Watertown Arts & Culture Roundtable, June 2025

This is an arts and culture roundtable episode where we talk about things that have been going on in Watertown arts and culture recently, what's coming up, hidden gems, and more. The discussion was with Allie Fry (Watertown Free Public Library, Programming Librarian), Liz Helfer (City of Watertown, Public Arts and Culture Planner), Kristen Kenny (Chair of the Watertown Cultural District), and Lydia McCoy (Watertown Senior Center, Director for Senior Services).

Links!

Arshile Gorky "Passage" mural by Brandon Gaia Marshall

Tipsy Tea Party

Canadian American Club

WFPL Summer Reading

5th Watertown Arts Market

Community Sculpture Walk

Earfull Series

Archy LaSalle artwork at library

Mosesian Center for the Arts Summer Stages and Studios 2025 

Summer Concert Series

Senior Services Job Openings

Mt Auburn Summer Solstice 2025

WFPL Summer Reading Kickoff - Grace Lin Event

Creative Chats With Guest Arto Vaun

New Watertown Cultural District Website: watertownmaculture.com

WFPL Website: watertownlib.org

WFPL Newsletter Signup

Senior newsletters here

Senior Serivces website

Transcript

Matt: 0:07

Hi there, welcome to the Little Local Conversations podcast. I'm your host, Matt Hanna. Every episode, I sit down for a conversation with someone in Watertown to discover the people, places, stories, and ideas of Watertown. This episode is a special arts and culture roundtable episode where I sat down with a handful of people who are involved with arts and culture in the city to discuss what's been going on and what's coming up. I also do want to mention that I cut out a couple of events that were coming up because it took me a couple extra days than usual to get this out, but hopefully you can still enjoy lots of things coming up. So much still going on. So, yeah, take a listen. Hi there, and welcome to the Arts and Culture Roundtable for the month of June here in Watertown.

Liz: 0:43

Today I am here with 

Liz: 0:46

Liz Helfer, Public Arts and Culture Planner.

Kristen: 0:48

Kristen Kenny. Chair of Watertown Cultural District and Chair of the Watertown Arts Market.

Lydia: 0:52

Lydia McCoy, Director for Senior Services.

Allie: 0:54

And Allie Fry, Programming Librarian at the Watertown Free Public Library.

Matt: 0:59

Great. Glad to have the crew back together. So let's just dive in, because there was a lot to talk about this past month. Let's kick it off with moments from the past month. I'm going to go around again, Liz, you want to kick it off? What's a moment from the past month that was arts and culture related?

Liz: 1:11

Can I share three? I'll go with kind of two. The mural dedicated to Arshile Gorky and his legacy was just finished by Brandon Gaia Marshall this past month. We're very excited. By the time this is released we'll have had an opening reception on the Greenway celebrating his new mural. We really hope you'll go check it out. It's under the Grove Street underpass on the Watertown Cambridge Greenway and it is big and beautiful, hard to miss, very colorful. I also want to really congratulate the Watertown schools on their amazing end-of-year output. They just had their annual art show back in, let's say it was the end of April, at the Watertown Mall and the Watertown Sings Out chorus performances and many other end of the year performances, as they always do, and they are all really really well attended and really wonderful talented kids.

Kristen: 1:51

Watertown had its second annual Porchfest, which had more homes, more porches, patios, backyards, garages, driveways, and bands than previous years. And YardArt number 5 just happened, and another great success.

Lydia: 2:06

On June 1st, the Watertown Senior Center's Art with Dawn class has started an exhibit at the Watertown Free Public Library that displays art from local seniors. The exhibit will run through June 30th and you can catch it during regular library hours. So that's one moment that we're kind of still living in, at least through the rest of the month. 

