In 1996, Claire and her parents spent five months exploring Europe in a VW camper.  Her literature course was a study of classic abandoned texts from old bookstores.  History class was an examination of surroundings as she explored Olympia, World War I trenches, Auschwitz, Dachau, and the site of the Berlin Wall. Social studies was an immersion in conversation and observation as she talked to a Hungarian peasant about transition from Communism, lived with a rural Swedish family, and watched devout pilgrims celebrate at the Camino de Santiago.

Claire learned what it felt like to be sparked by something, to feel the prick of desire to learn something more.  Some of the best learning happened at the most unexpected moments, and some of the best teaching came from the most unlikely people. That experience led to her devotion to learning, adventuring, and leading.

At Yale University, she was involved in Community Health Educators with high school students and co-directed the Freshman Outdoor Orientation Trips. After Yale, Claire worked at a dude ranch; spent several months in the National Outdoor Leadership School’s Outdoor Education semester; and apprenticed at the High Mountain Institute in Leadville, Colorado. She also spent two years as a teacher and one year as the Academic Program Director at the Traveling School.

Claire has a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and studied citizenship at the Tufts Summer Institute of Civic Studies.  

John is a 7-time Emmy award-winning television producer in such diverse categories as short form writing, set design and musical composition. He was voted Maine’s Broadcaster of the Year in 2008 and is currently working on a book and a TV series about volunteering and world travel. He lives in Gorham, Maine.

Josh finds satisfaction in creating and fostering an environment in which intellectually curious, motivated, and talented individuals are able to work with purpose, mastery, and autonomy, enabling the leaders of businesses, government entities, and non-profits to further their missions through the implementation of technology. Josh is particularly interested in creating solutions that drive the innovation economy.

A graduate of Middlebury College and an honor graduate of the University of Vermont’s Military Science program, Josh serves on the boards of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and HealthInfoNet. He lives in Portland with his wife, Eliza Ginn, and Ula, their Brittany Spaniel. Josh and Eliza are eagerly awaiting the birth of their first child in late April, 2012.

She has become nationally known for her skills in directing programs and facilitating change in health care and child welfare systems. In her capacity as director of health and human services for the Passamaquoddy Tribe, Ms. Neptune created a model of holistic care which won both state and national recognition. She served as the state Child Wellness Coordinator and helped implement Project LAUNCH for the State of Maine. Ms. Neptune’s gift for innovation has changed health outcomes for many and has influenced system changes at the Tribal, State and National level.

Ms. Neptune has served on the Passamaquoddy Tribal Council for the past seven years. Ms. Neptune currently serves as part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Minority Health Research Advisory Council and the HHS Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Tribal Technical Advisory Committee. She also serves as on the boards of the Maine Community Foundation, Down East Community Hospital and the Children’s Growth Council.

Hash running is an international phenomenon that originated in Malaysia in 1939. Hash runs are organized on the hare and hounds concept, meaning that someone (the hare) gets a head start and then the rest of the runners (the hounds) give chase, but with no idea where the hare is going, simply following marks left on the pavement – hilarity ensues.

GruntMatch grew out of Ned’s experiences organizing hash runs and his enjoyment of lifting large awkward objects and running up and down stairs while on the job with Local Muscle. The thought was “Hey, if I can enjoy something like moving, why couldn’t this be extended to other activities and people in order to accomplish good deeds?” The idea for GruntMatch was shared with his business partner Jake Holz and his friend Liz Trice – both co-organizers.

Ned also serves on the boards of several nonprofits, including the community arts group Mensk and the Mount Desert Island Marathon. He is fond of long distance running and open-ocean rowing.

Bill’s work focuses on creating inspired environments where individuals take responsibility for their lives and the organizations for which they work. He is known for his ability to work and be with people in such a way that they are honored, acknowledged and valued as human beings. He attempts to ask the most important questions no matter how difficult they may seem.

