Culture center to cater to rural youths

GRAY – Two women plan to open soon a center that offers children programs in music, acting, art and the languages that they normally would have to go to the big city to find.

Jacindo Cotton-Castro and Mary Jo Marquis said they will open the Fiddlehead Center for the Arts in Gray next month. The nonprofit facility will offer programs after school, and perhaps in the summer, for children from kindergarten through high school.

The women said residents in rural areas often have a tough time finding the programs they are offering in their communities.

“They don’t have time to go to Portland to get the quality,” Marquis said. “We figured if it could be offered here, we would find a way.”

The two women have been planning the center for more than a year.

They wrote a business plan, pieced together a budget and received a $5,000 grant from the Maine Community Foundation. Local folks donated two pianos, and an artist gave several puppet dolls to display.

They then recruited local people to teach the courses. Carolyn Mix, for example, will teach violin; she works at the Portland Conservatory. Other classes include guitar, acting, printmaking, basket weaving, piano and Spanish.

One resident who plans to use the center is Sharon Vandermay of New Gloucester.

Her 5-year-old son, Silas, has been taking Spanish lessons from Cotton-Castro and walks around the house shouting, “Azul, verde and rosato,” for blue, green and pink.

Vandermay says she wants her son to learn Spanish, but public schools do not offer foreign languages at the elementary level. Next month, he will enter Fiddlehead to continue his education.

“It’s such a global world,” Vandermay said. “Children in other countries are multilingual. If they’re going to be successful, it’s important to know other languages.”

Cotton-Castro and Marquis said they plan to move the center to the newly renovated Pineland campus in New Gloucester in about a year, once construction is complete. They say that central location can serve other rural towns and reach more students.