Allie: 2:29

Definitely check it out. It's beautiful artwork. From the past months, at the end of April, we welcomed Arto Vaun, who's the executive director at Project Save, to celebrate Project Save's 50th anniversary. And he gave a talk in our Democracy Talk series about the archive as a site of resistance. It was a really beautiful talk and a really timely talk about how, not just Project Save, but archives as a whole can be a really important way we preserve ordinary people's stories, but also, in particular, the immigrant story, not just Armenian migrants. But what we're seeing across the nation, how it's impacting immigrants. It was a really beautiful talk and it was a really special way to celebrate Project Save’s 50 years of existence. And we really enjoyed ourselves at that talk in particular. Watertown Library also got to participate in Porchfest as a patio and we had a great time. And special shout out to you, Matt, for your hard work in making that happen.

Matt: 3:26

Thank you, yeah, it was a great event. What we say, Liz? Like 4,000 we estimated, so it was big. There was a lot going on, yeah. Awesome. So kind of along the same lines. But success stories. Anyone have a particular success story they want to talk about. We can go, we can go back around, we can work our way. So, Allie, you kick it off.

Allie: 3:44

Sure. Well, last time we were here we talked about how Fungus Week was coming up and Fungus Week was big fun at the library. We had tons of fun for all ages exploring the very exciting world of fungi. And from mushroom printing to learning about different kinds of mushrooms and yeast and all kinds of things, we had a really great time making art, learning about science for all ages. So thanks to everybody who came out for fungus week. We hope to do a kind of steam, science, technology, engineering, arts, and math week each year. Our fungus week actually came out of, last year we did a steam week around the solar eclipse and so this year we tried fungus. So if you have great science and arts ideas you want to share with us, let us know.

Allie: 4:30

And just last night, actually, we had a big Pride event at the library with authors Milo Todd and David Valdez, who are both Massachusetts-based authors, talking about the Lilac People, which is Milo Todd's debut novel that is making a big splash in publishing. And it's a story about a trans man in World War II. It's quite poignant and we had a really wonderful conversation, and despite that it's kind of a heavy topic, it was a very upbeat conversation and people in the room were really excited to be there and get books signed. And the library does a variety of things, including fungus, but it's fun when we also get to do some old school stuff like book signings and enjoy what we're really all about. So that has been just a couple of success stories from the past couple months.

Lydia: 5:13

Last month, May 15th, the Friends of the Watertown Council on Aging hosted a spring fling. It was a great success at the Hibernian Hall. They had over about 70 seniors show up and participate. This was a fundraising event and the Friends of the Council on Aging provide fundraising, volunteers, and different events and opportunities for seniors to host and also contribute to the programs of the Watertown Senior Center. So I just want to shout out to the friends throwing an amazing event. Seniors came with their flower hats, decked out, there was a DJ, there was a live musician with a keyboard. Seniors had a great time. So we do want to acknowledge the Friends of the Watertown Council on Aging and plug the activities that they do to support us.

Kristen: 6:02

On May 21st, Watertown Business Coalition celebrated the newly designated Watertown Cultural District with an event at Bar Cino. It was attended by at least 30 to 50 people coming and going all night. Bar Cino had a lovely spread of food, bar was open, and everybody just had a great time and had a chance to learn about the Watertown Cultural District and what it means to Watertown and what it means to them in the community.

Liz: 6:28

A particular success story very recently on June 22nd, was the Mosesian Center for the Arts 20th anniversary celebration. I hope you were there. If you weren't, it was wonderful. A particular success because of the number of people in the room who really support the arts by coming out for our art center, for the atmosphere in the room, for the quality program they put together, for all the artists and performers and other folks who come through there to learn and to get excited about the arts in Watertown. I think it was really wonderful and it was a great testament to the grassroots organization that really provides for the arts here.

Matt: 7:03

Awesome. Lots going on in the past month or two here. So let's dig into the next section here called Did you Know? So this is where you can tell us about a little bit, something we might not know about arts and culture related or with your organization. So we'll go back around this time. Liz, you're up. 

