Community Calendar

Join us for our next discussion on Death and Dying with local funeral director Danny Hart of Stetson's Funeral Home in Brunswick. In this thoughtful and empowering program, Danny Hart will leads participants through the meaningful process of writing their own obituary. Far from being morbid, the session highlights how crafting an obituary can be a reflective exercise in storytelling, legacy-building, and self-understanding. Through compassionate guidance and real-world experience, the presenter demystifies what an obituary is, what it can include, and how it can celebrate a life with authenticity and heart.

Participants will explore key elements such as personal milestones, values, defining moments, and the messages they wish to leave behind for loved ones. We hope to offer examples, writing prompts, and practical tips for balancing factual details with personal narrative. Attendees are invited to think about what truly matters to them and how they want their life story to be remembered.

There are so many reasons to keep honeybees – to support pollinators, for the joy of observing them at work, and for the honey, propolis & beeswax that beekeepers can collect.

Join Master Beekeeper Karen Thurlow for three sessions to help you get ready for your first season keeping bees. She will prepare you for the earliest decisions you’ll have to make when starting out: what equipment to get (and where), how to put together a new hive and where to situate it, and what bees to order and in what “form” (package or nuc). Karen will also introduce you to the lives of bees themselves – what their roles and basic needs are – as well as what you need to look for when inspecting your hive(s), and what each of the four seasons as a beekeeper will require of you. 

*This is a 3 part webinar series with sessions taking place on: January 24, January 25, & January 31 from 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. All sessions will be recorded & the recordings shared with registrants. We will reserve February 1 as a snow date in case of power or internet outages. 

The Camden Conference and the Auburn Public Library invite you to a film screening and discussion of Erdogan: The Making of a Sultan.

"In this acclaimed new documentary, Emmy and BAFTA award-winning director, Gilles Cayatte, and expert on Turkish affairs Guillaume Perrier, profile President Erdogan.

He rose to power as the anti-corruption candidate, challenging the old order and advocating closer ties with the EU. But now, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seems to epitomise the concept of Turkish Authoritarianism. The attempted coup d’état of July 2016 has enabled him to consolidate his power and silence all opposition." (from Kanopy.com)

This program will take place in person, in the Androscoggin Community Room. Registration is requested for our planning purposes. Register on our website or call the Reference Desk at 207-333-6640, ext. 4.

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The Camden Conference was founded in 1987 as a nonprofit, non-partisan educational organization whose mission is to foster informed discourse on world issues.

The 2026 conference, Today's Middle East: Power, Politics, and Players, "will explore how traditional and emerging powers are reshaping relationships and testing alliances across this globally vital region." "The Middle East region remains one of the world’s most intractable trouble spots. It is a volatile arena where regional powers, global interests, and local aspirations intersect in ever-evolving and often violent ways."

The 2026 Camden Conference will take place on February 20-22, 2026, and will be in person in Camden, Maine (two additional satellite venues: Strand Theatre in Rockland, Maine; Lunt Auditorium in Falmouth, Maine; + available to livestream worldwide).

For more details on this Conference, visit their website at camdenconference.org.

New England's largest walk-through light show. 1 mile trail, over 2 million lights and trees wrapped heights of over 90 feet.

Note: our schedule varies and does not operate daily. It is on our website. Thanks!

phME & E2Tech Present: Climate Migration in Maine
passivhausMAINE and E2Tech present Climate Migration in Maine at the new phME headquarters in Freeport, Maine on Tuesday, January 27th from 4:30PM-7:30PM. This program will take a deep dive into the realities of Climate Migration in Maine, with a data-driven presentation by Laura Yeitz of the Office of the State Economist and a moderated panel with speakers representing perspectives on Affordable Housing, Innovation, Policy, Immigration, and Development.

Speakers will include Laura Yeitz with the Office of the State Economist, Jonathan Culley of Redfern Properties, Gunnar Hubbard with the Roux Institute's Climate Tech Incubator, Ryan Wallace with Wallace Economic Advisors, Laura Mitchell with the Maine Affordable Housing Coalition, and Jacky Mugwaneza & Panagioti Tsolkas with the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition. Moderators will be phME and E2Tech.

