BANGOR – “Is this your first time?”

That was the most frequently asked question Saturday at an orientation for volunteers for the American Folk Festival held at Husson College’s Richard E. Dyke Center for Family Business.

About 300 of the 900 volunteers it takes to run the $1.45 million festival Aug. 22-24 on Bangor’s Waterfront attended the event, according to folk festival Executive Director Heather McCarthy. Veteran volunteers also dropped by to pick up their schedules, parking passes and T-shirts.

“This is my first time volunteering, but I’ve gone every year,” Alex Price, 17, of Bangor said. “I think it will be more fun to be part of it.”

A senior at Bangor High School this fall, Price said he also needs to earn some volunteer hours to qualify for the National Honor Society in addition to good grades.

Daniel Carpenter-Gold, 18, of Stockton Springs also is a regular festival attendee but has not volunteered before. He will head to Columbia University in New York City after the festival to begin his freshman year.

“It’s easier for me to donate time right now than money,” he said. “I’ve been going to the festival for a few years and there are always those acts that I’ve just never heard of before, like those throat singers.”

Carpenter-Gold couldn’t remember whether it was Nukariik, a group of Inuit women who share their culture through throat singing and drum dancing that performed last year, or Huun Huur Tu, from Tuva, an autonomous region between Mongolia and Siberia, who appeared in 2006 that impressed him the most.

For those who don’t already know, the festival is a showcase of the best in song, dance, food and crafts from many of the ethnic groups that make up the nation’s rich cultural fabric.

Modeled after the National Folk Festival, which enjoyed a three-year run here from 2002 through 2004, the American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront was born in 2005. It is produced by the Bangor Folk Festival, in partnership with the city of Bangor, Eastern Maine Development Corp., the National Council for the Traditional Arts and the Maine Folklife Center at the University of Maine.

The event each year has broken its own attendance records and in 2006 attracted an estimated 162,000 folks to the Bangor Waterfront.

Volunteers’ jobs include festival setup and tear-down, backstage hospitality, vending, safety escort, information booth, music logger, public surveyor, music sales, ice and water brigade, and the Bucket Brigade that collects donations from festival-goers.

In addition to a volunteer T-shirt, which this year comes in rose or red, volunteers get an invitation to an exclusive Saturday night party with the festival’s performers and their names entered into a drawing for festival merchandise.

“If people just want to show up that day, we’ll get them registered and get them their information and their T-shirts,” McCarthy said.

The volunteer check-in booth will be located at the corner of Railroad and Summer streets near the Railroad Stage.

The folk festival will open at 6 p.m. Friday, Aug. 22, with a performance by Woodland native Johnny Hiland.

McCarthy said last week that city workers already are doing some of the site preparation and will begin setting up tents Monday, Aug. 18.

To volunteer or donate money or to get more information about the American Folk Festival, go to www.americanfolkfestival.com.

jharrison@bangordailynews.net

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