Liz: 7:17

All right. I'm going to talk about three things you should know that you might not know. The Watertown Cultural District, which I have the pleasure of working on with Kristen, its new website is out there. It's watertownmaculture.com. We’re going to get it plugged all the time here now. It is the place to find events in Watertown. You don't know what to do on a Friday night? Come check it out. We have a wonderful person who, if you haven't met, her name is Danielle Drapeau. She's our Cultural District Outreach Coordinator and she's helping manage the back end of that website. We're really thrilled to have her. She really understands how messaging works and how to put it all together, and it's given us a lot more capacity to do more for the arts here. So please check out the website. It includes all of the major cultural organizations and a lot of the smaller ones in Watertown.

Liz: 7:55

I also want to say open mic at the Mosesian Center for the Arts is kind of a hidden gem. Like there's a dedicated crowd that comes out for this. This happens usually, I think, the first Wednesday of the month, right in the lobby area. It is wonderful. Everyone who goes is always blown away by the talent that comes out for this event. And Tipsy Tea. Tipsy Tea is coming up on June 29th. It is a drag brunch at the Commander's Mansion from 11 to 2.30. It is ticketed. Tickets are limited. It is so much fun. I got to go last year for the first time they hosted this and I couldn't have had more fun. Everyone dresses up, they're out and they're proud, and it is a great time.

Matt: 8:28

I will just tag on the open mic, I think they're done for the summertime break, but no, that is a good hidden gem. You should keep an eye out for it. They come back in the fall. And I always tell people it's a high quality open mic. It's not what you imagine when you think of open mics. So yeah, I agree.

Kristen: 8:42

I'm going to stick to one of my favorite places in town. That is a member of the Watertown Cultural District and it's the Canadian American Club on Arlington Street. And a lot of people don't realize that on Fridays it's open to the public, starting at 830 in their basement area, which is the most charming, I like to call it, rumpus room. There's paneling, there's carpeting, there's flags of all the different family’s coats of arms there, and sometimes a band will pop up and play. A lot of the members have baked goods that they bring in, soda breads, traditional Irish-Candian, French-Canadian baked goods. And so that's on Friday nights. But during the week and on weekends, there's a Gaelic club that happens on Sundays. On June 16th there's a Scottish country dancing class. That's $10 and it's open to the public. On the 17th there's Irish set dancing. That's another workshop that's open to the public. Then they have Scottish sessions. So if you're part of the United Kingdom array of dancing or just like to participate or just want to watch, I really do recommend checking out the Canadian American Club.

Matt: 9:46

Excellent. What do you have, Lydia, for us?

Lydia: 9:48

Okay, for Did you Know, we have a couple of things. Did you know that the Senior Center offers a number of free goods to take home? Every Thursday after 4pm you can get fresh bagels donated from Wicked Bagel. Any day of the week, you can take home free books, dvds, puzzles, and cassettes. We have a small senior library where folks can come and browse, pick up what they want, and also drop off anything that they're no longer using. We also provide free medical equipment, walkers, wheelchairs, rollators, things that seniors might need to stay safe in their homes, adaptive equipment for beds. You name it, chances are we have it or we can get it for free at the Senior Center. And every day we offer free hot coffee, iced coffee, tea, and other snacks and refreshments for folks who want to come and hang out with us.

Allie: 10:40

Two things you might not know about the library. We just celebrated some of our volunteers at the library. There's a lot of different volunteers, but one group I want to highlight is our home delivery volunteers. We have a home delivery program for people who may not be able to come into the library due to disability, physical ailment, or age. And we will bring you books and items to your home. And we can't do that without a robust volunteer program. One of our volunteers actually received a city accommodation. Her name is Trudy Nemeth. She's 95 years old and she has been volunteering with the library for over 20 years and helped start the program. We all love Trudy very much and celebrate her regularly, but she was part of our volunteer celebration breakfast. She still helps pull books for some of our home delivery patrons who call on Mondays and ask for specific items, and she will help select those items for them. And we have a group of drivers who help us make deliveries every week and pick up items from people's doors who want to return their items. So we're really grateful to all variety of our volunteers, but I do want to mention that that program can't exist without those volunteers.