Tickets are required, and light refreshments will be served.

passivhausMAINE events may be filmed and photographed for use in future projects. By participating, you consent to the image release statement here.

Thank you to our Media Sponsor, Green Energy Times!

About our Speakers

Laura Yeitz serves as Data Communication Specialist for the Office of the State Economist (OSE). In this capacity, she collaborates closely with the State Economist to facilitate the accessibility of economic and demographic data, analysis, visualizations, and trends to a diverse audience, with a specific emphasis on expanding public access to demographic data. Her role includes website maintenance for the OSE, the creation of data visualizations and communications tailored for both internal and external audiences, and active involvement in advising senior executive leadership on research findings and analytical outcomes for informed policy development.

Jonathan Culley, Managing Partner, co-founded Redfern Properties in 2005. Redfern is a Portland-based multi-family housing developer with nearly 1,000 housing units constructed. Prior to Redfern Properties, Jonathan was a Senior Associate at Boeing Ventures in Seattle. Jonathan is the past Board Chair of Avesta Housing, the largest nonprofit affordable housing provider in Northern New England. He also serves on the Boards of the Quality Housing Coalition, Waynflete School, and Hearts of Pine SC, of which he is a Founding Partner. Jonathan holds an A.B. and an M.B.A., both from Duke University.

Gunnar Hubbard is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at The Roux Institute's Climate Tech Incubator in Portland. Gunnar is an architect, entrepreneur, and sustainability leader with over 30 years of global experience who founded Fore Solutions—a pioneering green building consultancy acquired by Thornton Tomasetti, where he led their global sustainability practice for 22 years. As both a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and LEED Fellow, he has shaped sustainability strategies across continents on projects ranging from Brooklyn's 69-story Alloy Development to 158 LEED for Existing Buildings in Sweden for Vasakronan to Shanghai's five-million-square-foot International Financial Center.

Ryan Wallace is principal economist of Wallace Economic Advisers, LLC and was lead investigator and author for the Maine Migration Research Project, producing the reports “Why People Move to Maine”, “Workforce Attraction and Recruitment by Maine Employers”, and “Workforce Attraction and Migration in Maine – A Synthesis of Current Knowledge”. Prior to WEA, Ryan served as director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Southern Maine and the Maine EDA University Center for the University of Maine System, a member of the Maine State Revenue Forecasting Committee, and on the advisory board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s New England Public Policy Center. He earned a PhD in Regional Planning from UMass Amherst where he was a National Science Foundation Offshore Wind Energy IGERT Fellow and Associate.

Laura Mitchell is the Executive Director of the Maine Affordable Housing Coalition, bringing 15 years of leadership experience across nonprofit, business, and public sectors. With a background in resource economics and policy, she has worked in housing, economic development, and public health, and now leads statewide efforts to address Maine’s housing crisis. Having spent part of her childhood in public housing, Laura brings a personal passion and lived perspective to her work, recognizing that safe, affordable housing is the foundation for health and economic stability. She is committed to advocacy that drives meaningful, positive change for Maine people.

Panagioti Tsolkas joined the Maine Immigrants Rights Coalition as Communications Manager this year. He brings experience from decades of activism and movement-building for human rights, ecological protection, and environmental justice, working as as a statewide coordinator for the civic engagement program of the Florida Immigrant Coalition as well as an editor for the Earth First! Journal and Prison Legal News publications. He previously served as co-chair of the Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition and Executive Committee member of the Loxahatchee Sierra Club group.

Jacky Mugwaneza serves as Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition's Multicultural Relations Lead. and brings professional experience with corporate to nonprofit organizations, including over a decade of leadership in developing and managing programs. She is a Certified Professional Banker (CPB) with a Bachelors’ Degree in Law, and speaks 5 languages. Her focus has been on financial empowerment for women and girls, drawn from her personal life experience.

