FARMINGTON – The sweet sounds of jazz and Zydeco will heat up Farmington this month when the University of Maine at Farmington brings the music, tastes, art and history of New Orleans to Maine for its Moose Country Mardi Gras Celebration.
“There was a lot of immediate relief” this fall for Hurricane Katrina victims, said UMF senior Greta Atchison, who with other members of the Diversity Committee organized the Mardi Gras event. She said the committee wanted to do something to help Katrina victims and thought putting on a Mardi Gras celebration in February might bring help to southern families after the initial rush of aid had diminished somewhat.
Atchison also said Mardi Gras events are few and far between in Western Maine, and Valerie Huebner, executive assistant to UMF President Theo Kalikow, said that committee members thought a series of southern-inspired activities might help UMF students and Farmington residents warm up this February.
All events are open to the public and free of charge, with the exception of the dining hall luncheon, although donations are welcome. Huebner said Moose Country Mardi Gras organizers tried to make all events as family-friendly as possible.
Both Huebner and Atchison said they were surprised and exhilarated by the amount of faculty and student interest in the event.
A number of professors agreed to give lectures on Louisiana-inspired topics, and student organizations are sponsoring most of the month’s events.
Seventy-five percent of the proceeds from the Mardi Gras events will go to the Meg Perry Memorial Fund. Perry was a Maine native who was killed in a bus accident while doing aid work in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
The fund set up in her name goes to support educational programs for hurricane survivors, according to the fund’s Web site www.peoplesfreespace.org.
The other 25 percent will support people a little closer to home. It is being donated to the Franklin County Ecumenical Heating Fund, which provides heating assistance to area people, Huebner said.
“People are really excited,” about Moose Country Mardi Gras, Atchison said. “No one does Mardi Gras in this part of Maine, and, there’s something for everyone.”
Comments are no longer available on this story