Allie: 11:51

And, if you didn't know, we do have a home delivery program. So if there's anyone in your life that you know who might benefit from that, check it out. It's free if you live in Watertown. So give us a ring at the library and we're happy to help you enroll. The other thing you may not know is that summer reading is coming up at the library. And I, as someone who works with adults at the library, I like to remind people that it's for everyone, all ages. Adults can benefit from summer reading too, and you can win prizes, because it's not just for kids to have fun all summer long. And this year, our summer reading, you can play as a team. So if you are a parent with kids, you can do the challenges together. If you and your roommate want to do it together, if you and some friends want to do it together, if you and some cousins want to do it together, wonderful. And we'll talk a little bit more about that when we hear what's coming up for everybody. But those are a couple things you might not know.

Matt: 12:35

Awesome. Again, lots of good information there. So much going on in Watertown, all right. So now, I like this segment, number of the month. All right, we're going to work our way back around. So back to you, Allie. 

Allie: 12:46

Okay, I'm going to do my best here because there's some math involved, but my number is $6,500. The library has some citizenship materials and those materials are obviously really important for people who are becoming citizens and those materials need to stay updated, obviously. And that stuff is pretty outdated in our library and we need to update that collection. And the library had received a grant in February called a Library Services and Technology Act grant and that's through the Massachusetts Board of Library and Commissioners. But in March the Institute of Museum and Library Services received, due to the executive order from the Trump administration, there was massive funding cuts to that Institute of Museum and Library Services. So we lost that grant that was supposed to help us update all of those materials.

Allie: 13:37

And we at the Watertown Library are actually very lucky to be able to provide most of our services through our local operating budget and through the Massachusetts State Aid Program. That is not the case for most libraries in the nation. It's not the case for many of our peer libraries that are rural in Massachusetts who rely on those grants. But our director has done a really good job, Kim Long, has done a very good job getting the word out about this, and we recently found out that Representative Steve Owens has successfully advocated to the House to include a $6,500 for the Watertown Library Citizenship corner in the fiscal year 26 budget.

Allie: 14:15

The next steps are for the bill to get through the Senate and then to the governor for her signature, which is likely to happen in July. And that money would make a huge difference. So all that is to say that, yes, our library is feeling the impacts of some of these national impacts on libraries, but we're really lucky to be in a community that's paying attention to what's happening. And we're lucky to have people who are advocating for us. One of the best ways to keep advocating for your local library is to keep using it and let your representatives know that it's important to you. So just a big thank you to Representative Owens for paying attention to that and we hope that this will go through the Senate and all the way to the governor. And we will continue to provide great services regardless of what happens to our budget. But just a little education there, and thanks for bearing with me.

Matt: 15:00

Thanks for keeping us updated on what's affecting you right now. All right, Lydia, do you have a number to share with us?

Lydia: 15:05

I do. I'm going to do some shameless plugs.

Matt: 15:10

Shameless. There's no shame. You don't even have to say shameless. That's what this is all about.

Lydia: 15:14

Okay, the number I have is 10, and this is for the number of art programs that we have for the month of June that haven't yet happened. On June 16th, which is a Monday, at 12, we're going to have a lunch to celebrate Pride. We're going to have a senior pride lunch and dance party with DJ Richie. We'll be having a stamp crafting program on Monday, June 23rd, at 10 am, with Pam, who is a Watertown resident, she's awesome. On June 24th we'll have a lunch and comedy show with David Shikes. And on June 25th we're going to have a yarn and tools exchange. Senior center has a knitting and crochet group and this will be an opportunity for folks who maybe are not a part of that group to come in and exchange yarn and other knitting tools and get to know some of the regulars and hopefully join the group. And then we have three feature movies this month that can be seen on Thursdays at 2 pm except for Juneteenth.