Join us at the Lewiston Public Library for the monthly meetings of the Queer Nonfiction Book Club to learn and discuss with fellow readers.

January 27: What Is Queer Food? How We Served a Revolution by John Birdsall
February 24: How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones
March 31: discuss Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950 by Eli Erlick

For more information, contact Regan Flieg at 513-3004 ext. 3506 or rflieg@lewistonmaine.gov..

In recognition of U.N. International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we invite you to join a meaningful and reflective program on January 27, commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945 by the Soviet Army.

Anna Wrobel will facilitate a thoughtful discussion centered on three Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, drawn from Yaffa Eliach’s 1982 anthology. These brief yet powerful stories speak to trauma and repair, offering a lens into intergenerational healing and the enduring work of tikkun olam—mending the fractures in the fabric of creation. Together, we will explore how trauma is carried forward, how repair is possible, and what we choose to pass on.

This program is free and open to the community; advanced registration is required.

Anna Wrobel, the daughter of WWII refugees—a partisan mother and a Soviet soldier father—is an American historian, poet, educator, and Holocaust Studies scholar. She is the author of two poetry collections, Marengo Street and The Arrangement of Things, and has presented widely at schools, universities, museums, and cultural institutions throughout Maine and beyond.

Falmouth Memorial Library is pleased to announce that Illustration Institute's The Great State of Illustration in Maine will be on display at the Library from November 8, 2025, through January 31, 2026. This exhibition celebrates the rich, diverse cultural heritage of over 80 Maine-connected illustrators such as Ashley Bryan, Barbara Cooney, Dahlov Ipcar, Melissa Sweet, Chris Van Dusen, N.C. Wyeth, and more. The Great State of Illustration in Maine will showcase illustration as an art form in the very place where books are easily and publicly accessed. "We are thrilled to welcome Illustration Institute to Falmouth Memorial Library and offer an exhibition of this depth and breadth to our community. We hope visitors from around our State will come enjoy this collection of incredible illustrations, and take advantage of exciting, related programming over the next three months," commented Jenna Mayotte, Library Director.

“Now and Then,” a show of paintings by Camden resident Nina Holland, will be on exhibit in the upper and lower levels of the Rockport Public Library Dec. 2, 2025 - Jan. 29, 2026. The display is a retrospective of Holland’s work, spanning her 65-year career as an artist.

Trained as a painter, Holland is also known as an accomplished weaver and craftsperson. Her work has been exhibited country-wide, including five venues in New York City. She has won several awards in juried shows including a purchase prize and alcove show at New Mexico State Art Museum in Santa Fe.

In the 1970s, she published numerous articles and three books – two about weaving and one about quilting. She taught at Evansville University and North Country Community College.

Nina Holland plans to donate all proceeds from the sales of her artwork in the Rockport Library show to International Rescue Committee, rated a four-star charity on Charity Navigator.

Have you ever struggled with making windows, doors and buildings look right in your drawings and paintings?

This four-session course will explain the simple system discovered in the Renaissance, called Linear Perspective, that will add to your tool kit to create more accurate drawings and paintings, especially of the built environment. The idea that things appear to be smaller in the distance, is deceptively simple.

Instructors Joan Vienot and Rick Osann will explain the system and how to apply it to your existing drawing skills through demonstration and mentored practice.

About the Instructors:

Rick Osann has been painting in watercolor since the early 1970’s. After various careers as a professional Scenic Artist working for stage, film & TV in New York City, and teaching art/theatre/film at Bonny Eagle High School in southern Maine, Rick is now happily focusing on his painting in Bar Harbor, Maine. Rick provides instruction in painting and drawing.

Joan Vienot received state teacher certification in Fine Art from the University of Northern Colorado. She taught art in a public high school in Colorado for 3 years. She moved to Northwest Florida, where she enjoyed a business career, and also taught numerous art classes and workshops to adults. In 2022 Joan moved to Maine to paint the rocky coastline. Joan offers instruction in drawing and plein air painting.