Dear John,

Fall is here! My wife and I joined an apple CSA this year and have been enjoying apple turnovers, galettes, and more. It has been a wonderful way to mark the change in seasons.  

This month’s Lunch & Learns create opportunities for you to consider ways to transform your lawn into a native plant paradise and reflect on long-ignored Black history in Maine. And to wrap-up our October program, learn with us about an exciting project that uses oysters to restore coastal habitat.  

We hope to see you at one or all of our online events this month! 

--Will

Friday, October 1, 12-1 PM: Diversify Your Lawn | Converting Your Lawn to Rich Layers of Native Plants

Who says lawns need to be monocultures or only made of grasses? We can do better than the default landscape material that covers many lawns. Join Anna Fialkoff, Program Manager for the Wild Seed Project, to discover how to diversify your lawn, transition it to meadow or convert it to layers of native plants to create a rich, wildlife-friendly tapestry.

Friday, October 8: Indigenous Peoples’ Day Weekend — No Lunch & Learn

Mark your calendars for the Wabanaki Tribes’ Virtual Indigenous Peoples’ Day event on Monday, October 11 from 10 AM-12 PM to hear from powerful speakers, enjoy music, and take action together to ensure that the Wabanaki Tribes receive the justice they fully deserve.

The link to RSVP is coming soon!

Week of October 11: COMING SOON!

Friday, October 22, 12-1 PM: In Mind and Memory | The Remarkable Will of Quash, a Black Man in Eighteenth-Century Topsham

In the spring of 2020, while working on a genealogy project in the history of a local white family, independent researcher James Tanzer came across a digital copy of the will of a formerly enslaved Black man named Quash, who lived in Topsham, Maine during the eighteenth century. Eager to learn more about Quash, but unable to find any mention of him in local history books, James decided to research Quash’s life himself. Thus began a months-long project in local history and online archives, during a global pandemic, to uncover the life of Quash and bring his memory to the fore once again in the communities in which he lived. By searching for evidence in Quash’s surroundings, including town records and social connections, not only was James able to find direct evidence of Quash’s life, but build a vibrant picture of a well-connected, motivated, and successful individual, whose story adds weight to arguments that Black history is there to be found, if only we know where and how to look. 

Friday, October 29, 12-1 PM: The Basin Oyster Project | Community-Based Coastal Habitat Restoration

Oyster reefs provide a wide range of ecological benefits, including improving water quality and biodiversity, increasing species abundance, providing storm surge protection, and mitigating climate change impacts. The Basin Oyster Project seeks to build a sustainable oyster reef in a deep-water tidal inlet of the New Meadows River known as the Basin. The project draws support from across sectors of the local community — including commercial farmers, Phippsburg's Conservation and Shellfish Commissions, environmental research organizations, and residential groups — to ascertain and communicate the interplay of benefits between oyster farming, the local economy, and coastal habitat restoration. The project’s long-term ambitions are to establish an oyster reef and develop an integrated social-scientific model for coastal restoration that could be replicated across the state of Maine. 

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Augusta, ME 04330

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