Kristen: 16:13

My number is five. This year will be the fifth annual Watertown Arts Market. We're so excited about that, and we're moving back to Arsenal Park, which we're also excited about. Lots of things to be excited about. And once the dust has settled at the park, the lawn will rest and then Arts Market will happen on August 9th. We will stay off of the field part of it, because that lawn will still be growing and we need to take care of it, so our vendors will be on the outside of the walking loop. We have five bands that'll be playing, six food vendors. We have not only the live bands performing, but we also have an open mic space that, if you go to our website, you can sign up there and also sign up to be a vendor as an individual artist, a nonprofit, or a business associated with the arts. And, of course, you need to be part of the Watertown community, either working in Watertown or a Watertown resident. Gosh, what else, for our fifth? It's just going to be bigger and better than ever. We expect many, many people and registration is open until July 1st. Come on down.

Liz: 17:17

My number is a little similar to Allie’s number. I'm going to say the number 20,000. This is the amount of the National Endowment for the Arts award that was officially terminated but we'd already spent it. The termination was for June 18th. We already got the check. We're good, we spent that money. We're not giving it back. But it is indicative of the larger national, and we'll say it's going to happen regionally, spending hurdles that cultural institutions are going to face in the coming months and likely for the next three to five years. And it is a scary proposition as more and more cultural institutions are grappling for the same dollars from private funders, from more regional funders, or local funders. It's something we're very aware of and it's one reason that in Watertown we have really focused on building partnerships among our cultural institutions. So we're not all fighting for the same dollars that we can work together to provide programs that we can provide in kind to one another, we can support each other in this ecosystem. But it's a scary proposition, especially if on a federal level the National Endowment for the Arts is terminated, much like Museum and Library Sciences, and it's something to be very aware of, very vigilant about, and we hope that Watertown residents will get involved.

Lydia: 18:24

What did you spend the money on?

Liz: 18:26

The Public Arts and Culture Committee was awarded $20,000 for a project grant through the National Endowment for the Arts for their Expert Pairings Project, which pairs scientists and visual artists, actually not all visual artists, one performer, I'll say artists generally, to partner on temporary public artworks that educate people about our local ecosystem as well as really invite engagement with our local ecosystem. And so our four projects are all going to actually hit this fall, so you'll be hearing a lot more about them. All the artists are working, and the scientists are working, very hard on those projects right now. Keep an eye out. There are going to be some really amazing things coming soon.

Matt: 19:00

Awesome, all right, so let's move into our, I guess, second to last segment here, which is, what's that thing? So what's kind of a thing or hidden gem that you want to share that's going on in the city related to you and your work?

Liz: 19:12

Tangentially related to me. There is a new mural going in at Arsenal Park Skate Park by David Kroc. He is working on it now. He started it kind of before the snow and rain stopped in the winter but he's getting back into it now. So if you see on the back of one of the skate features, it's a red wall. There'll be more there soon. So look forward to that mural. And he is a skater himself. And there are three new sculptures along the community path this year for the community sculpture walk. If you are in Saltonstall Park, it's hard to miss the big yellow thing at the end of the path. That is a wonderful sculpture by Joe Chirchirillo. If you mosey down the next section of the path you will see Empathy by Madeline Lord, a steel sculpture, very figurative. And a little bit further down you will see Serotonin by Cassie Doyen.

Kristen: 19:51

Well, my thing, and I'm going to take off my chair of the Cultural District hat and take off my chair of the Watertown Arts Market hat and put on. 

Matt: 20:00

How many hats do you have?

