In the Beginning
Our story begins this past summer on the border of Maine and New Hampshire where we spend our summers. There are two wonderful old Mills built in the 1840's on the Salmon Falls River. Seven years ago these Mills were turned into very eclectic artistic studio spaces. Front Street is the address of the Mills and where our sister market…Front Street Market…was born!
Several years later, countless helpers and endless hours of preparation, Front Street Market made its debut this past summer!! With the help and the blessings of the owners of the Mill, The Cutter Family, we were able to pursue the planning of the first Market. Front Street Market's first season consisted of twelve marvelous outdoor venues at the Mill. In November we had one exceptionally exciting Open Studio weekend consisting of art, music, and live demonstrations. With 5 weeks of intense effort in this endeavor, we presented our featured community focus…our area food pantries…with over 3,600 pounds of food from the Open Studios along with monies collected from our Front Street Market raffle! The community loved and supported our endeavor… we gave them wonderful things to choose from and enjoy all in a colorful atmosphere…and ALL for a great cause!!
A HUGE PART OF WHAT WE DO IS ADVERTISE !!
We gained the trust and respect of our area newspapers, radio stations, area businesses and they showered us with featured color articles, live radio remotes, countless on-line listings, poster campaigns and e-mail blitzes!! We completely immersed ourselves in this so that each and every Market would be unique, interesting and more profitable than the one before. Customers came just to see what each new one offered! Our weekly ads and press releases explained all of our new and exciting artisans, local growers with their new garden items, talked of area musicians, who the new non-profit groups would be, and of course the succulent aroma of that GRILL!!!
As you will see as the pages unfold, we invited an interesting assortment of groups to participate. We do the hard work…. the job of telling the community what we are planning and enticing them to join us in having a good old-fashioned family fun event. Once again, we do this through an EXTENSIVE network of print media, newspapers, as well as many on-line listings through our network of area non-profit groups. We thoroughly enjoy this very important part of each venue… and we are getting more creative all the time. Again, what we do is nothing new as far as the arts and crafts industry goes…the difference is we have done and will continue to take it to another level…to create an exciting arts and crafts festival…to help those in need..…you have our WORD on that!!!