Bill helped found a Ford Foundation Project, which became a pilot for Upward Bound. He spent thirteen years as an adjunct member of the faculty in the College of Education at the University of Maine, helping found the University’s Aspirations Four School Project. He was elected twice to the Maine School Union #47 Board of Directors and served as its Chair for three years. He is the creator of “Motivation, What Works,” “Power Within” and “What One Person Can Do,” “Inspired Teaching” and “Inspired Leadership” courses. These programs have been delivered in hundreds of school systems, Job Corps programs, non-profit organizations, corporations, and the Maine State Prison System as part of the New Horizons Academy. Bill was also a founding trustee of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center.

Minter is the founding director and vice-president of Maine Freedom Trails, Inc. He created the markers for the Portland Freedom Trail, which identifies significant sites related to the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad in Portland, Maine. He created the 2004 Kwanzaa stamp and the 2011 Kwanzaa stamp for the U.S. Postal Service.

Minter lives in Portland, Maine with his wife, Marcia, and son, Azari Ayindé.

Susan has been the recipient of two MacDowell Colony residencies, a Breadloaf Writer’s Fellowship and a Massachusetts Arts Council Grant. Maine Today Media gave Susan a 2011 “Greatest Women of Maine” Award. A graduate of Middlebury College and San Diego State University, Susan has taught creative writing and literature seminars at Emerson College, as well as at Harvard’s Teachers as Scholar’s Program. She continues to teach all flavors of writing workshops at The Telling Room and has a novel forthcoming from Knopf in the spring of 2013. Susan lives in Portland with her husband, Tony Kieffer, and their two boys ages 9 and 11, who are avid story tellers themselves and not at all sick of dumplings.

He is particularly interested in working with others to design and implement new methods and practices that engage Maine students in critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration and communications. His thinking is informed by current educational practice in Finland, a country that bears startling similarities to Maine. Teachers there are well prepared to teach, held in high professional esteem and granted autonomy in their classrooms. Finnish students typically outperform their peers from thirty-three other countries in reading, mathematics and science.

Alan grew up in Brunswick, and graduated from Gettysburg College with a double major in English and Religion. Prior to joining GMRI, he held marketing and senior management positions in technology-based start-ups and not-for-profit organizations in Maine. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Association for Research on the Gulf of Maine, Greater Portland Landmarks, Ram Island Dance Company and The Maine Festival, and the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the Maine Space Grant Consortium and the Waterfront Alliance. He presently serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for Law and Innovation and the Cape Elizabeth Energy Committee. Outside of work, he enjoys family travel, endurance sports car racing and making things from obsolete industrial artifacts.

That’s the impetus behind Libby’s work at Catalyst for Peace, the Portland, Maine-based private foundation she founded and has led since 2003. Catalyst’s full focus now is on Fambul Tok (which means “family talk” in Krio), the program Libby helped start in 2007 with renowned Sierra Leonean human rights activist John Caulker. Fambul Tok brings victims and perpetrators from Sierra Leone’s brutal 11-year civil war together for the first time in village-level, tradition-based ceremonies of truth-telling, apology and forgiveness. In the process, Fambul Tok reknits the war-torn community fabric, helping heal the wounds of war and build the foundations for sustainable peace and development. Now an international organization, Fambul Tok International has its corporate headquarters in Portland, where Libby serves as president, and it’s global program headquarters in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Libby produced the award-winning documentary film, Fambul Tok, and is the lead author of the companion book of the same name (published by Umbrage Editions), both released in 2011. Her work now focuses on finding ways to help the world engage with the lessons of justice, forgiveness, and community restoration embodied by Fambul Tok.

A former Political Science professor at Principia College, Libby has been active in peacebuilding for 25 years in a variety of capacities—professor, trainer, facilitator, program director, consultant, and funder. She has a BA in Political Science from Williams College and an M.A.L.D. from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She lives in Falmouth with her husband Seth Johnson, daughter Anna (11), and two sons, Caleb (21) and Gabe (19), who combine to guarantee that when she is not travelling, you can most likely find her at a soccer field or a hockey rink.

