who helped not only the day of the festival but for cleaning up on Sept. 3.