Kristen: 20:01

I have a couple of hats. They're all very different. Actually, they're all kind of the same. My other hat is my Earfull. I run the front of house for Earfull, which is happening throughout June at Branch Line. It's a series that started about 20 years ago. There's two authors and there's two musicians and they switch, author, musician, author, musician. It's hosted by Jen Trinan, who's a Watertown resident. She and her husband and Michael Kramer and John Lepfer started this and Tim Huggins, who now lives in New York City, started this, like I said, 20 years ago. And tickets are still available for standing room and for some seats at Branch Line and you can buy those tickets at mosesianarts.org. It's a great night. We had our first one last night. And it's every Tuesday in June. Last night was a beautiful evening. It was just great energy. People are so excited to be outside listening to music, eating the great food at Branch Line. It's just lovely. Please join us.

Matt: 20:53

Awesome, Lydia. What's the thing that you have?

Lydia: 20:55

What's the thing? If you drive by the Senior Center and you see a big white bus in the parking lot, that's the Senior Shuttle Bus. And the Senior Shuttle Bus provides trips every day, Monday through Friday, for seniors to go to different places, like shopping trips, to the mall, to the grocery store. They also go to museums. Last month they went to the McMullen museum, the Rose museum. This month they'll be going to the MFA museum. So if you're interested in seeing the senior shuttle schedule, you can catch it in our senior newsletter that goes out every month. And you can also sign up for our emails where we provide weekly updates on trips and events happening at the Senior Center. So please do join us on one of our trips.

Kristen: 21:37

Is there an age limit or like?

Matt: 21:43

Yeah, we have to combine our ages so we can sneak in, like we have to do, the two kids in a trench coat thing, right?

Kristen: 21:49

And the taller you are, the older you are.

Matt: 21:51

Yes, you add the ages too, right, yeah, anyway.

Allie: 21:56

Some of us, on our way up to this room, stopped in the stairwell to look at the new thing in the library, which is the beautiful photographic panel that local artist, Archy LaSalle, has loaned to the library for the next five years. And I know he's a familiar figure to most of us in the room, but just for our listeners, Archy LaSalle is a fine art photographer who has lived in Watertown for the past 20 years. He's an educator and the founding director of Where Are All the Black People At, a grassroots organization whose mission is to bring attention to and help art institutions rectify past injustices of underrepresenting black and brown artists in their permanent collections. And we have had some really fun programs with him that have been very moving, very upbeat, very poignant, and we're so excited to have this beautiful and rather large photographic panel of his on loan at the library right now for the next five years. It's in our stairwell, you cannot miss it. So please stop by the next time you're at the library and take a look at the stairwell. The photographic panel was part of a creative partnership he had between Where Are All the Black People At and the Fitchburg Art Museum, which was a exhibition called Dialogues, Diasporas, and Detours Through Africa, which took place in the fall of 2023.

Allie: 23:09

And the project centered on World Farmers Association, which is actually here in Massachusetts. World Farmers was founded by women and managed by women. The organization supports small farmers in sustainable agricultural production and successful marketing practices. They provide this space and infrastructure for small immigrant and refugee farmers to get started and they supply wholesale and retail markets throughout all of New England. So you'll see these beautiful portraits of women farmers, basically is what the photographic panel is, but it's quite breathtaking and it makes the stairwell feel so much more grand when you're in the library. So we're very grateful to Archy and he's been a long time programming partner in the library. And come visit, come see. 

Matt: 23:49

Yeah, and if you want to learn more about Archy, I did a full-length episode with him early in the days of this podcast. He's a very fascinating person. So all right, so we're made it to the last session here, which is just upcoming, which we've touched on a lot of that already. But let's go back around and anything that we didn't hit on or you want to extra emphasize, hit anything upcoming, and where people should go to find that out. Do you want to start, Liz?

Liz: 24:11

The first thing is if you're looking for something for your kid to do this summer, there is still space in the Stages and Studios summer program at the Mosesian Center for the Arts, which is an excellent program, kind of summer camp style. It goes all summer long. I think you can do it a week at a time. Great fun all the way from first grade through teenagers.

Matt: 24:27

My son does some of those weeks. He loves it.