The author of eight books of poetry, Jodie Hittle writes: "Innocence ends with language; the ability to tell a story; the power to construct a lie. And with it begins the painstaking and regrettable task of having to remember fact from fiction: a losing endeavor in which one must guard for the rest of his days against that inevitable moment of inattention when at last he stands exposed, saddled with the heavy deficit of deceit, naked and ashamed in the light of the truth." It’s the light of the truth found in the ordinary and the extraordinary that drives this award-winning poet to blacken pages with stories and observations about the human experience. He sums up his own life in a simple sonnet:

Just a whit within a moment I came
Of a union of two the same conceived:
Deaf and blind and without need of a name
In a world spawned from a climax achieved.
Each of us comes into being this way:
Limpid and lithe yet with tacit power;
Exacted a form as if carved from clay;
Enlivened as seed into a flower.

Having been vested this marvel of life—
Incomprehensible as it may be
To a soul too soon acquainted with strife—
I appreciate more now that I see:
My life began with neither debt nor cost;
Will end a whit within a moment lost.

An insurance professional for the past 21 years, Jodie moved to the US from England in 1979 at the age of nine, and has been writing poetry ever since. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Saco. His ninth collection of poetry will be published this fall.

The company has toured all over the world – from Tokyo, Japan, to Lima, Peru. Besides performing at venues such as the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Institution, and the New Victory Theatre on Broadway, the company retains a strong commitment to teaching and performing in rural schools and theater venues throughout its home state of Maine.

Figures of Speech Theatre is a four-time recipient of the coveted UNIMA Citation of Excellence, the highest distinction in American puppet theatre, as well as numerous grant awards from organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the New England Foundation for the Arts. Long interested in and influenced by Japanese aesthetic principles, in 1999-2000 John and Carol lived and studied in Japan for six months under a Fellowship from the Japan-US Friendship Commission’s Creative Artists Program. For more information of Figures of Speech, visit www.figures.org.

The musicians of Olas come from a rich and diverse musical scene based in Portland, Maine. Chriss Sutherland and Tom Kovacevic hail from Cerberus Shoal and Fire on Fire, Dylan Blanchard from Portland’s former salsa band Grupo Esperanza, and Leif Sherman Curtis from Conifer, who has released two records on Important Records. Dancers Lindsey Bourassa and Megan Keogh come from an eclectic dance background that includes flamenco, salsa, ballet, modern, and jazz. Palmistas and background vocalists Molly Angie and Anna Trunzo are local artists from Portland, ME who perform palmas, the percussive clapping inherent to the music of Olas.

Olas is an original, all acoustic ensemble. Heavily inspired by traditional and contemporary Flamenco music and dance, the music of Olas is a unique blend of Arabic, Afro-Cuban, rock and American folk accompanied by original dance choreographies that marry elements of modern dance to a flamenco foundation. Highlights of Olas include songs sung in Spanish, palmas, contemporary choreographies and traditional instruments such as the cajon, oud, ney and guitar. Olas claims no one genre or tradition but strives to honor music and dance as passionate, expressive mediums. We create, congregate and play for the love of playing. That’s it.

Lindsey Bourassa – dance and palmas
Megan Keogh – dance and palmas
Chriss Sutherland – guitar, voice and ney
Dylan Blanchard – cajon, percussion, voice
Tom Kovacevic – oud, ney, voice
Leif Sherman Curtis – guitar, voice
Molly Angie – palmas, voice
Anna Trunzo – palmas, voice

A graduate of Harvard College and Boston University School of Law, Wessler practiced law for more than 22 years. At the Maine Attorney General’s Office, Wessler developed and directed the Civil Rights Unit before creating the Center in 1999.

Wessler has received recognition for his work in civil rights from GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders), the Maine Education Association, the Maine Children’s Alliance, the Maine Civil Liberties Union, the Portland Branch of the NAACP, the Jewish Federation of Southern Maine and the Maine Lesbian and Gay Political Alliance.

Wessler is currently a member of the faculty at the University of Southern Maine. He is the author of The Respectful School and a number of articles, reports and other publications focusing on hate crimes and prevention.

Throughout this time, music became the shared language that allowed Emilia to connect and collaborate with people of all cultures, illuminating its power to connect and move individuals and masses. Emilia traveled to the favelas of Sao Paolo where she was most inspired by the use of music as a catalyst for social change. There, she began a collaboration project that has inspired her to experiment with music as a tool for connection within her own community, fostering cross-cultural exchange though a common medium.

