NEWBURYPORT — In the summer of 1969, a crowd of 500,000 converged on Max Yasgur's Catskills dairy farm to take part in a music and arts festival that would forever symbolize the 1960s movement embracing peace and love.
Much has changed since that famed three-day gathering at Woodstock. But a group of locals passionate about keeping what they feel is an unspoken promise to educate the next generation using the best techniques, programs and curriculums available, is hoping to create a similarly transformative musical event right here at home this summer.
They have acres of space reserved at Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury for Sunday, Aug. 28, and live bands are signing on. Local restaurants are on board to provide fresh food on site throughout the day and evening, and a unique cross-section of family entertainment is being planned. Now all the Newburyport Education Foundation needs to light the spark for their inaugural Summer Music Festival are the crowds.
"We hope to see hundreds of families enjoying themselves on August 28 in support of public education," said Jay Iannini, NEF board member and event organizer. "Adults can dance, kids can play, and everyone can have a blast. We're on a mission to make this the premier music festival on the North Shore and raise money for the Newburyport Public Schools at the same time."
Having just completed a successful financial campaign to fund a virtual high school program at NHS, literacy closets for the elementary schools and technological improvements at the high school, NEF set its sights this summer on launching a three-year campaign to raise $470,000. Top on the priority list is a new world language learning lab at the high school for $85,000, expanded in-class libraries to enhance literacy in grades kindergarten through 8 for $110,000, and a small fraction of what's needed to give students access to the latest technological learning tools available, like wireless Internet service.
"The wireless service at the high school and the writing lab at the high school are the two we identified as the most pressing," said NEF spokeswoman Cindy Johnson, who anticipates those two operations will be up and running by the time students come back to school this fall. "I think the idea was that all kinds of things will bloom with wireless. It's going to be a robust wireless."
The writing lab was installed last spring at the start of the new campaign and will get its first full semester of use beginning this fall. And NEF hopes to get the world language lab up and running at the same time as the school's wireless capability. The high school has been without a foreign language learning lab for some time, said Johnson.
"When they built the new high school, they had a language lab, and it basically doesn't work anymore," Johnson said. "The computers are so old, and the equipment is broken."
With the new lab, students will be able to hear the native pronunciation of the languages they're learning, Johnson said.
"They can also talk to each other, so they can practice and be recorded. They can take oral exams in the lab so they can do their oral work and the teacher can grade it," Johnson said.
This year's festival is being underwritten by the Institution for Savings and will be the first of several fundraisers this year aimed at satisfying the goals of the NEF's 2011-2013 campaign.
The NEF Golf Open will follow at the end of September, then the annual NEF Lighthouse Auction in November and Spelling Bee in the spring.
The event is scheduled rain or shine and will begin at 11 a.m. and continue throughout the day with live performances by EJ Ouellette and Crazy Maggy, Whole Music Artist Revue, Liz Frame and the Kickers, and Das Pintos. Vintage baseball will be played by the Essex Baseball Club, and food will be available for sale from local merchants including Oregano Pizzeria & Ristorante, Fowles Gourmet Market, Mr. India, the Travelling Chef, Q's Nuts/Christina's Ice, and more. The Ipswich Ale "Tapmobile" will be on hand, as well, dispensing the local beer brand by the pint.
Leary's Fine Wine and Spirits will be there selling beverages, and the Newburyport Mothers Club is organizing numerous activities to keep the younger ones entertained. Tickets can be purchased for $30, which pays for the whole family's admission, at Fancy Schmancy at 43 Pleasant St., at Oregano's Pizzeria and Ristorante, or online at www.newburyportef.org. According to Chris Webb, point man for Das Pintos, which will be performing, the music festival is going to be the ultimate family affair.
"Musicians, artisans, business owners, parents and kids all have a responsibility to make the Newburyport schools the best they can be," Webb said. "This family event will be the first of many for year to come and is a perfect way to support our schools while getting funky to local music."
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