Liz: 24:29

Awesome. And I'm going to plug the summer concert series, coming back to Saltonstall Park, kinda. So just like we're letting the grass rest over at Arsenal Park, we will also be letting the grass grow and rest over here in the park at Saltonstall. So instead of the audience being up on the slope, you will be out in the field where the baseball diamond is. So get your blankets and chairs ready. We're going to have a great lineup. Starts July 2nd. It'll be every Wednesday following the farmer's market through August. Because of the construction of Saltonstall Park, we do have one fewer concert than we normally do, but we're hoping to expand back again next year. So don't be too disappointed. We really did try. The lineup is fantastic.

Matt: 25:07

And where should people go to find out all this information?

Liz: 25:10

Oh they should go to the city website. Watertown Summer Concert Series 2025.

Matt: 25:15

I assume that information will also be on WatertownMACulture.com right?

Liz: 25:18

Oh yeah, it's already up there.

Matt: 25:19

Thank you, all right, Kristen, what do you have for upcoming stuff?

Kristen: 25:22

My upcoming event, putting my Arts Market hat back on, Watertown Arts Market is happening August 9th. Like I said earlier, the registration is open until July 1st. We will also be at one, if not two, of the farmer's markets. We'll be at a table. Come on by, say hi, sign up, take a flyer, sit down with us, have a little chit-chat, whatever you'd like. 

Matt: 25:45

Thank you. Lydia. What do you have upcoming?

Lydia: 25:46

Up and coming. On June 16th at 2 pm we will have the MBTA Mobility Center presenting on different resources for riders with limited mobility issues. They will be answering questions on the ride service, trip planning assistance, and also the senior Charlie card program, which provides a reduced fare up to 50% for seniors. So if there are seniors out there who want to sign up for a Charlie card, please attend this event. Remember to bring your government issued ID so that you can join in. Also on June 17th we'll be joined by Jay Higgins from the office of Congresswoman Katherine Clark at 3.30 PM. He's an outreach manager for the Democratic Whip Katherine Clark and he'll be answering questions for Watertown seniors who want to learn more about the resources offered by the Congresswoman's office and addressing concerns about some of the different changes due to the administration. So please do join.

Matt: 26:47

Awesome, thank you. And website or some place you want to lead people to, to find out all this information.

Lydia: 26:52

Absolutely. To learn more about our programs, you can find us on the city website. There is a link for our senior newsletter. You can also sign up to receive the weekly emails and monthly emails that come out. And at a number of locations throughout the city you can pick up a paper newsletter, the library being one of them, City Hall being one of them, the Watertown Savings Bank, a number of other locations like the Senior Center. I also want to make an announcement that the Watertown Department of Senior Services is hiring for two positions. We have a principal clerk position which handles front desk duties and also some bookkeeping. And we also have a program coordinator position that's full-time, that does scheduling and programming for seniors. So if anyone who's interested, you can find more about that on the City Career website. Thank you.

Allie: 27:40

We have a pretty exciting June coming up. The Bookmobile will be at Mount Auburn's Summer Solstice event on Saturday, June 21st. It is free entry and there's a number of free events. There's also some ticketed events as well. Should be a beautiful event you don't wanna miss. And then the following day, Sunday, June 22nd, is our summer reading kicking off and you don't want to miss, if you have kiddos, Grace Lin is going to be at the library. She is a Taiwanese-American children's writer and illustrator. She has won basically every awesome, high-powered award you can win as a children's writer and illustrator, like the Newbetry, the Geisel, the Caldecott Award. She's known for contributing to and advocating for Asian American representation and diversity in children's literature. Her new book, the Gate, the Girl and the Dragon, just came out in May, and she has tons of other books. They will be available for purchase from Porter Square Books if you want to check out a book and get it signed with her. You can get pictures with her. That is usually our most popular event all summer long, especially popular for kiddos. And Liz mentioned earlier the expert pairings. Just to shout out, one of the projects will have some events coming up at the library, one in July. It's an expert pairing with Leah Craig, Nicole Weber, Romy Cattleson, and Amy Myrtle, and apologies if I've mispronounced any of their names. But we've been working with them on the knotweed project and they have an expert pairing that's an edible item with O’Some Cafe. So look for their workshop coming up this summer. So lots to see and do in the library, of course, and you can check out all of that at watertownlib.org. And you can also pick up our paper newsletter or sign up for our email newsletter, which is just once a month. We will never spam you, and that's our promise.