A sometimes quirky, always eloquent songwriter, Emilia’s experience and knack for tapping into the human condition through songs crafted from mesmerizing stories have proven to capture audiences of all ages. Blending dynamic jazz vocals and rootsy guitar work, with an element of stealth, she’s able to deliver light on pressing social and environmental conditions with subtlety and creativity.

Portland Playback Theatre Company is dedicated to honoring the countless stories that shape our lives. Our performances
create a venue for individuals to share significant events and experiences and, through the art of improvisation, witness their
immediate enactment. In this way, the story ‘tellers’ come to recognize that they are not alone, that their stories matter, and
that they are part of a larger community of empathic witnesses who recognize both the unique and the universal within us all.
The experience of playback helps foster empathy and compassion within any community.

Ryan composes and produces music for a wide range of commercial projects through his audio production company The 72 Studio and for Portland, Maine-based Apogee Creative Studio. He has recently finished an original score and audio post-production for Apogee’s new documentary film “The Stone Rules”, which will be premiering at the 2011 Camden International Film Festival.

Ryan is also an avid performer, sharing the stage with a diverse mix of musical projects throughout the United States and China, most notably with Shanghai-based band The Song Dynasty.

Since 2009, Ryan has been on faculty at The JZ School, a unique private music school in Shanghai’s old French Concession. Teaching students of all ages and nationalities, Ryan has developed and taught classes in music theory, jazz studies, guitar, percussion, and has lead ensembles of a wide variety of genres.

In the summer of 2010 in Portland, ME, Ryan debuted “Shanghai Stories”, a multimedia performance documenting life in Shanghai, China. Fusing original compositions with video, photography, interviews and story-telling, Shanghai Stories provided a multimedia window into the life and culture of on one the fastest growing cities in the world.

Currently, Ryan is developing his next multimedia piece, entitled “The Principle Project”. Using a similar multimedia format as “Shanghai Stories”, “The Principle Project” is an attempt to introduce audiences to the value of contemplative education for developing positive change.

While Roger’s garden in Scarborough is well worth a visit, he is best known for the seeds of change he planted out of state. His successful proposal and petition campaign to replant a kitchen garden at the White House attracted over 100,000 signatures and broad international media coverage. The campaign was voted the grand prize winner of the On Day One contest sponsored by the United Nations Foundation resulting in thousands of emails being sent to the White House in support of his proposal. Roger’s work on the White House campaign also earned him Hearst Media’s Heart of Green award, the Garden Crusader Award, and recognition as one of the 10 Most Inspiring People in Sustainable Food by the editors of Fast Company magazine and as a Green Game Changer by the Huffington Post.

In addition to his kitchen garden advocacy work, Roger is a free-lance writer, photographer, and public speaker specializing in gardening and sustainable food systems. His articles on food, agriculture and gardening have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Organic Gardening magazine, Mother Earth News, and Saveur. His work and ideas have been featured in the Chicago Tribune, International Herald Tribune, New York Times and the Washington Post.

Roger is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Holy Cross College and holds a Master of International Relations degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He enjoys cooking, gardening and eating with his three Belgo-American boys Francois, Maxim, and Sebastian and his wife Jacqueline.

In 2007, Christy founded Gold Star Honeybees to advance a beekeeping system known as the “top bar” hive – the original movable-comb, managed beehive. The most important feature of a top bar hive is that it lets bees make their own beeswax honeycomb in a natural, chemical free way.

Working to build the top bar beekeeping community, Christy Hemenway offers classes and workshops nationally. She particularly enjoys traveling to teach Top Bar Beekeeping 101 – a Weekend Intensive class where students not only learn the how-to’s of stewarding their bees, but also come to understand the connection between bees, our food system, and our own well being. The importance of bees to human health, the health of the planet and to all of nature becomes quite clear!

Christy encourages people to think outside the box and reminds us, in the words of John Muir, that “when one tugs at a single thing in nature, one finds it attached to the rest of the world.”