FARMINGTON – A Share Your Heritage pre-workshop planning session will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 26, in North Dining Hall of Olsen Student Center at the University of Maine at Farmington. This session is being held to plan and form a Greater Farmington team which will take part in the June “Share Your Heritage” workshop to be held June 20 and 21 in Farmington.

One of only four workshops being held in the country this year, the June workshop will train teams to develop themed heritage tourism itineraries that design three days of the most fun and informative activities – community celebrations, museum and studio visits, treks (foot, bike, horse, snowmobile-canoe), meals, shopping for local crafts and art and learning new local skills – as a way of learning and experiencing the most important stories of the area. These itineraries will be great for residents and visitors alike, but the workshop focus will be primarily on what people want to share with visitors and how to increase the tourism dollars coming to the area.

One of the workshop trainers will be Carolyn Brackett of the National Trust and Linda Caldwell of the Tennessee Overhill heritage area project. The workshop is free. Teams will be coming to Farmington from all across the Maine mountain region for the workshop.

At the planning session on Tuesday, April 26, a team of five people representing town government, the business community, cultural organizations and visitor service providers will be selected to attend the June workshop.

Along with forming a team, community members are invited to come help select a theme for the Farmington area, identify sites, activities, events and services related to this theme that visitors would enjoy and help identify related opportunities to generate financial returns for local organizations and businesses.

The pre-workshop session on April 26, is open to anyone in the Greater Farmington region. For more information, call Bruce Hazard at Mountain Counties Heritage at 778-3885.

The June workshop will be sponsored by The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rural Development Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture along with the Maine Mountain Heritage Network.