Matt: 29:28

All right. Well, that was a lot. Again, I'll ask you guys to send me links for anything and I'll throw that all in the show notes for everybody. So thank you for coming in and sharing all your thoughts about what's happened, what is happening. Lots to take in here and stay up on. So thank you for having this all in one place for everybody to listen to. And until next time, thank you, and goodbye.

Kristen, Liz, Allie, Lydia:  29:48

Thanks Matt. Thank you Matt.

Matt: 29:52

So that's it for my conversation with Allie, Kristen, Liz, and Lydia. I will try and put as many links in the show notes as I can to things that were mentioned so you can find out everything that's going on. And if you want to find more episodes of the podcast, including roundtables and other updates from the city like this and also just regular interviews I do with people around town, you can head on over to littlelocalconversations.com. There you can find all the episodes. You can find out upcoming events such as the Creative Chats event, the last one of the season is coming up on Friday, June 20th. Which I should have mentioned in the real episode but I'll mention it at the end here, which is going to be an event with Arto Vaun over at the Mosesian Center for the Arts. That's this Friday, June 20th, at 8.30 am. It's going to be coffee and light bites and then there's going to be a conversation with Arto. And he’ll be discussing the relationship between grief and creative practice, as well as what it means to continue making art during times of personal and collective loss and, ultimately, how the act of creating remains essential even when the world feels overwhelming. So it should be a good conversation to end this season of Creative Chats at the Mosesian Center. We're going to take a summer break, so this is the last one. If you haven't made it out to one yet, love to see you there. There's a conversation and then we split into groups and talk about the topic ourselves, so you can meet other creative people around. It's just been a great event and it's free, so come on by. Head on over to littlelocalconversations.com for more information and to RSVP. Then also on the website, you can sign up for my weekly newsletter that I send out. And if you'd like to help support the podcast, really do appreciate it. Any amount that you can kick in makes a difference. So you can click that support local conversations button in the menu on the website. And, yeah, again, really appreciate that.

Matt: 31:21

All right, and a few shout outs here to wrap things up. I want to give a thank you to podcast sponsor Arsenal Financial, which is a financial planning business here in Watertown that is owned by Doug Orifice, who is a very committed community member. One of his roles is actually vice chair of the cultural district, along with Kristen there, so. Also co-president of the Watertown Business Coalition, which is the umbrella that the Watertown Arts Market lives under. But his business is Arsenal Financial, which helps busy families, small businesses, and people close to retirement with their financial planning. So if you need help with that, reach out to Doug and his team at arsenalfinancial.com and they can help you out. Also want to give a thank you to the Watertown Cultural Council, who have given me a grant this year to help support the podcast, so I want to give them my appropriate credit, which is, this program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. You can find out more about them at watertownculturalcouncil.org or massculturalcouncil.org.

Matt: 32:25

Then I want to give a thank you to a couple of promotional partners to wrap things up. First one is the Watertown Business Coalition, which is a nonprofit organization here in Watertown that is bringing businesses and people together to help strengthen the community. They have lots of events coming up in June and July as well. They have a summer kickoff, free and open to the public, going on at Donahue's on Wednesday, June 18th, among other things. So check out their website, watertownbusinesscoalition.com. And the last promotional partner is Watertown News. If you don't know, that is a online Watertown-focused newspaper, that's run by Charlie Breitrose here. Does a great job keeping up with so much going on in town. So find out what's going on over at watertownmanews.com. So that's it. Until next time, take care.